top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday | Books on my Spring TBR

Emma15 Comments

Welcome one, welcome all, to Top Ten Tuesday! For those who are unaware (or who might need a reminder) Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and is now hosted fantastically by Jana from That Artsy Girl! Each week a topic is chosen for bloggers to respond to.

This week’s topic is Books On My Spring TBR. This topic is extremely timely as it’s the first day of Spring (allegedly) and the weather has seemed a little brighter and sunnier, even if the bitterly cold winds haven’t completely disappeared. Still, the weather is definitely trying to shake off the wintry weather we’ve been having lately so I’m now looking forwards to Spring and all the books I am planning to read in this transitional period as Winter slowly lets go. Let’s take a look at the top ten books I’ve put on my Spring TBR…

10. The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman

Can you believe I still haven’t read this non-fiction essay collection despite the fact I love Neil Gaiman and I’ve had this for months because I pre-ordered it? No, I can’t quite believe it either, I need to pull my socks up! This is a hefty hardback too, which is possibly why I’ve been able to make excuses for so long because there’s no way I could carry this to/from work for the sake of reading it on my commute. And although I don’t read that much non-fiction, I am trying to be better about it, so I should really try to get to this once and for all.

9. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

This book has been EVERYWHERE as of late – and rightly so. I waited for this to be released in paperback before picking it up recently and I’m really looking forward to reading it. Like, I think a lot of people, I can be guilty of thinking of black history as rooted in the American experience which is ridiculous given that I live in the UK. This has been blurbed by Nikesh Shukla who put together The Good Immigrant collection which I very much appreciated (“enjoyed” seems an odd word to use) so I really ought to have picked this up already as it promises to be “a powerful and provocative argument on the role that race and racism play in modern Britain”.

8. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

Next up on my list we have a book that I definitely should have already finished because I was lucky enough to get an eARC through NetGalley and it was released early in March, and yet I haven’t read/reviewed it yet because I am a terrible person. Late last year, Stephanie from Adventures of a Bibliophile gave this a rave review and it put the book on my radar – a quick request on NetGalley and I thankfully had a copy. But I’ve yet to read it, despite all these things working in its favour, I really need to fix that.

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Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Could Re-read Forever

Emma15 Comments

Welcome one, welcome all, to Top Ten Tuesday! For those who are unaware (or who might need a reminder) Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and is now hosted fantastically by Jana from That Artsy Girl! Each week a topic is chosen for bloggers to respond to.

This week’s topic is Books I Could Re-read Forever which is a pretty simple topic and requires little to no explanation, excepting this: I am a serial re-reader who is trying to be much better this year about not just re-reading previous favourites and forgetting about the potential in new releases. I’ve implemented a project called the Bookish Savings Jar to help me (/fine me) and everything! Because of this, there are SO MANY books I am dying to re-read right now but I’m really trying to hold off and read some new-to-me novels instead, so this Top Ten Tuesday post has come at exactly the right time to help me blow off some steam! I’ve purposely forced myself to sit down and, in one go, list ten books I’d re-read forever if given the chance, and I’m not allowing myself to change the titles listed after the fact because I think, if they immediately spring to mind, that says a lot. So let’s take a look at the books I could (quite literally, if given the chance) re-read forever…

10. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Not a single one of these characters is likeable in the traditional sense – they’re uppity, condescending, patronising, in equal measure – but I love them all the same. This is the kind of book I never plan to re-read, I always just find myself randomly picking it up and reading the first few pages and before I know it I’ve embarked on a full-scale reread. It has a compelling quality though so I find it pretty damn impossible to put down once I have picked it up.

9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca is one of my favourite books so it’s really no surprise that I can re-read it forever, if given the chance. It’s a book that has so many layers to it, that I’m sure during re-reads for years to come, I will notice things I didn’t notice previously, and I will never not enjoy the book so this is going to be a firm re-read for many years.

8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

As I type this I have just bought an audiobook version of Pride and Prejudice so that I have yet another means through which to re-read (/re-experience) this story and these characters. I love Pride and Prejudice and whilst Persuasion might technically be my favourite Austen, it’s not exactly the most cheery, so I tend to re-read Austen’s most famous book most frequently. I’m not mad about that, it’s become nostalgia by this point to sink into the book and the lives of the Bennet family.

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Top Ten Tuesday | Kindle Books That Have Been On My TBR the Longest

Emma10 Comments

Welcome one, welcome all, to Top Ten Tuesday! For those who are unaware (or who might need a reminder) Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and is now hosted fantastically by Jana from That Artsy Girl! Each week a topic is chosen for bloggers to respond to.

This week’s topic is Books That Have Been On My TBR the Longest (and I Still Haven’t Read!) Now, because this is practically the story of my (reading) life I’ve actually done this topic previously and the answers still remain pretty much the same, with the exception of Madame Bovary which I have now read (go me!). But I do really like this week’s topic so, inspired by Kelly over at Kelly’s Rambles’ post about the books that have been on her Kindle the longest, I decided to take a leaf out of her book and check out my Kindle collection for the books I bought a long time ago and still haven’t read. I have a tendency to forget ebooks and my Kindle exist at times so this should be fun…

A small caveat: I probably won’t include all the classics I enthusiastically downloaded when I first got my Kindle – since they were free, I just went crazy with the downloading of things I’ll never in a million years actually read. We’ve all done it, let’s not mention it again and move on.

10. Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse by David Mitchell

I enjoy David Mitchell’s comedy and his writing… that’s probably about as far as the thought process went when I bought this. It’s likely that it was also cheap, because I’m a sucker for ebooks priced under £2 and can’t help myself – I get ridiculous ‘gotta catch ’em all!’ urges when books are so cheap. If I’m presuming correctly, this is a bit like the Charlie Brooker books I own where they’re essentially compendiums of previous columns from the newspaper, and I like the short format so I’m sure that eventually I’ll dip in and out of this when I’m in need of a laugh… hopefully anyway!

9. The One You Really Want by Jill Mansell

This one isn’t even on my Goodreads TBR shelf… so that should say something about how impulsive of a buy this was and how the rapidly closing window of opportunity (read: desire) to read this has definitely slammed shut. But I own it and it’s on my Kindle so it’s kind of hard to delete it entirely but I’ll likely never get around to this unless I’m stuck on holiday somewhere and I’ve read all the other books on my Kindle already.

8. Brilliance by Marcus Sakey

As far as I know this is a sci-fi thriller book and that’s pretty much all I know. It isn’t on my Goodreads TBR shelf so, much like the Jill Mansell book above, it’s hard to imagine that I actually still possess a desire to read this. I think I bought it because it was cheap and Regan from Perusse Project had hauled it… but then she didn’t rate it highly so I likely forgot about it completely. So it goes…

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Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Hope Santa Brings

Emma8 Comments

Welcome one, welcome all, to this rare appearance of Top Ten Tuesday! To say I’ve been somewhat lax about participating in TTT would be a generous way of putting it… the last TTT I did was Best Books You’ve Read in 2017 So Far which was aaaall the way back in June so, yeah, it’s been… a while.

(“How long have you been seventeen?” “A while…” Anyone find remembering that Twilight scene as funny as I did just now? Nope? Ok, moving on…)

For those who are unaware (or who might need a reminder) Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and each week they post a topic for bloggers to respond to. This week’s topic is festive-themed and it’s Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings! (Obviously, substitute your holiday of choice if Santa is not your bag.)

For the past few Christmases, me and my parents have come to an understanding that, since they rarely keep up with my reading enough to know what books I’m wishing for at any given moment, they will give me some money to buy myself books from them for Christmas and they get them delivered to home and wrap them up and everything and then I obviously do a whole bit on Christmas morning like ‘omg what could this possibly be?’ for the obviously book-shaped presents. It has become something of a tradition. All of this is to say that I am quite assured that I will actually be receiving some of these books, providing Santa doesn’t decide I’ve been a naughty girl and take them all away! Other ones were on my gift wishlist so if Santa doesn’t miraculously bring them then I’ll definitely be treating myself to them after Christmas!

 

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Top Ten Tuesday | Best Books I’ve Read in 2017 (So Far)

Emma10 Comments

Well, we’ve reached the midpoint of the year which means it’s time to take a cursory look back at how our reading has been going so far. All in all, I’m having a great year of reading – I’m getting in some re-reads, rediscovering my love for some of my previous favourites (see: Sabriel by Garth Nix), catching up with series, and all this whilst enjoying some newer (or new to me at least) books. I can’t complain! So this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is downright perfect, it’s: Best Books You’ve Read in 2017 So Far. (Side note: I like the use of the “so far”, it leaves some room for the remaining months of the year!) And, for those who are unaware Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and each week they post a topic for bloggers to respond to.

You may be thinking ‘But Emma, it’s not Tuesday, is it? I could have sworn it was Wednesday today.’ Well, friends, you’d be right – I just completely forgot to upload this post yesterday and it would be a shame if the lovely books missed out on their brief moment in the sun just because of my own ineptitude. So, I hope you’ll forgive the belated nature of this Top Ten Tuesday post – I mean what even are days, really, but constructs? It’s all just timey wimey wibbly wobbly stuff.

But, anyways, in compiling this list I’ve tried not to include any re-reads, simply because otherwise I could never have whittled this list down to only 10 titles. So it’s out of necessity that I’ve not given a proper place on this list to the likes of Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen, The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – but consider them firm favourites all the same! I also have a couple of honourable mentions because I’ve read a lot of really good things and I’m incapable of sticking to a ‘just pick 10’ format apparently. Let’s just get on with it…

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Top Ten Tuesday | Series I’ve Been Meaning to Start

Emma8 Comments

It’s been a wee while since I participated in Top Ten Tuesday due to committing to another blogging schedule (ha, what a fancy word!) but the topic this week has been on my mind for the past few weeks so it seemed downright fortuitous.

But, first things first, for those who are unaware Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and each week they post a topic for bloggers to respond to. This week’s topic is Top Ten Series I’ve Been Meaning to Start. Now, I’m a fiend for starting series, reading the first book, getting super excited about the sequel(s), and then putting off reading the subsequent books for so long that I forget what has happened and I need to re-read and basically start from scratch. This won’t be a list of those kinds of series because there are far too many (though I might just do a spin-off post of those ones)… these will be series that I haven’t started at all, haven’t read a single page of I swear (cross my heart and hope to die). Finally, these are in no particular order or ranking other than how my mind works – just don’t question it, it’s for the best!

