Why I've Decided to Use a TBR Jar| CarenzaOnBooks

In October, I decided to make myself a TBR jar with almost all the books on my TBR in the jar. At the time of writing this, I have 98 books on my main TBR shelves. This does not include the books I want to borrow from my family, my miscellaneous books and releases/books for review. Basically, I have a lot of books on my TBR and I want to start to tackle them. This post is about why I've decided to use one to help me do that. 

How Did I Make My TBR Jar?

I started by writing out the almost 100 books I have on my main TBR on pieces of paper. I then cut them up and sorted them into three categories. These categories are green (books I want to read in the next month/couple of months), orange (books I want to read within the next six months) and red (books I'm not too fussy about when I get to them). Once I had them sorted into these three categories, I put them in my jar, ready to pick my November TBR.

So, Why Did I Make a TBR Jar?

The short answer was to help me get to the books I will still have on my TBR in a year or two's time. These are the ones I've had for the longest and are starting to gather dust. Most of these are classics or sci-fi/dystopian as they tend to be the books I gravitate towards the least. I want to make sure I do actually read them at some point. My plan is to pick one of each colour every month so then I can have a range of books to read.

So for November by green book was the Loki comic I got for my birthday, my orange book was The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper and my red book was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnet. I also have some books I need to read for review and a couple of library books, which is why my use of the TBR jar was so small. 

Without a TBR jar, I would probably continue to avoid reading certain books as I have others I'd rather read. This will help me to make sure I do read them and that I can expand my reading beyond my comfort zone of fantasy and historical fiction. There's also something fun about having no idea what books I'm going to read each month. 

So this is a short post about why I'm going to be using a TBR jar to tackle my ever growing TBR pile. I'll probably do an update about it in the future.

Do you use a TBR jar??  

Scribd- Is It All It's Cracked Up to Be?| CarenzaOnBooks

Back in 2020, I reviewed Audible and gave my perspective as a bookworm using the platform. This year, I decided to try Scribd after seeing good reviews. You can read my 2020 review of Audible here. I was looking to get back into audiobooks and having already tried, and fallen out of love with Audible, Scribd seemed like the next logical platform for me to try. I had a free trial for two months from July to September and this is my experience using it. 

Please note that this is coming from a UK experience and the experience in different countries may be different. These are also just my opinions and experiences. 

Why I got my account?

As I've already mentioned, I wanted to get back into audiobooks. I liked listening to them when I was walking or commuting somewhere. I had decided that I wanted to read the Complete Sherlock Holmes and thought an audiobook version would help me. I used a BookTuber's link to get a two month free trial, rather than the typical one month free trial. This lasted from mid July to mid September 2021. 

Pros and Cons

I'm going to try and not compare the two platforms too much, but my first point is a comparison. I loved that you could listen to as many audiobooks as you wanted in a month on Scribd. You could also read eBooks, magazines and sheet music. Essentially you paid £9.99 a month to have access to all of this, which sounded like a pretty good deal. A few reviews I had read said that they listened to multiple audiobooks a month and read loads of eBooks. It really is good value for money. 

Let's talk about price. I think that £9.99 is the most I'd want to pay for a monthly subscription to a platform like this. During my time using Scribd, I was using a free trial and I now wish I'd made more of it. I only listened to about 10% of my audiobook and would have loved to have tried more elements of the platform. I would say that £9.99 for all of this is actually pretty decent and I wouldn't mind paying that each month.

However, this is where my nice things to say about Scribd runs out. My free trial was coming to an end and I needed to update my payment information, as I was quite happy to continue my Scribd account. This is where I encountered problems. It wouldn't accept my card details, despite them being correct. I then went looking on their website and there was no way of getting in contact with anyone via email or messaging. As it is an American company and I am based in the UK, phoning them or visiting their offices was completely out of the question. I tweeted them through their help account, but it hadn't been used in months. 

This is when I decided to look at reviews of the Scribd UK company and it had nothing but negative reviews. Most of them were issues with payment like mine, saying that they couldn't cancel their accounts. There were a lot of comments like this and seeing the responses from Scribd made me less inclined to continue my account. I decided to cancel my membership, partly due to my payment issues and partly due to these reviews putting me off the platform.

