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 Purple, Yellow, and/or Green Book Covers, in honor of Mardi Gras.
Fun and festive! And a great excuse to visit my bookshelves to find the right colors…
What green, purple, and yellow books are on your shelves?
Please share your link so I can check out your top 10!
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 Written Before I Was Born.
Oh dear. Is this topic just an under-handed way to get me to disclose how old I am???? Because I’ll tell you, relative to the majority of the book bloggers I know, sometimes I feel like I’m ANCIENT. (OK, so I’m in my 50s, which isn’t completely over the hill just yet!)
Anyhoo… I thought I’d zoom in on children’s books, written before I was born, that stand the test of time! Almost all of these are books that I read myself as a child, and then shared with my own kids too.
Honorable mention: I’d include these books as well, but I didn’t read them until I was an adult! Still, they definitely belong on a list of favorite children’s books — and they were certainly written before I was born:
Are any of these your favorites too?
What books written before you were born do you really love?
Please share your link so I can check out your top 10!
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 New-to-Me Authors I Read in 2020.
There were so many great authors whose works I got to experience for the first time in 2020! Here are 10 favorites (although I think I could come up with a lot more!)
What new-to-you authors did you discover in 2020? Any particular favorites? Do we have any in common?
Please share your link so I can check out your top 10!
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 Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To.
I recently did a similar post about the books I bought in 2020 but didn’t read. For this week’s prompt, I thought I’d look back at the quarterly TBR list Top Ten Tuesday posts from 2020, and see how well I did at reading the books I said I’d read.
Overall? Not too shabby!! Here are the books that are left, along with a note on whether I still plan to to read them. Starting with:
Winter 2020: Only two left unread:
Summer 2020 – I read all the books!
That’s seven, so I’ll also include unread books from my “most anticipated” posts from 2020:
What books did you mean to get to in 2020, but didn’t? Have you read any of the books on my list? And if so, which do you think should be top priority?
Here’s hoping we all get to our 2020 books, plus all the great books ahead in 2021!
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 Resolutions/Hopes for 2021.
I’m not a big fan of making resolutions. I’ve been around enough years to know that most don’t stick. But I’m not opposed to setting a few goals, so…
Here are some low-key bookish goals for 2021:
Read whatever I feel like. Okay, I say this every year… and every year it’s worth repeating. It’s easy to get caught up in ARCs and reading schedules, and that’s fine — but I know what makes me happiest is to read whatever I want, whenever I want. And reading is for happiness, right?
Resist the urge to over-request. I’m looking at you, NetGalley request button! I love NetGalley, and I so appreciate how wonderful it is to have access to all these amazing early review copies! But I need to keep better perspective, and not allow myself to overwhelm my to-read plans with nothing but ARCs.
Organize my bookshelves — again! — and donate the never-gonna-read books and the read-’em-but-don’t-need-to-keep-’em books to the library (once their donation center reopens).
Stick to my series reading plans for 2021! Subject to change, of course, but I do want to get to the books and series that I set as my priorities.
Updated to add: After this post was already up and published, I realized I forgot one goal! So, my late addition is… Tackle one or two of the heftier non-fiction books on my shelves (mostly a variety of history books) by reading them in small bites, just a few chapters per week. Slow and steady, so I get to enjoy them without feeling like I’m missing out on reading fiction too.
And a couple of blogging goals too:
Update my Book Blog Meme Directory page. It’s been a while since I’ve gone through and checked all the links, made sure all the listed memes are still current, etc. It’s clean-up time!
Go through old posts to make sure that images and links still work. This is a big, tedious job, but if I do it in little bites over the course of the year, it should be okay.
What are your bookish, non-bookish, or blogging resolutions for this year? Whatever you’re resolving or hoping for, I’m wishing you all a happy and healthy year. It can only get better, right?
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 Book Releases for the First Half of 2021.
I highlighted some of the upcoming releases I’m most excited for in my winter TBR post from a couple of weeks ago — but it’s always fun to look ahead and make even more reading plans! So, here are ten MORE books releasing between now and the end of June that I’m super excited to read.
What new releases are you most looking forward to in 2021? Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!
Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
Title: Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales
Edited by: Stephen King & Bev Vincent
Published: 2018
Length: 332 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
Fasten your seatbelts for an anthology of turbulent tales curated by Stephen King and Bev Vincent. This exciting new anthology, perfect for airport or airplane reading, includes an original introduction and story notes for each story by Stephen King, along with brand new stories from Stephen King and Joe Hill.
About the Book:
Stephen King hates to fly.
Now he and co-editor Bev Vincent would like to share this fear of flying with you.
Welcome to Flight or Fright, an anthology about all the things that can go horribly wrong when you’re suspended six miles in the air, hurtling through space at more than 500 mph and sealed up in a metal tube (like—gulp!—a coffin) with hundreds of strangers. All the ways your trip into the friendly skies can turn into a nightmare, including some we’ll bet you’ve never thought of before… but now you will the next time you walk down the jetway and place your fate in the hands of a total stranger.
Featuring brand new stories by Joe Hill and Stephen King, as well as fourteen classic tales and one poem from the likes of Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Dan Simmons, and many others, Flight or Fright is, as King says, “ideal airplane reading, especially on stormy descents… Even if you are safe on the ground, you might want to buckle up nice and tight.”
