April Book Haul

They see me haaaauuuuliiinnn....

Yep it's book haul time! I've excluded my little charity book haul seeing as I did that as a separate post! I've been quite lucky on the haul front this month, and have a fair few to share!

So first up we have the books I've received from publishers, plus a late birthday present AND a book I won. Yep. Won! I'm so rarely lucky enough to win things!

The Amber Shadows by Lucy Ribchester

Ribchester is back with another fantastic historical novel, with stunning amounts of research, this time we're heading to Bletchley Park at the height of WW2! 

And I Darken by Kiersten White

One of my most anticipated reads, and one that's being described as a brutal and bloody epic feminist debut, with an anti-princess, it sounds all kinds of awesome! 

Who Killed Sherlock Holmes by Paul Cornell

So....Sherlock Holmes' ghost has casually been murdered....but who did it!? 

The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling

A stunning new edition from Alma Classics, and one I'm excited to review because I've not actually read the Jungle Book...shhhh!

Kill The Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky

The synopsis for this is a bit shady, our narrator is talking about how fangirls get a bad rep, and there's mentions of loving the band to death so this should be interesting! 

The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows

My birthday present from Shazina and a book I've been meaning to read for ages! I'm excited to buddy read this in the Summer and get in on the hype! 

The Mirror King by Jodi Meadows

The sequel to The Orphan Queen and the book that I managed to scrape the luck to win! Shazina's birthday present is completely perfect, because I can dive in to both! 

Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon by Alison Weir

Fellow history nerds rejoice, for Alison Weir is giving us six books, one per year, one for each of Henry VIII's Queens and I am excited to dive in and get to know these ladies better, and we're starting with Queen number 1, Katherine of Aragon! I watched the Tudors, and Katherine was a complete badass the entire time, and throughout everything! 

Definitely did not forget to put these on the stack *whistles* 

Romeo and Juliet & Macbeth by John Crace and John Sutherland

These two beauties are Shakespeare as you've never seen before...understandable! If you're like me and struggle to grasp just what is going on or being said, then these are for you! The waffle is cut out, and you get the basics that you need to understand the plot. This cut back version of the plays, coupled with the notes giving you information on the Bard and the plays gives you a better understanding whether you've read the plays before or not! 

Yep, puppy sitting pays surprisingly well these days! 

I'm still frantically trying to catch up on various manga, the main one being Fairy Tail, a lottery win would really help me out right about now! Anyways, I bought these ones myself, except for the gift edition of Chamber of Secrets, that was another late birthday present! 

The School For Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin

I've had my eye on this book for ages, and found it super cheap so I couldn't resist! There's romance, it's 1814, there's a school where girls are sent to become more marriageable but the headmistress has ideas, shall we say! It sounds awesome anyway! 

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets Gift Edition

So, last year I got the Philosopher's Stone so of course I needed this, and a family member got me this for my birthday, yaaaay! I thought there was going to be one of these a year, every January with the illustrated version every October, but it would seem the Gift Editions are being rolled out 3 a year! MY BANK ACCOUNT CAN'T TAKE IT! 

Fairy Tail Volumes 5 & 6 

My main focus was on catching up Blue Exorcist because it was cheaper than Fairy Tail, so this month I only managed to get two volumes, and I read them and ugh. Volume 6 leaves off as the Phantom Lord arc is kicking off and I've seen the anime but STILL. 

The Seven Deadly Sins Volumes 5 & 6 

It was these two volumes that made me realise that the spines make a picture when put in the right order, yep, I'm that slow! hahaha! I'm starting to see some differences between the manga and anime right about now, but it's fun reading it all! 

Blue Exorcist Volumes 11, 12, 13 & 14

And with these volumes I am finally caught up on Blue Exorcist, although I read them all the other day and now I wish I wasn't caught up, I mean Volume 15 is out May so the wait isn't too bad, but the cliffhanger on 14! This manga is so different from the anime and there where some huge revelations I didn't see coming! I'm hoping there's not a bad cliffhanger for 15 because 16 isn't until December! 

Twin Star Exorcists 1, 2, & 3 

Like I keep saying...saw a few minutes of the anime...got intrigued, and ended up getting the manga. I was iffy at first, but once it got going, I became hooked, and I need volume 4! 

Seraph of The End Volume 1 

Super lucky to get 5 and 6 brand new from the charity shop for a couple of quid each...super unlucky that they didn't have any of the other volumes! So of course I had to pick up volume 1 from Waterstones so I could at least start reading it! I'm loving this one so far, it's taken some twists I wasn't expecting, it has to be said! 

