Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish wishes (summer 2025)

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 Bookish Wishes, with the prompt: List the top 10 books you’d love to own and include a link to your wishlist so that people can grant your wishes. Make sure you link your wishlist to your mailing address or include the email address associated with your e-reader in the list description so people know how to get the book to you. After you post, jump around the Linky and grant a wish or two if you’d like. Please don’t feel obligated to send anything to anyone!

When wishlists come up as a TTT prompt, I typically don’t share a link… but what the heck! I’ll jump in with my Amazon wishlist this time around. Really, I’m not terribly comfortable asking people for anything! Mainly, I’m posting this to say — here are books I want to get my hands on… and here’s hoping the Library Hold Fairy works her magic and gets them to me quickly!

Featured authors:

  1. My Friends by Fredrik Backman
  2. Writing Mr. Wrong by Kelley Armstong
  3. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab
  4. Every Summer After (deluxe edition) by Carley Fortune (yes, I’ve read this one already, but I’m dying over the gorgeousness of this new edition!)
  5. Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words by John McWhorter (to satisfy my inner grammar geek)
  6. The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
  7. Overgrowth by Mira Grant (I read this already as an ARC, but feel like I NEED a hardcover edition for my shelves)
  8. The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (not due out until the fall, but I’m already waiting for it!)
  9. Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady
  10. The Names by Florence Knapp

What books are you wishing for right now?

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: California dreaming… authors who live (or lived) in my state

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 Authors (or books by authors) Who Live In My State. I’m including some authors who are no longer living, but who are certainly very much associated with my (adopted) home state of California!

Although I’m not a native, I’ve been living in California for almost all of my adult life — so it’s home! Here are a selection of books by authors who either live or lived in California. I love my literary neighbors!

Featured authors:

  1. Jasmine Guillory
  2. John Steinbeck
  3. Gail Carriger
  4. Armistead Maupin
  5. Daniel Handler
  6. Nina Lacour
  7. Isabel Allende
  8. Taylor Jenkins Reid
  9. Ray Bradbury
  10. Lisa See

It actually was a bit of a challenge to come up with my list this week — I had to do a bit of fact-checking to make sure that authors who I thought live/lived in California actually did! Did anyone else struggle with this week’s prompt?

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Going to the chapel… books with “wedding” in the title

Setting the mood with a song…

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 Books with the Word “[Insert Word Here]” in the Title, with the prompt: Choose a word and find ten books with that word in the title.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’m in countdown mode until a family wedding at the end of May, so that’s what’s been on my brain, and that’s the word I’m going for! Here are ten eleven books — most of which I’ve read, plus one releasing in May that I can’t wait to read — with WEDDING in the title:

  1. Death at a Highland Wedding by Kelley Armstrong — May new release!
  2. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (my review)
  3. Amanda’s Wedding by Jenny Colgan — on my TBR
  4. On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn (my review)
  5. An Island Wedding by Jenny Colgan (my review)
  6. The Wedding Setup by Sonali Dev
  7. The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory (my review)
  8. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan (my review)
  9. Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaladdin and Marissa Stapley (my review )
  10. Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto (my review)
  11. My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding edited by P. N. Elrod

I originally had ten, but couldn’t resist adding #11 because the title makes me laugh every time I see it!

What word did you choose for this week’s prompt?

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

In case you’re interested in quick links to buying sites for the books mentioned above:

Note: These are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.

  1. Death at a Highland Wedding: AmazonBookshopLibro
  2. The Wedding People: AmazonBookshopLibro
  3. Amanda’s Wedding: AmazonBookshopLibro
  4. On the Way to the Wedding: AmazonBookshopLibro
  5. An Island Wedding: AmazonBookshopLibro
  6. The Wedding Setup: Amazon
  7. The Wedding Date: AmazonBookshopLibro
  8. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle: AmazonBookshopLibro
  9. Three Holidays and a Wedding: AmazonBookshopLibro
  10. Four Aunties and a Wedding: AmazonBookshopLibro
  11. My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding: AmazonBookshop

Top Ten Tuesday & Top 5 Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2025

It’s Tuesday… the listiest day of the week!

I enjoy two different Tuesday memes, and once again, their topics align this week — so I’m linking up with both.

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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 Bookish Goals for 2025, with the prompt: How many books do you want to read this year? Are you hoping to read outside your comfort zone? Are there books you meant to read last year but never got to? Are there new-to-you authors you’re hoping to read?

