Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week’s topic: books we meant to read last year but didn’t. As much I read, I always wish I managed to read more…there are so many wonderful books out there, I want to get to all of them! But, alas, there’s never enough time. So here are ten books I just didn’t get to in 2016, but I will! I’ve tried to chose some that I haven’t written about already for some variety.
Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve Added To My TBR On Recommendation
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week’s topic is books that ended up on the TBR pile based on recommendations from others. This is a tricky one…for most of my life, I’ve tended to chose to my own reading for my own reasons, only very infrequently seeking or taking recommendations. But since I started to get involved with book blogs (a while before I started my own), I read about the great things you all are reading and I want in! So here are books that have gotten added to the long and growing list because they’ve been recommended to me.
You Will Know Me: I’d never read Abbott before, but I’ve heard great things about her work around the bookish internet. And I’ve long been interested in women’s gymnastics, so when I started hearing good things from people who had the ARC, I picked up a copy of my own when it went on Kindle sale recently!
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: I remember seeing this on a list somewhere (Buzzfeed? Book Riot? Pajiba?) of best books and having generally heard good things about Michael Chabon, it ended up on my TBR.
Boy, Snow, Bird: The bookternet definitely was how I got introduced to Helen Oyeymi and when I found this at my local SPCA thrift store (where paperbacks are 50 cents and hardcovers a dollar…can’t beat those prices) I definitely yanked it off the shelf and now it’s at home.
Station Eleven: I’ve always had a fondness for post-apocalyptic literature and it seems like everyone ever on the internet loved this, so it’s on my Kindle until I get to it!
Over-Dressed: This was a recommendation from Adina at Blue Collar Red Lipstick, whose blog is totally worth reading for its primary style content alone, but she’s also a reader (and author!) who does the odd post about what she enjoys. I read Deluxe based on her rec and got a lot of food for thought out of it, so I picked up this one she recommended as well.
Fangirl: Probably not a surprise that lots of book bloggers enjoy a book about a young woman who spends a lot of time writing for the internet, but Rainbow Rowell’s books are generally well-liked and so I’ve added them to my TBR!
The Sense of an Ending: This was one of the personal recs…my good friend Kailey recommended it quite some time ago and when I saw a secondhand copy, I remembered her talking about how much she liked it and picked it up.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Another Kailey recommendation…she’s a genetic counselor, so the subject area is particularly compelling to her, but she made it clear that it’s broader than just a book for science nerds (not that a book for science nerds is a bad thing!) and I’ve got it on my Kindle.
Ghost Wars: Another personal rec! This was actually a favorite of my college boyfriend and as I’ve gotten more interested in global political affairs over the years, I decided to snag it!
The Lace Reader: My coworker is a writer and editor, and when she mentioned this was her favorite book, it got added to my list! It went on Kindle sale not long after she mentioned it to me so it’s safely on my e-reader and waiting to be read.
Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases For The Second Half Of The Year
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week’s topic is books that will be published over during what remains of 2016. I’m fortunate enough to have ARCs for many of these books and I can’t wait to get to them!
Chronicle Of A Last Summer (June 28): A coming of age story set thirty years ago in Egypt (when Hosni Mubarak assumed power), it follows a young woman through the course of her life. This debut novel has good buzz and I’ve never read anything set in modern-day Egypt.
The End of the Perfect 10 (July 5): I’m one of those weirdos that prefers the Winter Olympics (figure skating is my second favorite sport after Michigan football), but when the Summer Games come around I am all gymnastics all the time. I watch the men, but the ladies are really where it’s at, and this look at the post-Comaneci era seems like it will be super fun to read.
The Hopefuls (July 19): As a lobbyist, I’m a sucker for stories set in and around the political sphere. And as a lady four(!!!) days from her wedding, stories about newlyweds have a particular appeal for me right now. Since my fiance and I are both involved in the political scene here in Nevada, I think this book is going to really hit the spot for me.
You Will Know Me (July 26): Remember how I was just talking about how much I like women’s gymnastics? This book is about a family whose daughter is an aspiring Olympic gymnast and whose family is doing everything they can to support her and make her dream happen, but when a fellow young gymnast dies, everything is thrown into turmoil. I can’t wait to read this on a beach somewhere and get sunburned because I’m too focused on it to remember to turn over.
American Heiress (August 2): I’m a big Toobin fan…it was his book about OJ that got adapted into that killer FX miniseries (which I’ve actually not read yet), but I got into him from his Supreme Court writing. I love books about the Court, but this one is another true-crime style nonfiction: about Patty Hearst, whose story I know only the outlines of and I’m really interested to learn more.
Harmony (August 2): This one has a plot that’s a little murkier, but intriguing. It’s about a family whose oldest daughter isn’t neurotypical (maybe on the spectrum, maybe a kind of savant, it’s not clear) and go to a camp in the woods to seek the help of an expert to care for and understand their child. Family drama is territory I reliably find fascinating,
How To Party With An Infant (August 9): I unexpectedly loved Kaui Hart Hemmings’ The Descendants. This novel, about a Bay Area woman who finds out her boyfriend is someone else’s fiance only once she is pregnant with his child and what she does when she finds out a few years later that he wants their daughter to be in the wedding, seems quirky-could-go-ridiculous but I have faith in Hemmings’ skill.
The Underground Railroad (September 13): I’ve heard good things about Colson Whitehead’s previous novel, Zone One, which is sitting on my Kindle waiting to be read. But I’ve heard incredible things about this, his newest, which posits the Underground Railroad as a literal railroad and I expect it to provoke both thoughts and tears.
The Terranauts (October 25): Even if there’s disagreement about cause, I don’t think many people are disputing that climate change is real these days. This book is set in the near-ish future, where people are preparing for the idea that they may not be able to stay on earth and developing a module for colonizing other planets, which is run as half
Solutions and Other Problems (October 25): Just because I read every entry on Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half website doesn’t mean I didn’t buy the book. I get actual crying laughter jags from reading her stuff, and on the flip side, her writing related to her struggles with depression (which I have a history with myself) is so on-point and relatable. I can’t wait to see what her follow-up brings.