Bout of Books Scavenger Hunt!

It is officially the beginning of Bout of Books! This is the first of many challenges that are happening throughout the week and it is being hosted by The Book Monsters. They have given a list of books that I need to find on my shelves and I have to try to find them. So lets go!

1. A book that begins with “B” for Bout of Books.

I know this is a manga but it is still a book. Also I am currently reading Doctor Faustus and drinking tea out of my Black Butler mug so it seemed like a perfect choice.

This series is about a young boy who sells his soul to a demon to avenge the death of his parents. The demon then takes on the roles of his butler. It is set in Victorian England and if you are a history nerd like I am you will enjoy the amount of subtle historical references and jokes that appear in this manga. It even includes things like Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes. I would highly recommend this series if you are into things a little dark with some humor, steampunk, general Victorian history and gorgeous butlers. It is just one hell of a manga.

2. A book that has been made into a movie/tv show

This book tends to make me a little bit of a vampire hipster. Back when I was a teenager we were reading Interview with the Vampire and Dracula, not Twilight. This book was made in a film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt back in 1994 and it has recently been announced that Universal has bought the rights to the entire Vampire Chronicles series and they plan on making the books into films. I don’t know if they will be making a film for every book since there are ten books in the series in total.

This book is an adult novel. It is documents an interview with a vampire called Louis who shares his life story and experiences. It can be prone to being a little wordy at points but it is a fantastic novel and its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, is even better. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves vampire novels and want something a little closer to the classic vampire tales. Also it has bisexual male vampires who share a coffin and adopt a vampire child, how can you not like it?

3. A series you love

I am slightly cheating with this one because I don’t have a physical copy of this series, yet, but is my favourite series at the moment and I am tempted to read it all over again.

The Lunar Chronicles are fairy tale retellings that are set in the future where there is space travel, cyborgs and people who live on the moon. If you like fairy tales and badass ladies you need to read this.

To read more about Cinder you can read my review of it here.

4. An anthology of poems or short stories

Once upon a time Stephen King tried to have a fresh start to see if it was possible for him to write successful books without the name Stephen King on the cover and the result was The Bachman Books. He wrote a series of  stories under the name of Richard Bachman. They were all in King’s usual horror or thriller style and genre.

One of the most interesting things about this collection is that there is a missing story in copies that are printed today. If you ever find a copy of The Bachman Books in a secondhand store check to see if it has the story Rage listed in the contents. Rage tells the story of a school shooting and it was cut from the collection after the story was connected to several school shootings. It is a little morbid but it is always interesting to find an out of print story.

5. A book on your TBR shelf or your full TBR shelf.

I would take a photo of a pile of books that I have to read but sadly most of my copies are digital so it is a little difficult to take a picture, so I went for the “book on your TBR shelf” option.

For this I picked Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins. In case you don’t know, Rachel Hawkins also wrote Hex Hall, which is another brilliant YA book. I wrote a review for it here.

I wasn’t going to read this book when I first saw all of the hype for it but when I found out that it is about a teenage female superhero I decided that I had to give it a read. Hopefully I will have a copy of it by the time this reading challenge is over.

 

So those are my books for the Bout of Books Scavenger Hunt. Hopefully there will be an interesting challenge to complete tomorrow. I should be reading!