DC Bombshells: Enlisted 

Guys this is my new favourite graphic novel, it's all kinds of awesome and you should all pick it up immediately! WW2, our favourite DC ladies kicking ass, glorious art and a brilliant storyline...a necessary read! I need all of the Bombshells merch, not gonna lie! 

So there we have my book haul, what did you guys haul this month?! 

Classics: The Incomplete Shakespeare

Shakespeare has just had his 400th birthday/death day and everyone's gone a little bit Shakespeare mad! Which is all good, but not everyone finds Shakespeare that easy to read and understand. Fair enough, while at school we had to read Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing and while I read them, I still didn't quite grasp them. Watching the Leo DiCaprio R+J movie helped a little bit as did watching both Much Ado About Nothing movies but I still felt like I was missing something. Even seeing Shakespeare at the theatre didn't help me all that much, I mean I LOVED seeing them at the theatre, Hamlet, Macbeth, Midsummer Nights Dream, we saw all of them and in Drama had to act out some of Hamlet. I find it difficult to act if I don't understand what I'm saying so I didn't do too well at that! Watching it I grasped as much as I could but I still felt like some of it went over my head. I remember having a dictionary in easy reach whenever we did Shakespeare at school, I found the language difficult to understand and hard to understand what was being said and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who has this trouble with Shakespeare, but really wants to enjoy it/understand it as much as everyone else! Never fear...I've found the solution! 

"Calm down, dear sir, it's powder puffs at dawn."

I present to you....The Incomplete Shakespeare by John Crace and John Sutherland! So far only two have been published, Romeo and Juliet as pictured above, and Macbeth as pictured below! I'm going to straight up tell you that they are absolutely brilliant and I loved every single page, I actually wished they where longer! I'm not sure whether every single play is being done or just the "big ones" as it where but in October the publisher is releasing Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet and I'm already excited! I mean...they have beautiful, eye catching covers, and they help you understand Shakespeare! It's brilliant, whether you're about to be doing Shakespeare in school and have no idea what he's on about, or if, like me, you want to love Shakespeare as much as everyone else! 

"Lady Macbeth isn't at all well. She's sleepwalking every night and her OCD is completely out of control."

Funny from the start, you end up being completely engrossed in what's going on, while laughing out loud at some of the lines! I liked how the more famous lines where left in tact, I mean, a lot of it is how it is in the actual Shakespeare play (I checked), but they're shorter, all the waffle has been cut out and it's the bare basics/necessary points that you need, to understand what's going on. Some of the lines of the play have been "translated" as it where, in to language we can understand. I actually found Romeo and Juliet funnier than I probably should have, and I kept chuckling at lines and re-reading them. I also went and read both plays after reading these two Incomplete Shakespeare books and I understood what was going on waaaay better than I ever have before! It should also be said that while both of the books where funny, and witty, I liked that Crace and Sutherland weren't afraid to point out when things within the plot weren't properly explained or elaborated on. 

"Well f*** me sideways; if Romeo isn't up for a ruck then I certainly am."

Both of the books are laid out perfectly, the lines from the play are written in a good size font, each act takes up only two or three pages, or in some cases...one! I love how big the text was, it wasn't tiny and hard to read and all crammed in and daunting, the size of the text also helped with the layout because it made it easy to put each note with each line. What notes am I talking about? Well that's the other brilliant attribute these editions have...they have notes. There's the text from the play on the right pages, and the notes on the left pages. The notes are completely brilliant, they're informative, they add context, thought and humour to the plays! You get context about when they where written, why and why something may have been added or changed. For instance, in Macbeth the witches where included, not because Shakespeare believed in them, but because the king at the time did, ya know the one....the pyro who liked burning people and wrote his little witchy book? That one! I also found the reasoning behind the weather in the two plays, and the settings very interesting, particularly Macbeth! They tell you a bit about how the plays would have been staged in a theatre of the time and how things would have worked and so on. 

"This pleaseth me not. All these damned ghosts dead ringers for dead Banquo's ugly mug."

Macbeth is the one of the two most altered to please the monarch of the time. I mean there's a scene missing from Romeo and Juliet because Shakespeare didn't feel like being killed when he wrote it, and some other bits to do with religion, but Macbeth has the most changes. He's changed history with Macbeth and the differences are noted, and you find out all the little bits changed or missing to please the King! The notes give you tidbits about the Bard himself, they pick up on things you may have missed, like the use of time in Romeo and Juliet, and they help you to truly understand how clever Shakespeare is! Combined with the changes to the play text, and you come away with a greater understanding of the two plays, and the man who wrote them, as well as eager to give the unaltered Shakespeare another crack!