How and when I got it:
It was an impulse buy while I was visiting a favorite bookstore about a year ago.
Why I want to read it:
I’m not a short story reader, but every once in a while, a collection catches my eye… and how could I resist this one? I mean, look at the authors included!
Table of Contents:
Introduction by Stephen King
Cargo by E. Michael Lewis
The Horror of the Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson
The Flying Machine by Ambrose Bierce
Lucifer! by E.C. Tubb
The Fifth Category by Tom Bissell
Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds by Dan Simmons
Diablitos by Cody Goodfellow
Air Raid by John Varley
You Are Released by Joe Hill
Warbirds by David J. Schow
The Flying Machine by Ray Bradbury
Zombies on a Plane by Bev Vincent
They Shall Not Grow Old by Roald Dahl
Murder in the Air by Peter Tremayne
The Turbulence Expert by Stephen King
Falling by James L. Dickey
Afterword by Bev Vincent
I have a feeling I’ll be terrified and will never want to get on a plane again… but then again, with the pandemic’s end nowhere in sight, it’s not like I’m traveling anyway. So maybe now really is the perfect time to read this collection!
What do you think? Would you read this book?
Please share your thoughts!
__________________________________
Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:
Have fun!
Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
Title: Enemy Women
Author: Paulette Jiles
Published: 2002
Length: 352 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family’s avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee.
The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women’s prison. But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom.
Now an escaped “enemy woman,” Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise…seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.
How and when I got it:
I picked up a copy at a library sale a few years ago.
Why I want to read it:
After reading News of the World last week and absolutely loving it, I was surprised and happy to realize that I had another book by Paulette Jiles already on my shelves! Isn’t it strange when that happens? I’d completely forgotten that I owned this one.
The writing in News of the World was so gorgeous, and it made me very interested in reading more of her work. From what I understand, there’s some cross-over between that book and Enemy Women, with a character from News of the World appearing here as well (I think).
I have my eye on at least one of Paulette Jiles’s other backlist books too, as well as her newest release (Simon the Fiddler). I love finding a new-to-me author whose writing just sings to me!
What do you think? Would you read this book?
Please share your thoughts!
__________________________________
Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:
Have fun!
Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
Title: Lilith’s Brood
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Published: 2000 (individual works originally published 1987 – 1989)
Length: 752 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
The acclaimed trilogy that comprises Lilith’s Brood is Hugo and Nebula award-winner Octavia E. Butler at her best.
Presented for the first time in one volume with an introduction by Joan Slonczewski, Ph.D., Lilith’s Brood is a profoundly evocative, sensual — and disturbing — epic of human transformation.
Lilith Iyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected — by miraculously powerful unearthly beings, the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind. But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: their own children. This is their story…
How and when I got it:
I bought a copy several years ago — don’t remember when or where.
Why I want to read it:
I consider myself an Octavia Butler fan, but I’ve actually missed out on her two acclaimed science fiction series — Xenogenesis, compiled here in Lilith’s Brood, and the Patternist series, available in a compilation called Seed to Harvest. I’ve been wanting to read this volume for years now, probably ever since reading Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, both of which blew me away.
Lilith’s Brood includes three novels: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. Maybe I’ll start with Dawn this year, and then space out my reading of the remaining works next year.
What do you think? Would you read this book?
Please share your thoughts!
__________________________________
Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:
Have fun!
Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
Title: Remarkable Creatures
Author: Tracy Chevalier
Published: 2009
Length: 352 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
In 1810, a sister and brother uncover the fossilized skull of an unknown animal in the cliffs on the south coast of England. With its long snout and prominent teeth, it might be a crocodile – except that it has a huge, bulbous eye.
Remarkable Creatures is the story of Mary Anning, who has a talent for finding fossils, and whose discovery of ancient marine reptiles such as that ichthyosaur shakes the scientific community and leads to new ways of thinking about the creation of the world.
Working in an arena dominated by middle-class men, however, Mary finds herself out of step with her working-class background. In danger of being an outcast in her community, she takes solace in an unlikely friendship with Elizabeth Philpot, a prickly London spinster with her own passion for fossils.
The strong bond between Mary and Elizabeth sees them through struggles with poverty, rivalry and ostracism, as well as the physical dangers of their chosen obsession. It reminds us that friendship can outlast storms and landslides, anger and jealousy.
How and when I got it:
I had my eye on this book as soon as it was released, and bought myself a used copy in 2010.
Why I want to read it:
It just sounds so interesting! I love reading about women going outside the norm for their time periods. What could be more unusual than female fossil hunters in the early 1800s? Mary Anning is a historical figure, and I’m so interested in learning more about her experiences.
I do need to admit that I’ve been especially interested in this book ever since reading Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel — a hidden gem of a book that’s a mash-up of Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice, and is wonderful in so many ways. In this book, Mary Bennet encounters Mary Anning and becomes involved in fossil hunting as well (and it’s amazing!).
I’ve only read one book by Tracy Chevalier (The Girl With the Pearl Earring), but so many of her titles look fascinating.
What do you think? Would you read this book? Are there other books by this author that you’d recommend?
Please share your thoughts!
__________________________________
Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:
Have fun!
Bookshelf Fantasies 