Here's something I never thought I'd say: I'm really into audiobooks at the moment. After multiple tries at enjoying and utilising audiobooks, something has finally stuck and I'm in a routine of using Audible to enrich my day-to-day life. For years people have been telling me that audiobooks are the best way to fit more books into your life but I struggled to pay attention to them if I was listening to a story whilst doing anything else, and struggled to stay awake if I was listening to a story before bed. I didn't think to fit audiobooks into any part of my day other than the end when I was laying in bed. It was a great way to drift off but I'd go to continue the book only to realise that I had missed parts of the story whilst falling asleep. Annoying. Finding parts of my day which allow my mind to wander was a good way of figuring out when to fit in my Audible time since I could focus on the book with little else on my mind. This is where I've managed to fit it in:

When & Where

I hate commuting. Getting the bus to work, walking all the way to university, it's all very boring and pretty much unbearable without my earphones. I hate having nothing to do to occupy my mind whilst I'm getting from A to B since my mind always tends to wander where I would rather it didn't. This is where Audible comes in. Music does an okay job at making my commute more bearable, but once you know a song well you don't really need to focus on the lyrics at all and your mind is free to wander. Listening to Audible means that I have something to focus my mind on which is engaging, new and interesting. I find myself on autopilot, getting myself to where I need to be, while completely engaged in what I'm listening to. Often I reach my location marvelling at how quickly the journey has passed.


What

In my unsuccessful stints of using Audible, I was listening to mostly fiction. Don't get me wrong, I love a good fantasy novel, but I was getting lost in complex plots and found that unless I was completely focused on the audio, I would soon get frustrated and give up on the book. I have found that listening to self-help books, personal development books and autobiographies has worked so much better for me. I feel like I'm learning something every time I commute and I find I can dip in and out of these books much easier than high-concept fantasy novels. I love that it brings an element of learning to my day no matter whether it's a university day or not, and after listening to a personal development book I often reach my destination feeling motivated and ready to work towards my goals.

Faves on Audible: Atomic Habits by James Clear & Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig.

Why

So why was I so hell-bent on finding a way to use Audible that works super well for me? Well, I have always been an avid reader but I have been finding it harder and harder to find the time or the energy to just pick up a book and start reading. I have so many unfinished books and even several books on my shelf that I have failed to pick up since purchasing them. I've missed getting stuck into a book, progressing through the chapters and hanging onto every word and I wanted a way to get all of this and fit it easily into my everyday routine. The time I was spending getting from A to B every day felt like time that could be better spent or optimised and realising this made it click in my head that this could be my new reading time. Using Audible means that I can get my reading in every single day whether I have time to sit down with a book or not.Do you listen to audiobooks? When do you fit in time to read?



Photo by Konstantin Dyadyun on Unsplash

What's the best way to get into the spooky spirit of the best month of the year? How about some spooky reads? I love a good scary/dark book and I have accumulated some favourites over the years! I figured I would share these with you, along with the blurb, a quick review and my favourite quote from each book!

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

Newly married, newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband's crumbling country estate, The Bridge. With her new servants resentful and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie only has her husband's awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks, For inside her new home lies a mysterious wooden figure - a Silent Companion - that bears an unsettling resemblance to Elsie herself...

I hadn't read a full novel for quite a while when I picked this up, and I didn't put it down until the early hours when I had finished it. It's super atmospheric and gothic, and definitely a concept different to any other spooky novel I've read before. Wooden figures? How could they possibly be scary? It's definitely not your typical ghost story! You need to read this, it's superb! Its ending was insanely clever too and definitely shocked me!

Fave quote: "We are afraid of the things inside us - be they memories, sickness or sinful urges."

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling actor husband Guy move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome them and, despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises she keeps hearing, her husband starts spending time with them. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Rosemary becomes pregnant and the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavet's circle is not what it seems.

This was a fairly quick read and, since I once again couldn't put the book down, I finished it in just under a day. It's a classic and this is definitely for a reason! It's purely chilling and a horrifying concept! The skilled writing places you straight into Rosemary's shoes and you really feel all the confusion, frustration and horror with her.

Fave quote: “Like so many unhappinesses, this one had begun with silence in the place of honest open talk.” 

The Woman In Black by Susan Hill

Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House. The house stands at the end of a causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but it is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black – and her terrible purpose.

If you think that you don't need to read this because you have seen the brilliant film, you still do! The book differs from the film in many aspects and is definitely worth a read! It is chilling, atmospheric and such a quick read! The setting itself, in a house blocked off from the rest of the world tidally, is isolating and a perfect place for such a chilling ghost story to take place.

Fave quote: "But what was 'real'? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality.” 

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate...An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls... But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.

This is a book which has stuck with me from my high school English class days. I found it to be the most gripping book we had the opportunity to study and I adored working through the chapters. I have since reread it and found it just as intriguing and dark as the first time I read it years ago! While it is certainly not my favourite on this list, it is a good short story to get you into the mood for Halloween!

Fave quote: “Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was.” 

Night Shift by Stephen King

From the depths of darkness, where hideous rats defend their empire, to dizzying heights, where a beautiful girl hangs by a hair above a hellish fate, this chilling collection of twenty short stories will plunge readers into the subterranean labyrinth of the most spine-tingling, eerie imagination of our time.

Of course, I'm mentioning Stephen King in this list! How could I not? This is the best horror story anthology I have ever read and perhaps my favourite book on this list. The first time I read it, back when I was a high school teen, I had to put the book down and switch on something a bit more uplifting. It freaked me out, the way Stephen King has a tendency to do. This collection of short stories is not one to read after dark, but is definitely worth a read when you feel up to it!

