My Collective Lockdown Book Haul

Hey pals,

I took some time off blogging after my scheduled posts ran out because life is a little crazy sometimes and I had nothing I really wanted to write about. I’ve been focusing on my inner needs and trying to control stress and anxiety whilst making some big life adjustments so bare with me.

If you’re looking to support me and indie bookshops, check out my affiliate link!

On the plus side, I finally updated my blog to officially being artiecarden.com! Very official!

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During Lockdown I have spent a lot more time reading and real got into ebooks (as you may have seen in previous posts). I never knew how helpful and accessible ebooks were and was always a little bit of a book elitist, preferring physical copies over ebooks. But I’ve actually found holding my phone to read is a lot easier than holding a book because of my hand/wrist pain.

I’ve talked a little about my recent purchases on my IGTV, but I only talked about the Classics I got for free through Kindle/Amazon’s free ebook classics programme. It’s always tempting to go with whatever offers free books, and Kindle does offer free books.

I have also bought: Radio Silence, Solitaire and I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman (99p each), the first two Hunger Games books (£4.19 each), a dreadful Mental Health memoir (99p), Loveboat Taipei which was amazing and highly recommend (99p), the first Princess Diaries (99p), If Only by Melanie Murphy (99p), Transformation (99p).

During the first few weeks of the BLM I’d also tried to diversify my reading more as mostly I was reading white and Queer, I picked up: Lot by Bryan Washington (99p) which was interesting but a little hard to follow, A Taste of Honey (£1.99) both books by Black Authors, How to be Anti-Racist (£2.99), and I picked up Divergent (£2.99) as I’ve clearly been delving back into popular fiction of the early 2010s.

I’ve also been wanting to work on who I purchase from/through. Amazon is a giant and very hard to remove yourself from (especially as a disabled person…) I’ve been looking into other options for buying books as this seems to be my main purchases as of late and would be a good first step. I’ve moved over to Hive.co.uk and bought a few of their ebooks, though they don’t use the same app as Amazon, it’s not too difficult to set up. Hive supports local indie bookstores (you can either choose one to support through your purchases, or just support generally, you can choose from a list) unfortunately you can’t share your wishlists from there just yet like you can Amazon, but it’s something they are working on. For something very similar with a slightly larger selection of books, check out the BookShop where you can use my affiliate links too!

So through Hive, I’ve bought: Talking as Fast As I can by Lauren Graham the woman who played Loreli Gilmore of the Gilmore Girls (99p), Ugly Shy Girl (99p), Angela Carter’s books of Wayward Girls and Wicked Women (99p), Dark to Light (£1.67), Want by Cindy Pon I bought this because of my friend Kate’s video (99p), Ballad of Life (£1.55). You can see that the prices aren’t too different to Amazon, so books aren’t necessarily cheaper on Kindle. The selection on Hive is smaller as there have been books I’ve searched that haven’t come up and not as many books are available in ebook format which sucks. I feel like the more people who use this site, and other smaller retailers, the more the selection will grow and the useful functions will be developed too.

There have been some local pages popping up doing book swaps too to I’ve also grabbed a free copy of Generation X out of curiosity. (DNF’d)

Edit: I missed a couple of books coz they are in my Books app which I don’t use very often! They are Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain (by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, Suzanne Scafe) and Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police violence and resistance in the United States (by Alicia Garza)

I’ve also been trying to get through physical books I already own, but I’m on a little break at the moment.

With all that said, if you’re a bookish person and are looking to support some Black owned book businesses, here are a few that I’ve come across and plan to use in future when I’ve worked through some of my books I already have! (These are all UK based)

mybookbasket.com

booksofafrica.com

africanbookscollective.com

noordinarybookshop.co.uk

thisbooklove.com

newbeaconbooks.com

Check out my birthday book haul and my 5 Non-fiction book recs.

I hope this post may have opened your eyes a little to other options away from a huge corporation (that doesn’t treat its employees well, or pays them enough, and the owner literally has enough money to solve 90% of the worlds problems…) and supporting small businesses. Let me know of any other services like this for other things as I’m trying to convert and stop using Amazon!

Let me know what you’ve been reading!

~ Artie

Follow me elsewhere.

check out my last book blog post

Check out this post by BookRiot on books with Pansexual rep for some book purchase ideas.

Also these are some useful tips for getting around buying from Amazon if you aren’t in a mainly English speaking country! from this thread.

• if you have an Apply device you can use the ‘Books’ app and you can buy via itunes, or use Google Play Books app (but you might have to buy on a desktop then read through the app)
• Hive.co.uk also works outside the UK for ebooks! They have a whole area on how to read the ebooks.
• Scribd is another option.