Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf.
It was hard to be totally random, since I have a pretty good idea of where all my books live — but I made a valiant attempt to close my eyes, circle my arms around a few times, and then point!
Here are the 10 I landed on:
Lute by Jennifer Thorne
Read? Yes!
Rating? 5 stars
Thoughts? Absolutely gorgeous. (review)
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
Read? Yes!
Rating? 4.5 stars
Thoughts? A slim, affecting collection of interconnected stories about Army families. I read this before I started blogging, so I don’t have a review to share — but I highly recommend this book!
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Read? Yes
Rating? 5 stars
Thoughts? Another pre-blogging read, and my 2nd Sarah Waters book (after Fingersmith, which is amazing). This one is terrific too!
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Read? Yes
Rating? 5 stars
Thoughts? So powerful. A must-read. (review)
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
Read? No (not yet!)
Rating? n/a
Thoughts? I absolutely intend to read this book! I’ve heard such good things.
The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
Read? Yes!
Rating? 3 stars
Thoughts? This is the 3rd book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy. I had very mixed feelings about the trilogy as a whole, and at over 800 pages, this book really required determination to finish. Still, I liked the overall story enough to see it through. (review)
The Marvels by Brian Selznick
Read? Yes
Rating? 5 stars
Thoughts? If you check out my review, you’ll see the word “beautiful” repeated over and over again — and I stand by it!
Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart
Read? Yes!
Rating? 5 stars
Thoughts? I’m surprised that I didn’t write a review at the time, but I know I loved this 2nd Kopp Sisters book, and have since read every book in the series!
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Read? Yes
Rating? 5 stars
Thoughts? I picked up this hardcover edition years ago at a library sale, because my battered old paperback got lost somewhere between moves over the ages since I first read it. I intend to reread this book at some point!
Wings to the Kingdom by Cherie Priest
Read? No
Rating? n/a
Thoughts? This is the 2nd book in the Eden Moore trilogy. I own all three… and haven’t touched them yet, despite the years they’ve been sitting on my shelf. The covers are all amazing and ghostly, and I’m committed to reading them… eventually.
Spinning around the room and randomly pointing at books was strangely fun! (And a good reminder that I still have tons of unread books on my shelves…)
How did you do with this week’s random picking?
If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!
Bookshelf Fantasies 
The Thorn Birds is one of my favourite books. You did well and apparently, you have many 5-star books on your shelves.
I tend to keep the ones I love, so over time, there are more and more 5 star books!
Fab list, this was a good topic wasn’t it?!
Lots of fun!
You have some great books on your shelves. I love those covers.
Thank you! It was a fun topic this week. 🙂
I love Sarah Waters stories. They’re so interesting. Have you read The Little Stranger yet?
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-the-first-10-books-i-randomly-grabbed-from-my-shelf/
I have read the Little Stranger — it didn’t grab me as much as some of her other books, but I still enjoyed it.
So many 5-star books on your list! I read the Thorn Birds in high school and loved it. (My friend and I were a little obsessed with the TV mini series of it, too.) And Lute is one that I really want to read. 😀
Oh my gosh, the Thorn Birds mini-series!!! So swoon-worthy. 🙂
I read The Marvels. I like how the pictures and story comes together.
Me too — I love how the art is part of the story, not just illustrations.
I just discovered Reynolds in the last year. His books are excellent. LONG WAY DOWN is unique and SO powerful. I agree with your 5-star rating.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
I do want to read more of his books! This is the only one I’ve tried so far.
What a great bunch! And so many are 5 stars😁 I love seeing The Thorn Birds!
I really want to do a Thorn Birds reread at some point (although earlier this year I reread a book I’d always considered a favorite and walked away disappointed, so now I’m wondering if it’s better to hold onto the good memories and not try to revisit them…)
I think you are doing well since you have already read the majority of your picks.
Funny that it worked out that way — I really do have tons of unread books on my shelves.
Hi Lisa – this was fun! I loved The Thorn Birds – read it for the first time a couple years ago and then watched the TV miniseries, which really stood the test of time. And Long Way Down – I feel like we talked about this before – that was such a powerful book as you said. Thanks for sharing your random bookshelf picks!
I’d love to watch the mini-series again!
Watching it now you can understand why Richard Chamberlain was so popular 😉
I was always partial to Bryan Brown myself 🙂