Tag Archives: TBR books

Top Ten Tuesday:  Unread Books on My Shelves I Want to Read Soon

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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  Unread Books on My Shelves I Want to Read Soon. I’ve done plenty of posts about my unread books, so at first I thought I’d skip this week’s TTT rather than repeat myself… but the thinking about the key word soon, I realized I could work with it!

Some of these have been on my shelves for a long time now, and some are more recent additions, but all are books I want to read sooner rather than later. I’m not making any commitments (those never seem to work), but here are ten I hope to get to this year (or maybe next?):

  1. The Thorns Remain by JJA Harwood: Bought on a whim about a year ago.
  2. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith: It’s been years and years. This one is on my Classics Club spin list, and I’ve been waiting for its number to come up! (I suppose I could finally just read it anyway, but it’s nice to have the spin as motivation.)
  3. Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery: I only came to LMM’s books as an adult, and have been on a mission to read as many as possible ever since! I picked up the two Pat books a couple of years ago.
  4. A Turn of the Tide by Kelley Armstrong: This is a more recent addition. I added it to my shelves last year, but now that I’m finally reading the series (this is #3), I expect to read it quite soon.
  5. The Return by Rachel Harrison: I added the Kindle edition to my library a couple of years ago.
  6. The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler: Maybe this is cheating a bit — I bought this last year, and I know I’ll be reading it soon since it’s my book group’s pick for June.
  7. Needful Things by Stephen King: I bought this a few years ago to take on vacation; didn’t end up reading it that time, but maybe this summer?
  8. Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant: Bought a copy on my daughter’s recommendation a year or two ago.
  9. Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala: Another one I bought to take on a trip and then didn’t read, but I keep packing it in my travel bag just in case.
  10. Theft of an Idol by Dana Stabenow: I also finally started this series this year after stockpiling the books as they came out, and intend to read this one in the next few months.

Have you read any of these? Are there any you particularly recommend?

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

Top Ten Tuesday: Water, water, everywhere…

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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 Water — as a topic, title, book cover element, or whatever we want.

I decided to keep it simple and feature ten books I’ve read that have Water in the title:

  1. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
  2. Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
  3. Circles on the Water by Marge Piercy
  4. Rainwater by Sandra Brown
  5. Dead in the Water by Dana Stabenow
  6. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris
  7. By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain by Joe Hill
  8. Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits by Robin McKinley & Peter Dickinson
  9. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
  10. The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy

What “watery” books have you read?

If you did a TTT post this week, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Genre Freebie — 10 celebrity memoirs I’ve read… and a few from my TBR too

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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 Genre Freebie — which means we all pick a genre to focus on and build a top 10 list from there.

I bounced back and forth a bit, but decided to go with celebrity memoirs for my freebie theme. Not that I’m a huge celebrity follower! I rarely care about movie stars or other fancy folks… but I do find myself drawn to interesting life stories or memoirs that give insights into something I’m interested in. When I started this list, I was actually surprised by how many I’ve read!

Here are 10 memoirs I’ve enjoyed in recent years (with links to my reviews, if any):

  1. Waypoints by Sam Heughan
  2. Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton
  3. Spare by Prince Harry
  4. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
  5. Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies by Michael Ausiello
  6. I Want To Be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom
  7. Becoming by Michelle Obama
  8. The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
  9. Life by Keith Richards
  10. Broken Music by Sting

Plus, here are a few on my TBR list that I hope to get to eventually:

Do you have any favorite memoirs to recommend? What genre did you feature for this week’s TTT?

If you did a TTT post this week, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters from Different Books Who Should Team Up

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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 Characters from Different Books Who Should Team Up. I couldn’t actually come up with a list of ten, but here are a few characters who I think should hang out, make a connection, maybe share advice…

1. Mercy Thompson & October Daye: My two favorite heroines from favorite ongoing fantasy series! They’re quite different, but both are fiercely loyal, protective of loved ones, brave to the core, and amazing when they need to do battle. They’d be unstoppable together!

    2. Adam Hauptman (Mercy Thompson series) and Tybalt (October Daye series): These two are leaders who are also absolutely besotted with their mates/lovers. They’re probably both too alpha to tolerate each other for long, but perhaps they could form a support group for supernatural men who love semi-mortal women with a tendency to run toward, not away from, danger.

