The Terror of Knowing

Welcome one and all to this week’s Top 5 Wednesday post! For those of you who don’t know Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme/challenge which was created by the wonderful Lainey from gingerreadslainey and is now overseen by the equally lovely Sam from Thoughts on Tomes. Every Wednesday, participants devise their Top 5 based on a given topic.

This Wednesday’s topic is 10th January: Top 5 Books You Didn’t Get To In 2017. It’s pretty self-explanatory – this is the top 5 books that I didn’t manage to get to last year and that I want to prioritise this year. I am the queen of putting off reading books, especially sequels in a series that I never want to end, so this list was pretty easy to write since I never get to the books I mean to. Without further ado, let’s see the books…

5. How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb

I’m not a big fan of Robert Webb. I’m not not a fan of Robert Webb. I’m mostly neutral. I’ve never been hugely into Peep Show but I’d also never turn it off on TV so I’ve seen episodes here and there. But aside from Peep Show, I know precisely zero about Robert Webb. And yet I bought this book because I hear some very promising buzz about it on Twitter just before it was released. As you can guess from the title, it deals with gender and expectations and, especially (I think), about how we tell boys to be boys (and, I assume, girls to be girls) and how that’s damaging to our children. I’m looking forward to it having heard from reliable sources that it is, in fact, ‘one of the good ones’ when it comes to books about gender. I have this on audiobook and in hardback form so hopefully that will work in its favour.

4. The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman

Unsurprisingly, I love Neil Gaiman, in fact The Graveyard Book is probably one of my favourite books of all-time. But I’m yet to read any of his short stories or non-fiction. In particular, I haven’t read his essay collection The View from the Cheap Seats which I bought on its publication day and yet still haven’t picked up, aside from a quick glance through the contents page and then a skim read of the ‘Make Good Art’ commencement speech. Recently in the middle of a twitter chat, I saw someone mention that they were reading (or, rather, listening to) this book and it reminded me all over again that I had really wanted to try out some of Gaiman’s non-fiction writing. (Yep, it’s that easy.) Even though I own the hardback, I may very well have to waste a credit on Audible to buy the audiobook because Neil Gaiman’s voice is A++++

3. The Winner’s Crime/The Winner’s Kiss by Marie Rutkoski

Back in April 2016 I read The Winner’s Curse and enjoyed it enough to buy its sequels, The Winner’s Crime and The Winner’s Kiss and complete the trilogy. Or at least “complete it” in the sense of having all the pretty books lined up nice and neatly on my shelf. And then that trilogy sat on said shelf for months upon months and I didn’t even so much as consider opening them to read them. Late last year, I realised this grave error and decided to re-read The Winner’s Curse to refresh my memory of it (which was proved necessary), with the intention of ten continuing on with the trilogy. 2018 is the year I’m finally going to complete the series I’ve been meaning to, I mean it. Of course, Anna from Reader and Proud’s Series to Finish 2018 project is helping to motivate me to actually do this.

2. The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo

If you’ve been here for more than, say, five minutes, you’ll be aware of my utter love for The Grisha trilogy and the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo. The Grishaverse is very much my jam so obviously I need to read every single thing relating to it that I can get my grubby little hands on, especially whilst waiting for King of Scars which has the distant future sounding release date of ‘Winter 2019’. I need to know what happened post-Grisha trilogy, need I tell you – oh Nikolai, be still my beating heart! – but in the meantime I will undoubtedly placate myself by re-reading Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising, Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom… may as well add The Language of Thorns to that number too. In fact, I can’t believe I haven’t already read this yet… what gives, past Emma?!?

1. The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

So The Raven King was released in April 2016 and, of course, I fully intended to read it as soon as it was released because I was so ready for it… and then… I didn’t. So, naturally, this went onto my unofficial ‘definitely must read!!’ list for 2017. Can you guess what comes next? Yes, it’s 2018 and I still haven’t read it. I don’t even know how that happened, much less how I have managed to stay pretty much spoiler-free for a highly anticipated book that was released almost two years ago. In the YA book blogging community that’s like a century. The problem is that the entire reason I haven’t picked this up yet, I think, is because on some level I just don’t want it to be over, so I keep putting off reading this final book. Denial, thy name is Emma. But 2018 must be the year I finally accept that it’s over (for now) and just read this book already! Wish me luck?

That’s all for now folks – those were my Top 5 books that I didn’t get to in 2017 but that I really want to prioritise in 2018! Have you read/enjoyed any of them?
What are the books you didn’t get to last year that you want to prioritise in 2018?
Be sure to link me to your Top 5 Wednesday post if you have one- I’d love to read it!

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