nuggets of niamh

I don't buy books very often, but when I do, I tend to buy A LOT. Personally, I love reading and watching book hauls (or any kind of haul, really) so today I thought I'd share all of the books that I acquired in the months of June, July, and August.  In June, I went on holiday with my family to Adelaide, in South Australia, and although I didn't set out to buy any books, I stumbled across a cheap outlet bookshop in Rundle Mall and just couldn't resist picking up these two:

I don't know about you, but whenever someone asks me what my favourite book is, I always draw a blank. My favourite book? Just a single book?! It's far too difficult to narrow my favourites down to a single list, let alone a single book, so over the next few months, I'll be sharing my favourite series, duologies, trilogies, and standalones, as well as my favourite reads from primary school, middle school and high school, in a series of posts released every few weeks. On the agenda for today: series.

So Round 4 of the #TomeTopple readathon has come to a close and I'm pretty proud of myself for how much I managed to read! I was able to finish three (and a half!) books, plus about a fifth of Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer  by Rick Riordan, which I'm continuing to read as part of #TheReadingQuest .  In total, I read 929 pages and listened to 13 hours 21 minutes of audio (equivalent to another 1,121 pages)!  And overall, I completed three of the five reading challenges: Read more than one tome, Read a tome that is part of a series, and Buddy read a tome. Here are some of my thoughts about the books that I finished.

At the Herkules monument in Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in  Kassel,  Germany  (29th October 2010). I LOVE travelling. The world is vast and diverse, and every single place is unique, with its own individual culture and landscape. Don't get me wrong, Australia is a beautiful country and I love living here, but there's just something about hopping on a plane and exploring new, exciting places. The grass is always greener, you know? I've been fortunate enough to travel overseas a few times in my life. When I was 15, I participated in a school exchange program to Germany. I lived with a host family and attended school in Kassel for six weeks, before travelling to Berlin, Munich, and Dresden, among other places, on an eleven-day bus tour. At the end of this incredible trip, I spent two weeks in the UK with my family, staying in London, Oxford, and the Lakes District.

We are now halfway through the #TomeTopple readathon (check out my latest updates  here ) and it's time to introduce the next reading challenge that I will be participating in: #TheReadingQuest ! #TheReadingQuest was designed by Aentee from  Read At Midnight  and will take place from this Sunday 13th August to Sunday 10th September. This challenge is based on a video game, where you must pick a character class and complete the relevant challenges to finish their quest line. You can even customise your own character card, complete with gorgeous illustrations by CW from  Read, Think, Ponder !

As a proud Australian, I'm a massive supporter of local young adult authors and am embarrassed to say I don't read enough of their work. That's why I love the #LoveOzYA movement: it's advocating for and advertising Aussie YA literature to readers here in Australia and around the world. They've created the meme #LoveOzYABloggers to fuel the conversation by providing themed prompts that bloggers or anyone on social media can respond to. This fortnight's theme is " Feels ".

This month I've decided to participate in not one, but two readathons/reading challenges! The first is Round 4 of the  #TomeTopple  Readathon, which began today, Friday 4th August, at midnight, and concludes at 11:59 pm (in your time zone) on Thursday 17th August. #TomeTopple was created by Sam from ThoughtsOnTomes  and is co-hosted by Adriana ( PerpetualPages ), Caz ( LittleBookOwl ), Emma ( Aeduan ), Sarah-Jane ( TheBookLife ), Sian ( ReadersRambles ), and Ish ( ReadingRealm ). The idea behind #TomeTopple is to read really big books, i.e. tomes. These can be any genre and in any format, the only stipulation is that they must be over 500 pages in length.

Welcome to  Nuggets of Niamh ! I've decided to join Zoella, your sister, your neighbour, their cat, and the millions of other bloggers out there on the World Wide Web and start one of my very own .  This blog is a place where I can share my thoughts on all that life has to offer, from books to music to television to travel and everything in between. Perhaps no one will care, but maybe a few of you Internet people might find it marginally interesting and entertaining. We'll see.  A little bit about me: My name is Niamh and I'm a self-confessed book nerd from Brisbane, Australia. When not reading (YA is my jam), I like to spend time with friends and family, walk my dog, and binge-watch whole seasons of TV shows on Netflix. I have an opinion about everything and am not shy about expressing it - anyone who knows me will attest to that! I've also always enjoyed writing and currently have a lot of spare time on my hands, so blogging seems like the perfect hobby.