    3. Charlie Spring (Hearstopper) and Ox Matheson (Wolfsong): Charlie is such a lovely snowflake who’s endured horrible bullying as a teen, and Ox is the ultimate protector. I wish Charlie had had Ox to walk through the school halls by his side!

    4. Elizabeth Zott (Lessons in Chemistry) and Olive Smith (The Love Hypothesis): I wish there was a way for Elizabeth to see into the future and see that while not without challenges, there are many more opportunities for women in STEM than in her own time.

    5. London Kelley (The Hookup Plan) and Harriet Kilpatrick (Happy Place): I loved Happy Place, but did not like (spoiler alert!) that Harriet ends up leaving medicine altogether as a way to find happiness in her life. Why not look for a career using her medical degree in some other way? I feel like if Harriet had a friend like London, a passionately dedicated physician as well as a devoted support to her friends, she might have an outlet for talking about her frustrations and thinking more clearly about her options.

    6. Edward Cullen (Twilight) and Matthew Clairmont (A Discovery of Witches): I’d like Edward to have a good role model, to show him that an immortal vampire has career options beyond going to high school for eternity.

    7. Claire Fraser (Outlander) and Emmy Lake (Dear Mrs. Bird): At the time of the Emmy Lake books, Claire would not yet have traveled through the stones and discovered her true love, Jamie Fraser — she spent WWII as a battlefield nurse. It would be amazing if the two women could meet somehow and Emmy could write a profile of Claire for her magazine — how inspiring for the readers of Woman’s Friend!

    What book characters would you want to introduce to one another?

    If you did a TTT post this week, please share your link!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve added to my TBR because of other bloggers

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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’ve Read/Want to Read Because of Top Ten Tuesday — but I (unfortunately) don’t usually remember to keep track of where I first heard of a book, so I couldn’t be sure that the books I thought of were actually ones I learned of through TTT posts.

    So… instead, I’ll just list some books that I became aware of thanks to other bloggers — through book review posts, cover reveals, “waiting on…” post, and yes, even TTT lists. Please consider this a THANK YOU to those who featured these books, even if I can’t quite remember specifically where I came across them!

    My top 10 are:

    1. The Real Queen Charlotte: Inside the Real Bridgerton Court by Catherine Curzon (added based on review at Hopewell’s Public Library of Life)
    2. Love Theoretically (and other books) by Ali Hazelwood: I don’t think I would have considered these books without having seen all the raves on various blogs! I’ve read two of her novels so far, and I’m glad I did.
    3. The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer: A review at Literary Potpourri convinced me to add this author’s mysteries to my TBR, when previously I’d only been aware of her historical romances.
    4. Various novels by Judy Leigh: This is an author whose books I definitely was not aware of until I started seeing bloggers talking about how much they enjoyed them. I’ve seen read two, and have my eye on a bunch more.
    5. Whalefall by Daniel Kraus: I first added this book to my TBR thanks to an early preview via Books, Bones & Buffy… and I can’t wait to read it.
    6. The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry: This book popped up in my feeds quite a bit, but it was a review by Jonetta at Blue Mood Cafe that convinced me to add it to my TBR.
    7. The Spectacular by Fiona Davis: This book wasn’t on my radar at all until I saw a great review at The Chocolate Lady’s Book Blog.
    8. Wildwood Magic by Willa Reece: Another one from Books, Bones & Buffy! I read Tammy’s review this week, and that was enough to convince me to add it to my TBR.
    9. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: This book is everywhere (including all over the bestseller lists), but I know I first became aware of it via multiple TTT posts.
    10. The Celebrants by Steven Rowley: The only one on this list that I’ve actually read! I had skipped right by it originally, but after seeing a few posts featuring this as a “most anticipated” book for 2023, I had to know more… and I absolutely loved it.

    Putting this list together makes me realize I should keep better track of where I first learned about the books I add to my TBR list. (I have a friend who keeps a huge spreadsheet for this, but I’m not quite ready to go that far just yet!)

    What book did you read or add to your TBR lists because of other bloggers?

    If you did a TTT post this week, please share your link!