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Meeghan Reads — and the topic is Top 5 bookish resolutions for 2025, with the prompt: What are 5 bookish resolutions you want to achieve in 2025? Any reading challenges you will be signing up for? Or would you like to focus on a specific genre or diversity to read more from? (Click here to see Meeghan’s upcoming T5T topics for January – March)

Isn’t it great when Tuesday topics fit together? I’m not necessarily answering their specific prompt questions — focusing more on my reading and book-shelving habits than on the specific books I want to read. (And not that much has changed from this time last year — I could probably just copy and paste my entire post from 2024 and call it a day!)

My goals are less about numbers, genres, or challenges. Instead, I’ll talk about my intentions: I intend to improve some of my reading and bookish habits, although my focus may shift during the year. Below are goals (intentions) that I’ll try to keep in mind as 2025 rolls along.

Read whatever I feel like, as much as I can. I say this every year… and every year it’s worth repeating! I’m always happiest when I read without a plan. It’s a wonderful feeling! Apart from ARCs and book group books, this is the approach that works for me… which is why I tend not to participate in very few (if any) reading challenges.

Keep ARC requests manageable, and keep up with the ARCs I’ve committed to. I’m a little over-extended for the first few months of 2025, but once I read all my February and March ARCs, my commitments should be much more under control. I intend to slow down on requesting any additional ARCs, other than ARCs for books I intend to read upon release no matter what.

Plan ahead to make time for my book group books. We have our book-of-the-month picks all set for 2025, and I’d like to be more thoughtful about planning my reading time so I include these books without feeling pressure or worrying about deadlines.

Commit to reading (or sampling) my priority series for 2025, which I highlighted in my series-to-read post for this year.

Keep my Goodreads challenge goal realistic. I’ve ended up exceeding my Goodreads challenge goal during each of the past several years, but that has a lot to do with including graphic novels and children’s books in the mix. Which is great, and I love when that happens, but I don’t want to assume it’ll be true every year. I’m starting with a more modest number to keep the pressure off and allow time for reading bigger books too, if I feel like it. And if I find myself ahead of target by mid-year, I can always adjust to a more ambitious goal.

Remember to note the format of the books I read. This isn’t a big deal, but I’ve been noticing that I tend to read certain genres via audiobook and others via print, and I probably should say which is which in my reviews. Not that it truly matters, but the audio experience can be very different than the print experience, and even just for my own reference, I’d like to be more consistent about classifying books correctly.

Continue finding time for classics. I’ve been participating in the Classics Club spins for the past couple of years, which I love — but I have a big list of classics yet to read, and I’d like to carve out some time for at least one or two outside of the “spin cycle”.

Continue to pare down the number of physical books on my shelves, and be mindful about which I keep and which I send on their way. 2024 was the year where one of my dreams came true, and I finally installed my very own Little Free Library. I’ve begun sorting my many, many books into keepers and non-keepers. For the ones I no longer feel the need to own, I’m trying to sell the ones in best condition on Pango Books, and most of the others are going into the LFL.

Do a big audiobook reread: I’ve been wanting to do an audio re-read of the Green Creek series by TJ Klune. I haven’t started yet — the books are long, and I only want to start when I know I’ll have both the time and the focus to listen to the four books in the series straight through.

What are your bookish goals for 2025? Whatever they may be… wishing you lots of bookish delights!

Tuesday’s topic: Favorite book covers from 2024

Lately, I’ve been bouncing back and forth for my Tuesday posts, switching between the Top Ten Tuesday and Top Five Tuesday memes, depending on their topics for the week. This week, I’m doing them both!!

First up… Top Ten Tuesday:

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 a freebie… and since I like the Top 5 Tuesday topic this week, I’ll use it for both memes.

And speaking of Top 5 Tuesday:

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Meeghan Reads — check out the next batch of upcoming topics here.

This week’s topic is Top 5 covers of 2024, and the prompt is: What are some of your favourite covers that you have seen this year? Maybe these were reprints, redesigns or alternate covers that came out this year, or maybe they are brand new books!! Whatever they are, tell us all the pretties you have been coveting.

For my list of favorite covers, I’m looking at books I’ve read in 2024 — not necessarily books published in 2024. (My list, my rules!)

Here’s a selection of covers I loved this past year:

  1. Weyward by Emilia Hart
  2. The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman
  3. Schemes & Scandals by Kelley Armstrong
  4. The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
  5. Until Next Summer by Ali Brady
  6. The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
  7. Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakes
  8. Camp by L. C. Rosen
  9. The Guncle by Steven Rowley
  10. The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

What do you think of my cover choices? Do any particularly catch your eye? What were your favorite book covers this past year?

