The Bookshelf Tour (Hello)

Hello! My name is Talia, and this is my blog. I'm a horror writer from the UK and I mostly write short stories, but I'm hoping to write longer fiction in the not so distant future! On this blog, I want to share book reviews and other writing related content! (If there's anything you want to see please let me know!) I thought what better way to start then by doing a book tag!

My friend H made a post on her blog Mantlemoor ( It's amazing please check it out at https://mantlemoor.wixsite.com/mantlemoor) doing a book tag, where she collected her favourite questions from other tags and compiled them together.

Question 1: Describe your bookshelves!

Currently my shelves, and my books for that matter, are all over the place. I have a shelf in my bedroom, which is a glass cabinet that has three shelves and holds around twenty-thirty books, depending on size. I have a smaller shelf on my desk (pictured here) and my main shelves are three wooden planks nailed to my wall. The rest of my books are in my wardrobe, I just need to find the space for another shelf. But they won't be forgotten.

Question 2: How do you organise your books?

So, as it currently stands, my books are completely unorganised and it is chaotic. The only semblance of organisation is my desk shelf, which holds the books that I want to read soon. I've organised my shelves in a few different ways before, but when I get round to it, I want to organise them by genre, and then alphabetically within their genre. It feels like a library. A little library.

Question 3: What’s the oldest book on your shelf?

The oldest book edition wise on my shelf is Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy which was published in 1965 (my edition that is, the actual book came out in 1874). The oldest book publication wise is my copy of Inferno by Dante.

Question 4: What’s the most recent addition to your shelf?

The most recent addition to my shelf is Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, which I got from a charity shop earlier today. I've been after it for a while so I'm super excited to read it!

Question 5: What’s a book that was a gift?

A gift I received recently was The Poet by Louisa Reid, which is a thriller novel written as a poem. I got it as a freebie from Brighton Book Festival (I volunteered there this year, it was really cool and I highly recommend), and it's not a book I would have picked up on my own from the cover, but it does look like a really exciting read!

Question 6: What’s your biggest book?

My biggest book lengthwise is probably A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (which I'm yet to read) but physically my biggest book is Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix. It's larger than a hardback, so it's pretty big. Not too thick though.

Question 7: What’s your smallest book?

The smallest books I own are The Tooth by Shirley Jackson, and The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House by Audre Lorde, which are half the size of a regular paperback, and around 65 pages long. My shortest book, however, is the Yellow Wallpaper, at around 24 pages long.

Question 8: Talk about your favourite titles and covers of books you own!

I have a few favourite titles, including, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, Blood on Satan's Claw by Robert Wynne-Simmons and Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix. My favourite covers come from A Darker Shade edited by Joyce Carol Oates, Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, Chouette by Claire Oshetsky and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (once again). There are so many more, but I'd be here forever.

Question 9: Wildcard: talk about a random book you own!

This is cheating, because I don't technically own this book, but I used to. It's from a series called Shivers by M.D Spenser, which is similar to Goosebumps but I much preferred it. The actual book is called The Forgotten Farmhouse, and I used to re-read it all the time as a kid. It was one of the first books to get me into horror, and I'm thankful for that. I would love to get another copy of it. I do have Terror on Troll Mountain, but I've never read that one.

Question 10: What books did you last read, are currently reading, and will be reading next?

The last book I read is Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite and I'm definitely posting a review of that one sometime soon. I'm currently reading The Trees Grew Because I Bled There by Eric LaRocca. I'm planning on reading Paperbacks from Hell next, and I'm super excited.

That is the end of the tag! I would like to nominate anyone to do this tag! I think it's a really good way to give people a taste of you and your reading preferences. Thank you again, H, I really enjoyed it.

Thank you for reading this post, and I look forward to posting more soon. Here's a photo of my Sylvanian Family that watch over me from my shelf.

All the best,

Talia