Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week’s topic: books I’m looking forward to in the first half of the new year. I’m going to take this as most-anticipated books being released from now-end of June 2017…as I’m sure you’ve sussed out if you read here somewhat regularly, I’m not much of a new-release reader, so these are very unlikely to be books I personally read in the first half of 2017. But some are books I have an ARC for, and some are books I’m going to want to get around to one of these days!

Selection Day: I loved the brilliant dark wit of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger when I read it earlier this year (review forthcoming), so I’m definitely excited for his follow-up!

Young and Damned and Fair: I love stories, both fiction and non, about Henry VIII and his wives. Anne Boleyn tends to be the one that gets the most attention, but they’re all worthy of interest in their own right. This book examines Katherine Howard, his fifth wife, who is usually dismissed as very young and rather empty-headed, so I’m curious to see what the take is on her this time.

The Road to Jonestown: Cults- how they form and the personalities at the center of them- are fascinating to me. Jim Jones and the People’s Temple are well-known enough, but I’ve never read a full book-length treatment about that situation and I’m desperately curious.

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes: You can take the lady out of Michigan, but you can’t take Michigan out of the lady. I’m a sucker for anything Great Lakes.

Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve: This is basically analytics applied to literature, so dorky interest one meets dorky interest two. Sold!

Four Princes: I’ve always enjoyed non-fiction about both royalty and general history. This one brings them together, focusing on the reigns of Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Ottoman ruler Suleiman, and how their actions and interactions have played out over time. 

Our Little Racket: When you hear about pyramid schemes and other kinds of white collar crime, you always wonder (or at least I do) about the families. Did they know? Did they just turn the other way? This novel explores the ramifications of the downfall of a finance world bigwig on the women in his family, so I’m intrigued. 

Different Class: I’ve always enjoyed a good boarding school novel, and Joanne Harris’ Chocolate remains among my favorite books, so I’m looking forward to reading her take on it!

The Leavers: I’ve read a few articles fairly recently about Asian adoptees raised by white American parents and how they feel about their stories now that they’re grown up. It’s an interesting tension, and this novel promises to explore it.

In The Name of the Family: Medieval corrupt religious institutions are something I tend to like reading about, so the Borgias (who are the focus of this novel) are always compelling to me.