Also, I’d love to know what freebie topics other people came up with!

If you posted a list for TTT or T5T, please share your link!

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Halloween posts for Tuesday!

Lately, I’ve been bouncing back and forth for my Tuesday posts, alternating between the Top Ten Tuesday and Top Five Tuesday memes, depending on their topics for the week. This week, both are Halloween themed… so I’m doing them both!!

First up… it’s Top Ten Tuesday:

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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 a Halloween freebie! For my Halloween post, I’m going to focus on horror novels on my to-read list (updated for 2024). I’ve done this topic a few times in the past several years, and given the state of my TBR list, it’s time to do it again.

Noted with shame: Some of these books were on my Halloween horror TBR list last year! So, you know, I’m not exactly great at following through…

Still, here are a bunch I really do want to get to… including a few upcoming 2025 new books.

  1. Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
  2. Dread Nation by Justine Ireland
  3. The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
  4. Diavola by Jennifer Thorne
  5. Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong
  6. The Return by Rachel Harrison
  7. Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker
  8. Overgrowth by Mira Grant (upcoming 2025 new release)
  9. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (upcoming 2025 new release)
  10. My Ex, the Antichrist by Craig DiLouie (upcoming 2025 new release)

Are any of these on your TBR too? Which ones look best to you? And if you’ve read any, let me know what you thought!

Next, let’s take a look at this week’s Top 5 Tuesday:

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Meeghan Reads — check out the next batch of upcoming topics here.

This week’s topic is Top 5 books to recommend for Halloween, and the prompt is: It’s trick or treat time — are you going to tell us your best scary books or cutesy Halloween tales?

My picks are mainly ghost stories, plus a funny/clever fantasy that I reread every October!

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  1. The Uninvited by Cat Winters (review)
  2. The Veil by Rachel Harrison (review)
  3. Thornhill by Pam Smy (review)
  4. I’ll be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong (review)
  5. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (review) — I’m reading this one again right now! Such a fun annual tradition.

What books do you recommend for Halloween? I love a good ghost story — do you have any favorites? Save

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In case it’s not obvious, I’ll probably be spending my Halloween with my nose in a book! Wishing you all a happy Halloween, whatever you’ll be doing!Save

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’m Worried I Might Not Love as Much the Second Time Around 

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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 Books I’m Worried I Might Not Love as Much the Second Time Around.

I do love a good re-read when it comes to favorite books, and many books feel even richer or more emotional with each new visit.

Because my rereading experiences tend to be positive, I’m feeling a little puzzled by this week’s topic. I don’t particularly worry about whether I’ll love a book the 2nd time around. I mean, if I loved it originally — enough to want to re-read — then I’m open to however I might experience it upon rereading.

Still, after some pondering, I managed to come up with a few I might be a teeny bit hesitant about as re-reads:

1. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: I read this book as a teen and got swept up in the romance, but I’m guessing I’d have a much harder time with the content if I reread it as an adult.

2. Dune by Frank Herbert: I loved this back in my college days… but had much less experience with science fiction and fantasy at that point in my life. I wonder if I might find it all a bit dense and pretentious if I read it now.

3. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny: Similar to the item above — this was one of my early introductions to complex fantasy world-building, and I was totally enthralled. I have a feeling I’d love it still, but who knows? This is one I do intend to re-read at some point.

4. The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss: This was my very first romance novel, read as a fairly innocent teen, so I found it shocking and super intriguing. I’d guess that, except for the sake of nostalgia, I’d find it fairly awful now, but at the time… wow!

5. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: I mean, I absolutely loved this book at the time, and in fact, read it straight through twice in a row. And yet, looking at it through today’s lens, too many interactions between the characters seems a little too uncomfortably close to grooming. That didn’t strike me while reading the book, but watching the recent TV series adaptation (which was not good), it all started feeling a bit icky.

That’s all I could think of at the moment, but I’ll add these two, which I actually did re-read recently — and did not have a great time with:

1. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice: I absolutely swooned over this book the first time around. Last year, I decided to listen to the audiobook… and was so disappointed. Maybe it was the narrator, but the broody inner monologues just seemed to go on and on and on. Not fun.

2. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, #2) by Douglas Adams: I suspect this was a matter of timing. I decided to do an audio re-read of the series (I’d previously read books 1 – 3, many years ago) and had a lot of fun with the first audiobook. This 2nd one just didn’t work for me — but I may have been too distracted by real life at the time to appreciate the silliness. Still, it was enough of a washout that I haven’t been all that eager to push on and try the 3rd.