I was really disappointed when this happened as if it wasn't for this, I imagine I would be writing glowing reviews and continuing to use them. I had had no problems up until this point. 

Is it worth it?

I think it comes down to where you are based in the world. For me personally, I found the selection and potential great. The customer service was abysmal, especially for a UK customer, where it seemed not to exist at all. I would have to give Scribd a 3/5 stars and like Audible, have decided it's not worth my time or my money. This is sad as I can't find any audiobook companies as good as Scribd in the UK for an affordable price. 

That concludes my review of Scribd. What was your experience using Scribd? I hope this helped.     

How to Create the Perfect Reading Playlist| Carenza Bramwell

If, like me, you like to curl up with a good book every now and then, a vital ingredient to this scenario is a good playlist. I used to be able to read in total silence but now I have to have some kind of music in the background. In this post, I will be talking about how to create the perfect reading playlist and what music I have in mine. I hope you enjoy!

Atmosphere

Part of the reason I love a good reading playlist, is that it helps create a good atmosphere. It gets me in the mood to read. Obviously it depends on the book in question, but there will most likely be some music out there for any book you want to read. You can also tailor your music to the book/atmosphere you want to create. If you are reading an epic fantasy, something like the Lord of the Rings soundtrack would be perfect. However, if you wanted a more chill vibe, you could try some classical music. 

How to Make a Reading Playlist

My first tip would be to tailor it to your music style. Don't try and listen to something that you've never listened to before as you'll want to concentrate on that. You want something your familiar with so that the music washes over you rather than demands your attention. 

Secondly, unless you are someone who can listen to songs with lyrics in, I'd recommend choosing instrumental music. Soundtracks and classical musics are going to be your best friend. There's also a wide range out there, so there will be something out there for you. I really like movie and tv soundtracks as not only do they remind me of some of my favourite movies/tv shows, they add the atmosphere I mentioned earlier. I always have something to listen to when I'm reading. 

Ultimately, this all depends on your music taste. If you are like me, and enjoy instrumental music, then there is a lot to choose from. You might be someone who likes having songs on in the background. This is all about preference in the end. 

My Playlist

I have a playlist on my phone called "Reading Playlist". It is what I choose to listen to 95% of the time. On it you can find the following albums:

• The Lord of the Rings Soundtrack
• Sherlock Soundtracks
• Poldark Soundtracks
• The Living and the Dead Soundtracks
• Harry Potter music
• The Musketeers Soundtracks

I think it goes without saying that I like soundtracks. Sometimes, I'll pick a specific album to listen to rather than the whole playlist. I also have an album of music by Bach on an accordion that I love listening to. It really depends on the book and my mood when I'm deciding what to read. 

I hope this has helped you create the perfect reading playlist.

Carenza :) x      

How to Bookworm #1- An introduction| It'sCarenzaB

Hey guys!
How are you?

Welcome to the first post in my "How to Bookworm" series. For a while I have wanted to do a series on how to bookworm and address things that I wish I had had answers to when I joined the book community in January. In this short post, I am going to be talking about the types of posts I am going to post and how often. Like it says in the title, this is an introduction post. If you have any ideas, please let me know in the comments.

What types of posts?

I have posts planned talking about the 6 following things:

1) An introduction (this post)

2) Time management

3) Inspiration

4) Participation

5) Bookstagram

6) Book Blogs

Each post will go into detail about their topics and give tips and advice to those who need it. They will be based around my personal experience and they'll be my personal tips. You may find that some of the tips won't work for you, but it's all about experimenting and trying something new.

How often?

There will be a post up once a month, typically in the middle of the month (15th-20th). However this may change if you guys would like these posts to be more frequent. I will be creating a tab at the top of my blog where you will find all the posts in this series linked in order.

I hope you guys are excited for my new series, I'm super excited to get writing them. Let me know if there are any topics I haven't mentioned that you would like blog posts on.

Love,

Carenza x