My Week In Books 📚 //summer diaries week 2: camping, my second Austen novel and more bookshopping!

 Hi Everyone! 

Welcome to my second summer diary week, where I'll be sharing what I get up to, what I'm reading and other random stuff! This week will be a little different as I am going on holiday (staycation obviously!) so this may impact how much I read and how much I am able to write about it! 

Sunday 1st August

Today I've spent a lot of the day in the van, driving to the campsite my family and I are staying at until Friday. I was very close to finishing Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, the book I read all through last week, and managed to finish it in the car! I don't always like reading in the car because I like to read in silence and I want to be able to concentrate without music or the radio. But I was so engrossed in Fangirl and it is a relatively light read that it didn't matter. 

I'm going to miss Cath, Levi, Reagan and Wren so, so much! They are very realistic characters and the storyline is so unique. I'm very sad to let it all go but I'm so glad I finally got to read it! If you want to know more about my experience of reading Fangirl then please see the next post down, which will explain the plot and my thoughts earlier on in the book. 

In Fangirl, the book series that the main character is obsessed with is a Harry Potter style saga with characters Simon and Baz. During the course of Fangirl, there are interventions where you read a bit of the Simon Snow series or something to do with it and my only critique is that for me, the Simon/Baz parts were sometimes slightly lengthy but overall, I loved it! 

In my last post, I went book shopping in Wells and Bath and bought Carry On by Rainbow Rowell which is the book that the main character of Fangirl is writing. I am very excited to read it because although I didn't enjoy  the Simon/Baz side of Fangirl, I think a whole book dedicated to it will be better and I will hopefully find it more immersive experience.  

I know it all sounds very confusing with the different series and books that link up but Fangirl was an amazing read and I'll always keep a fond memory of reading this in the van!

Fangirl rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We arrived at the campsite and pitched the tent. I am very excited for what this week will bring and it will be nice to explore a different part of England.

Monday 2nd August

Last night, I was brave (only kidding) and started Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen! I wanted to save Jane Austen's work and pace myself but I was so inspired after my visit to the Jane Austen centre last week that I was desperate to pick up another Austen novel and this one grabbed my attention. 

I've only read 19 pages so far but I already love it! I'm really trying to take my time with it and enjoy every moment so I've also been using a pencil to annotate as well as some annotation tabs which I got fairly recently. I've been loving using them and it's all thanks to  CarolynMarieReads that I am annotating and I've already mentioned her several times but please watch her videos, she's amazing! (channel linked here!). 

Other than that, today I went on a yacht with a family friend and it was a lot of fun!

Tuesday 3rd August

I'm now on page 46 of Sense and Sensibility and I'm still loving it. Marianne, Elinor and Margaret (even though we barely hear about her) are very interesting characters to follow.

 However, I have noticed that Jane Austen is very good at writing a 'forgotten sister'. In Pride and Prejudice, which I read in January (review linked here), you have Mary who is considered the 'only plain one in the family' and who has very little page time compared to the other sisters. There are several authors who have taken her story and written about it, most notably Janice Hadlow with The Other Bennet Sister which I would really like to read. And in  Sense and Sensibility, you have Margaret who is similar or at least so far, though maybe this will change as the novel progresses. 

Today we went to Brighton which had so many beautiful side streets the 'lanes' and it was very hippie and LGBTQ+ centred. I bought a top trumps style game but with authors using money from my grandparents! Here are some photos :)

I got a few other things too and I enjoyed that part of the day but we then went onto the seafront which was pretty awful! It was packed and there were just too many people and that was what I imagined Brighton would be like but the lanes were nothing like it. 

It was nice to see Brighton but I won't be rushing back in a hurry! 

Wednesday 4th August 

Today we had another day on the yacht. I went swimming in the sea a few times and it was so warm! I don't always love swimming in the sea but this time it was really enjoyable and I loved it! I didn't read any Sense and Sensibility today though as we had to wake up early and went to bed late! I'm missing booktube a lot too. Not much of an update for today but I'll probably have more to say tomorrow!

Thursday 5th August 

We decided to go to Rye today! It is such a beautiful town with old houses and buildings. The cobbled street running up the centre of the town was just stunning and it felt like we were back in time! 

We also saw Henry James' house! I haven't read any of his work yet but he had a house where he wrote a lot of his work in Rye and we saw it but unfortunately the garden room where he mostly wrote was destroyed by a bomb in WW2.

We also saw the birthplace of a man called John  Fletcher who had collaborated with Shakespeare! That was very surreal and it was another beautiful building!

I also saw a beautiful independent bookstore but it had some connection with Waterstones even if it wasn't a Waterstones! I went in and had a look around and came out with A Room With A View by E.M. Forster in the beautiful Penguin English Library edition which Carolyn from the channel already linked above recommended in a letter she wrote to me. I also bought As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson which is the sequel to A Good Girls Guide To Murder and Good Girl Bad Blood which I read last year and loved. I actually only saw this as I was approaching the counter and put another book I wanted back and got this one instead! You can see my review for the other books in the trilogy here! It's recently been released and I can't wait to be in this world again!

It was such a fun day and I now have even more books to add to my collection!

After that we also had a walk on a nature reserve nearby which was nice because in case you don't know, I also love nature and the environment but specifically I really like birds and find them fascinating and there were several bird hides on this site.

Sense and Sensibility wise, I've not read much again and I'm now on page 50.

Friday 6th  August 

I woke up this morning and had more time to read so managed to get to page 75 of Sense and Sensibility. It's really starting to get interesting and I can't wait to carry on with it. 

We packed up our tent and drove to Lewes. We had a walk around and there was a rather imposing Waterstones. So I went in. I hesitated a lot with the Penguin English Library Edition of Henry James' work as I saw his house yesterday but put it back in favour of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys in the Penguin Modern Classics editions. If you don't know, this is a novel inspired by Jane Eyre (my favourite book EVER) about a certain character which I will not mention for spoiler reasons! I am very excited to read this and I'll definately write about it when I do! 

I had a look in a few other bookshops but didn't find anything I really wanted except from another edition of Jane Eyre but I had self restraint and didn't get it! 

We then started the long drive home and I didn't read anything so can't update you there! We got home late and I went straight to bed without reading.

Saturday 7th August

This morning I had a lie in and read, which is what I usually do on a Saturday morning! I got to page 100 of Sense and Sensibility and then started writing up this post as I have been using a notebook while camping! I've done some tidying and things so not much interesting! 

The pages of Sense and Sensibility are now very colourful with all my tabs and post-it notes sticking out the sides! 

That's it for this week's post and just a heads up but expect a VERY special post coming in a few days! Thank you so much for reading this and I'll be back soon! 

Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on my reviews by clicking here! Your support is very much appreciated :)

***ALL PHOTOS IN THE POST ABOVE ARE MY OWN!***