What books are you worried about rereading? Have you had any rereading experiences that were disappointing?

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Weird or funny things I’ve Googled thanks to a book 

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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 Weird or Funny Things I’ve Googled Thanks to a Book.

Isn’t there a meme out there about how authors’ search history would make people think they’re all serial killers or seriously disturbed? I’m guessing the same is true for plenty of readers. What can we say? We readers are curious people!

Here are random questions and phrases that you’d find in my book-related search history — and the books that inspired them:

1. What do Satanists believe? (while reading Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison)

2. Would the Titanic have sunk if it hit the iceberg head-on rather than along its side? (So many Titanic books, but most recently, A Night to Remember by Walter Lord). And in case you’re wondering, the answer is mixed: I’ve seen very strong arguments saying it absolutely would have sunk, and very strong arguments saying absolutely not!

3. What does someone with face blindness see when they look at a person? (while reading Hello Stranger by Katherine Center)

4. Has anyone ever been swallowed by a sperm whale? (while reading Whalefall by Daniel Krauss). And since I’m sure you’re dying to know too, here’s what Ocean Conservancy has to say:

Can sperm whales swallow humans?

While there have been cases where humans end up in a whale’s mouth, generally these human prey get spit out and not swallowed. It’s an extremely rare and unpleasant day for all involved. Technically sperm whales are the only creatures in the ocean with throats large enough to swallow a human. There was one case of a man named James Bartley, labeled as a “modern day Jonah,” who was allegedly swallowed by a sperm whale off the Falkland Islands in the early 1900s. The story claims that he was rescued from the stomach after whalers took down the animal that ate him. This story doesn’t hold up to close inspection, however, and the science suggests that anyone who had the misfortune of being eaten by a whale would probably not live long. 

5. Very small owls (while reading The Parliament by Aimee Potwatka)

6. Britney’s denim outfit (while reading The Woman in Me by Britney Spears)… and for those who might want to know, this is the image I was looking for:

7. Oz’s family – Buffy (while reading One Girl in All the World by Kendare Blake, because I couldn’t remember how Oz became a werewolf)

8. What does a tree surgeon do? (while reading The No-Show by Beth O’Leary)

9. Treacher Collins syndrome (while reading Wonder by R. J. Palacio

10. Examples of surf movies from the 1960s (while reading California Golden by Melanie Benjamin)

There you have it. Definitely not a serial killer… just a reader with eclectic interests!

I’d love to see what everyone else has been googling, so…

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Covers with Things Found in Nature

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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 Covers/Titles with Things Found in Nature. I’m sticking with covers — maybe I’ll come back and do titles another time (like when I’m stuck for a freebie topic!).

Ten of my favorite nature-themed covers:

  1. The Fall of Koli by M. R. Carey
  2. The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka
  3. The Suite Spot by Trish Doller
  4. What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine
  5. The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn
  6. Wolfsong by T. K. Klune
  7. Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley
  8. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton
  9. Birds of California by Katie Cotugno
  10. The Children of Red Peak by Craig DiLouie

Do we have any books in common this week?

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Superpowers I Wish I Had

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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 Bookish Superpowers I Wish I Had. This is a fun one!

Here are ten powers I’d love:

  1. Ability to remember every detail from books already read… especially earlier books in series.
  2. The power to read even when too tired to keep my eyes open.
  3. The ability to listen (and absorb) audiobooks throughout my day without getting distracted.
  4. A superpower that makes signed first editions of my favorite books magically appear on my doorstep the second they’re available.
  5. Teleportation powers that allow me to attend favorite author’s book signings anywhere across the country, with no airplane flights or loss of sleep involved.
  6. The ability to transport myself into the world of a book for a day (but without having to face any real dangers such as disease, getting lost, etc)
  7. The power to snap my fingers and have Hollywood decide to adapt all my favorite books (and do them all perfectly)
  8. A special food-related power that makes any delicious sounding food or drink that I read about in a novel pop into existence in my hands.
  9. One that sounds magical even if it isn’t: The ability to read as much as I want, wherever and whenever I want, without having to worry about work, money, errands, or anything else real-world-ish.
  10. Another teleportation/time travel-y one to round out the list: The ability to travel back in time and meet certain favorite authors from the past!

What bookish superpowers would you wish for?

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

PS – I played with an AI image generator using search terms like superhero, woman with superpowers, superhero woman reading… the images in this post are two of the results!