Tag Archives: top 10 tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2024

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snowy10

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 2024.

OK, I’m more or less repeating what I’ve written in past years. I’m not a big fan of resolutions, so let’s consider this instead that I’m setting some basic intentions. Whether or not I’ll stick to these as the year progresses remains to be seen… and I’m fine with that.

These are a few general concepts I hope to apply to my reading this year:

Read whatever I feel like. I say this every year… and every year it’s worth repeating! Other than book group reading commitments, I’m always happiest when I read without a plan. It’s a wonderful feeling!

Keep ARCS manageable. I have a lot of ARCs on my plate for books releasing in the first half of the year, but many of these are books I’d want to read no matter what. I intend to slow down my requests from this point forward — so I can get back to the point above!

Spend some time reading (or sampling) at least a few of the books/series I highlighted in my series-to-read post for this year.

Make a dent in my classic reading plans. 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”.

Decide what to do with the books I’ve pulled from my shelves but haven’t yet removed from my house. I keep fantasizing about installing a Little Free Library, but I’m not sure that where I live is really conducive to having one of those. So, I need to start doing some sorting – some nicer books to try to sell, some to trade it an a used bookstore, and some to go to my library’s donation center.

Do a big audiobook reread: I’ve been planning to do audio rereads of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and also want to do the same with the Green Creek series. Both will take a lot of time, and are probably multi-year projects. I want to at least get started in 2024.

Mostly, for 2024 and always, this pretty much sums up my attitude:

What are your bookish goals for 2024? Whatever they may be… wishing you lots of bookish delights!

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2024

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snowy10

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 Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2024.

There are so many to choose from — but since I already featured a bunch in my winter TBR post, I’ll focus on a different set of books this week.

Here are (just some of) the books I can’t wait to read in 2024!

Listed in order of release date:

  1. The Women by Kristin Hannah (2/6/2024)
  2. To Woo & To Wed by Martha Waters (2/6/2024)
  3. The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden (2/14/2024)
  4. The Prisoner’s Throne by Holly Black (3/5/2024)
  5. Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle (3/5/2024)
  6. Studies at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan (3/26/2024)
  7. The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian (3/26/2024)
  8. The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto (3/26/2024)
  9. The Evolution of Annabel Craig by Lisa Grunwald (4/16/2024)
  10. Funny Story by Emily Henry (4/23/2024)

What upcoming new releases are you most excited for? If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Books of 2023

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snowy10

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 Favorite Books of 2023.

There were so many great ones! It’s hard to narrow my list down to just ten…

Consider this just a sampling of the great books I read in 2023!

1.. Wolfsong by TJ Klune: But really, the entire Green Creek series is my top reading experience of the year. I loved all four books, but Wolfsong holds an especially strong place in my heart. After all, it’s all candy canes and pinecones and epic and awesome. (review)

… plus…

2. Hello Stranger by Katherine Center: The main character’s situation is like nothing I’ve ever read before. This book is fascinating and entertaining and lovely. (review)

3. Hard to pick just one T. Kingfisher book! I read three by this author in 2023, and these two are especially wonderful: (reviews here and here)

4. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: The hype is real! This book has gotten so much buzz, and it’s all deserved. The cozy fantasy I never knew I needed. (review)

5. Whalefall by Daniel Kraus: This wins the prize for the weirdest thing I read all year… and yet, I still can’t get it out of my mind! (review)

6. A duo from a favorite series: Sleep No More (review) and The Innocent Sleep (review), books 17 and 18 in the excellent October Daye series by Seanan McGuire, were released one month apart in the fall, telling the same story from two different characters’ perspectives. Simply awesome.

7. Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer: Every once in a while, a Georgette Heyer novel is just right for the moment, and I absolutely loved reading Sprig Muslin this year. (review)

8. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto: This book made me laugh and kept me guessing. Just pure fun. (review)

9. The Celebrants by Steven Rowley: I loved this story of friendship across the years — beautiful and emotional and truly resonant. (review)

10. The Gunnie Rose series by Charlaine Harris: I hadn’t thought this would interest me, but after reading the first book (An Easy Death) early in the year with my book group, I couldn’t stop until I’d read all five (and I’m hoping for more!).

The rest of the best:

Who am I kidding? I can’t name just 10!! Here are other books from my 2023 reading adventures that I loved too much not to mention:

What were you favorite books of 2023? If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: The Ten Most Recent Additions to My Kindle Library

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snowy10

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 Ten Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf .

I don’t buy physical books nearly as much any more, but I can never seem to resist adding books to my Kindle library when I spot a good price drop.

Here are the 10 ebooks that I’ve added most recently:

  1. Emmett by L. C. Rosen
  2. Violeta by Isabel Allende
  3. Little, Big by John Crowley
  4. The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest
  5. Island of the Lost by Joan Druett
  6. The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
  7. The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews
  8. The Apology by Jimin Han
  9. The Bookseller of Inverness by S. G. Maclean
  10. Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

What books have you added to your shelves most recently? If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my wishlist (winter 2023)

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snowy10

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 about our bookish wishes.

My holidays are already over — and while my family was very good to me, many of my bookish wishes came true because I treated myself to great sale prices! Still, I do have remaining books I’d love copies of at some point.

Here are 10 books (not including books not yet released) that I’ve recently added to my wishlist:

  1. The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland
  2. The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
  3. Get Lucky by Katherine Center
  4. The Star and the Strange Moon by Constance Sayers
  5. Spells for Lost Things by Jenna Evans Welch
  6. The Second Chance Year by Melissa Wiesner
  7. The Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
  8. Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong
  9. The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune
  10. Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee

What books are you wishing for? If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

Top Ten Tuesday: Top ten books on my TBR list for winter 2023/2024

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snowy10

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 about our winter reading plans.

As always, there are endless options! Since next week’s topic is about new releases in 2024, this week, I’ll focus on already released books that I’m determined to read during the next few months.

My top 10 books on my winter TBR:

  1. Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
  2. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
  3. The Vintage Village Bake Off by Judy Leigh
  4. Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley
  5. The Guncle by Stephen Rowley
  6. Death of an Eye by Dana Stabenow
  7. One Girl in All the World by Kendare Blake
  8. The Thorns Remain by J. J. A. Harwood
  9. Emmett by L. C. Rosen
  10. Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal

What books will be keeping you warm this winter? Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

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!