Welcome to Cheerfully Reading

 

Hello and welcome fellow book lovers 📚🥰!

My name is Lee. I have a book-acquiring habit. I have an incurable reading obsession and now, I have decided to launch 'Cheerfully Reading' in order to share it all with you. You didn't ask for it, but here we are 😅 thank you for stopping by!

Why start a book blog....again?

Over the years I have popped up on various social media sites and blogging platforms to join in with all sorts of online book-loving communities out there, however for some reason, my book-based ventures have always seemed to have fizzled out after a few months of coming into being.

Upon reflection and in conjunction with taking an extended break from social media this year, I have come to realise that ultimately, the big glaring neon sign flashing problem with sharing your reading life online  is that it can very quickly turn into a performative act. A competition. An algorithm-based, content-creating preoccupation and eventually, one comes to realise that the fun, solace and wonder of reading has been relegated to the sidelines. At least that has been my experience.

Thankfully, 2025 has been a very different and a very enlightening reading year for me. As mentioned, I have taken a break from social media. I didn't set a reading goal for this year. I haven't been tracking my reading online as attentively (or rather, as obsessively) as I have in previous years, etc. and I must tell you, it has been truly wonderful, freeing and ultimately very rewarding to get back into reading purely for pleasure. It has brought so much joy and relaxation back into my reading life that I now feel excited by the prospect of sharing, discussing and celebrating all things bookish again 🎉 (without the social media side of things 😉)

What are your plans for Cheerfully Reading?

My plans are wide open at this stage and will probably continue to stay fairly loose and carefree as I cheerfully read away 😊

I do love to visit book blogs that tend to go with the flow of their bookish creator. I love hearing about current reads, upcoming reads, bookish lists, reading-based challenges on the horizon, etc. However, for now, as I'm finding my book-blogging feet again, I feel more than happy to chill out and see where this new (and hopefully longer lasting 🤞) venture takes me.

What are you currently reading?

I have just started 'Young Bloods' by Simon Scarrow and oh my goodness I am LOVING it 💖! It is the first volume in his Wellington and Napoleon historical fiction quartet and man am I happy that I took a chance and purchased the other 3 books in the series already 😅 Don't you love it when a gamble pays off?

Narrated in alternating chapters, we are introduced to both Arthur Wesley aka. the future 1st Duke of Wellington (among other titles) and Napoleon Bonaparte (definitely known by a bunch of other titles 😅) as they enter the world. So far I have been introduced to their respective families and have slowly started to recognise their various traits and quirks developing and it has been such a treat thus far.

For some reason 2025 has been the year of Napoleon for me. So whilst I am now fairly familiar with his personal timeline,  I am certainly much more unfamiliar with that of his eventual adversary. So I am very much looking forward to learning more about Arthur's rise.

I am also enjoying the fact that we are now firmly embedded in the gloriousness of Spring down here and I can return to reading amongst the camellias and sunshine 🌺

Do feel free to let me know what you are currently reading 📖💕 I would love to know! Xx