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

An intriguing combination of fantasy thriller and moral allegory, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde depicts the gripping struggle of two opposing personalities — one essentially good, the other evil — for the soul of one man. Its tingling suspense and intelligent and sensitive portrayal of man's dual nature reveals Stevenson as a writer of great skill and originality, whose power to terrify and move us remains, over a century later, undiminished.

Here's another one I read in high school! We were able to pick our own books to read in our library sessions (my favourite part of the week) and this was my first choice! I can't say much about this other than that it is so well crafted that the fact that we pretty much all know the shocking twist of the story does not make it any less enjoyable to read!

Fave quote: “If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.”

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened "The Tooth Fairy." Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigation: Will Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.

Hannibal Lecter is one of literature and films' most iconic villains for a reason! This book introduced Lecter to the world and is a must-read for fans of TV's Hannibal or the film The Silence of the Lambs! Or, better yet, if you're not familiar with the character then give this a read and get introduced to one of the evilest characters ever dreamt up!

Fave quote: "He viewed his own mentality as grotesque but useful, like a chair made of antlers. There was nothing he could do about it.” 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley was eighteen when she started writing Frankenstein. EIGHTEEN! People either love this book or hate it, and I love it. We all know of Frankenstein's monster, and the definitive novel about the creature is so disturbing and dark that it singlehandedly warrants the fame of the iconic creature. Not for the faint-hearted, but definitely one to read!

Fave quote: “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.” 

What is your favourite spooky read?x

Finally! I am writing another bookish post and it feels so good! I wanted to write a list of quick reads for those of you who want to get back into reading but don't have enough time to read a full-on novel! I have found it hard to find the time to get a good amount of reading in in-between work, uni and peer support so these have been great to just throw in my bag and read whenever I have a free moment (mostly on public transport)! I hope you enjoy this list and I would love to hear what your favourite quick reads are!

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The quickest read on this list is this powerful feminist essay! The book is tiny, so it's perfect to slip in your bag to read whenever you have the time. The best thing about this essay is that it really packs a punch! Adichie draws on her own personal experiences to really put her points about why we need feminism across and it's amazing to read! I have been passing this book round to everyone I know and they have all loved it!

You can get We Should All Be Feminists from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here.


Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Kitchen is another tiny book, perfect to slip into your bag and take out with you. This small book contains two beautiful short stories and is so worth a read. I have mentioned this book on my blog before in THIS bookish post but I wanted to mention it again because it is such an incredible and moving book! Both of the moving short stories are centred around loss and are well worth a read!

You can get Kitchen from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here.

Nasty Women

Nasty Women describes itself as "a collection of essays and accounts on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century" and it certainly is this! Not only is it a great collection of essays, but it's also a fantastically flexible read! You can sit down and devour the whole thing in order if you have the time, or you could check the contents page and pick out the essays that grab your interest! These essays are fantastic and there's a good variety in this book to interest anyone!

You can get Nasty Women from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here.


Little Black Book

I've put up a full review of this on my blog HERE but, again, I wanted to stress how good this little gem is as a pocket-sized dollop of inspiration. Little Black Book is such a small and well-structured guide to the working world, making it extremely easy and enjoyable to read! It carries no-nonsense in its pages and lends so much advice which I personally have found super helpful for blogging!

You can get Little Black Book from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here.

Poetry

Poetry books are great for quick reads! You can read them from start-to-finish, or just flick through and pick out a few poems to read! There are lots of small or slim poetry books too which can be easy just to chuck in a bag and carry around with you for whenever you have the time to read! These are a few of my favourite poetry books and their Amazon UK links!

• Allen Ginsberg - Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems
• Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and Song of Despair 
• Sylvia Plath - Ariel

Magazines + blogs

Articles are great when you want to have a good quick read! For blogs, I would recommend using Bloglovin' to find posts related to your topics of interest. You never know, could find your next favourite blog! Magazines are also a great way to give yourself something quick to read! My favourite at the moment is still Womankind Magazine but if you go to your local WH Smith or newsagents, you can find a magazine for pretty much any interest or topic you want to read about! I love a good issue of National Geographic too!


Thank you so much for reading! I hope you found something new! What are your favourite quick reads? x

Starting yet another series on this blog, but it's something a bit different! These are just a few book recommendations I have picked up, recently and not so recently! I have a massive passion for reading and I am excited to write a bit more about the books which have inspired me and affected me. These will be a mixture of genres and titles as I love so many very different books!

Get Your S**t Together // Sarah Knight


This was the first self-improvement(ish) book I fully got into and it started my obsession with this whole genre of books! In the coming posts, you will probably see a number of self-improvement books but this is the one that started my addiction! It is witty, hilarious and completely blunt and managed to really motivate me in my first year of university! Sarah Knight is brilliant and I cannot wait to read her other books because I know I will love them if they are anything like Get Your S**t Together!

Kitchen // Banana Yoshimoto



Kitchen is such a beautiful little book! It is made up of two stories, both about young women coping with loss and grief. It is easy to read and the narration has a beautiful simplicity to it. It takes the mundane and makes it magical. The way that the kitchen is seen as the life and soul of a home is so simple a concept, and yet Yoshimoto makes it feel extraordinarily beautiful!

The Secret History // Donna Tartt

Otegha Uwagba is my new hero! Little Black Book: A Toolkit for Working Women is a lovely little guide to the creative working world and has brought me so much motivation and joy! First, I want to chat a tiny bit about the author of this fantastic little book because she is such a great woman! Uwagba is the founder of Women Who, a community of working women who support each other and raise each other up. She runs a podcast, In Good Company, in which she talks to different women who have worked super hard to get to where they are and it is full of such great advice and intelligent interviews!