My Bookish Birthday: Books of hauls past and present

Last Sunday (22 Feb) was my birthday and as expected, there was as much books as there was cake, that is, a lot! I thought I would write a post for you guys, to share with you the highlights of my bookish birthday. 

So I have this little tradition whereby each year I treat myself to two book hauls. Why only two? Because books are expensive and students like myself are eternally empty-pocketed individuals. Still, there's only that much time a book lover can spend before buying new books, which is why I have my two annual book hauls. For me, that's an opportunity to catch up on series that I'm following, or just to grab some new releases that have been trending in the book-sphere during the year. I do these hauls traditionally for my birthday and for Christmas, which are as good times as any to spend money without guilty feelings. 

In fact, these are the books I got during my last Christmas haul, starting from the first book at the top of the stack:

1. Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami

2. Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami

3. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

4. The wind-up bird chronicle by Haruki Murakami 

5. The strange and beautiful sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

6. All the lights we cannot see by Anthony Doerr

7. The miniaturist by Jessie Burton

8. Prince Lestat by Anne Rice

Some I've read and the rest I plan to get to during the year. I've read three of those books, two out of which I've also done reviews for. You can read them on Goodreads by clicking on the following links:

Norwegian Wood 

The Night Circus

As you can see above, one of the books I got was Prince Lestat, the newest addition to the Vampire Chronicles series, by Anne Rice. I've been dying to read it since I bought it, I mean, this book is gorgeous! But first, I plan to marathon the first 10 books in the series. Yep, I have to read 10 books before I can get to this beauty. Now, I was missing three books in the series, which I had borrowed from my public library years ago, the first time I read them. So for the sake of my upcoming marathon, I thought I would just buy them, which brings us to my birthday haul. 

So for my birthday, these are the books I got, again starting from the one on top:

1. The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

2. Merrick by Anne Rice

3. Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice

4. Winter of the World by Ken Follett

5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The first three books are respectively books 2, 7 and 9 in the Vampire Chronicles series. I'll probably do a series review of it later when I complete re-reading the whole thing. 

I also plan on reading The Book Thief during the year. Many of you are probably already familiar with this book, or at least with its movie adaptation. As for Winter of the World, I do not plan to read it any time soon. That one's a chunk and also happens to be the 2nd book in a trilogy. I might get the rest of the series in a future book haul and marathon the whole thing then.

So apart from books, there was also cake for my birthday (well, duh!). The chocolate kind, no less! It was a book shaped cake (see left) with a printed fan art of Alice and the Mad Hatter, from Alice in Wonderland (picture on right), on the 'cover'. Okay, so with a little bit of imagination, you can see that the cake was supposed to look like a book. It's just a matter of squinting from the right angle, really. But the fan art is still gorgeous though. 

 

So that's it for my bookish birthday highlights guys. If you've read or plan to read any of the books I mentioned above, let me know in the comments below!