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Top Ten Tuesday | Books on my Spring TBR

EmmaLeave a comment

toptentuesdayIt’s yet another Tuesday, so that means another Top Ten Tuesday! For those who don’t know, Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and each week they post a topic for bloggers to respond to.

This week’s topic is Top Ten Books On My Spring TBR. I do love a good TBR – it’s all about those good intentions, isn’t it?

There have been various series with new books released at the start of this year that I haven’t yet gotten around to but that I am SO ready for, especially now I’ve re-read/am in the process of re-reading the books that preceded them. There are also a couple of new shiny shiny books that apparently are the start of new series which is also really exciting… even though my bank balance cries a little in anticipation of that. Let’s just focus on the books… here is my Spring TBR

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Top Ten Tuesday | All About The Visuals

Emma1 Comment

toptentuesdayIt’s yet another Tuesday, so that means another Top Ten Tuesday! For those who don’t know, Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and each week they post a topic for bloggers to respond to.

This week’s topic is All about the visuals: Top Ten Favorite Graphic Novels/Comics or Ten Comics on My TBR or Top Ten Favorite Picture Books. Now, before booktube and book blogging, graphic novels didn’t even enter onto my radar. I’d vaguely read a couple of Simpsons comics at some point in my life, and a school friend had tried to get me to read manga, but it was never something I reached for, or even knew anything about.

Reading blogs and watching videos has made me a little more aware of what is out there in the graphic novel and comic book genre but it’s still not something I’d consider myself well versed in. However, I have started reading a few examples that I adored so I thought this week could be essentially two Top Fives for the price of one – the first my Top 5 Graphic Novels and the second my Top 5 Graphic Novels on my TBR that I really want to read in the future.

Without further ado, let’s see the graphic novels…

TOP FIVE GRAPHIC NOVELS

5. The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Less of a graphic novel, more of a picture book, The Arrival features absolutely no dialogue but tonnes of stunning art. I adored the art style of this book and if I hadn’t borrowed it from the library I definitely would have been tempted to tear out some of the pages and frame them on my wall. Seriously, they’re that stunning.

4. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

This is beautiful. I’m sure I’m about to say that for all of these graphic novels but it’s really true for Hugo Cabret. I’m a sucker for anything involving clockwork or mechanisms and this had that in droves as well as a lovely black-and-white style colour scheme. It completely fits with the story it is telling and I loved it.

3. Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory

This always reminded me of Pushing Daises, except grosser and less quirky. The concept and its art style is equally parts disgusting and awesome. Tony Chu is a police detective cibopath which means when he tastes something he can sort of “see” its history i.e. if he bit a corpse he’d be able to see what happened to the person to kill them.

2. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

I basically looked into this graphic novel because it seemed cute and quirky and the art style was used for the cover of Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, all of which seemed like plenty enough reasons to check it out. It has all sorts of wonderful fantasy and sci-fi tropes mashed together in a hilarious way and I really thoroughly enjoyed my time reading it.

1. Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Ok, I’ve only read the first three volumes so far… but I think it’s safe to say that nothing could happen in the three I have left to read to be caught up that could make me suddenly start hating the series. I didn’t think I was really into sci-fi that much, let alone space opera, and then I read this, and it’s just so wonderful and everything that I do love about that branch of sci-fi. Epic, weird, and wonderful seems to just about sum up Saga. 

TOP 5 GRAPHIC NOVELS ON MY TBR

5. Blankets by Craig Thompson

I believe this is an autobiographical graphic novel and I have next to no clue what it is about… truthfully? I just think its cover is beautiful. I haven’t really read many picture books or graphic novels that are strictly autobiographical (I think Maus is literally the only other one) so it will be interested to see that explored in that format too.

4. Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky

I’m intrigued by the concept and if you don’t know it then let me break it down for you – two people discover that they both have this power where when they orgasm, time stops, so naturally they team up and use their power to rob a bank. Obv. I’m not entirely sure if the art style is for me but, hey, I’m intrigued enough by where they go with the concept.

3. The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg

Yet another example of a graphic novel that I know little about but I know that I really like the art style so obviously I would like to own it and read it and stare at it over and over again. All I can assume is this tells the tale (or tales maybe?) of an early civilisation on Earth? I presume, I mean, it’s not a really ridiculous gamble of a guess but all I know is that art is really cute and I need it.

2. East of West by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta

Whenever I see reviews of this on Booktube, it seems to have quite mixed reviews, in part because it’s apparently a bit complicated to follow?? I don’t know, I’m not sure. But what I do know about it is that it’s a sci-fi Western set in a dystopian United States that is “present day” and… well, that’s enough to make me curious. I hear tell it has something to do with the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse and I love crap like that (see also: Good Omens) so I need to read this one day.

1. The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil by Stephen Collins

Every time I go into Waterstones, I head to the graphic novel section and I take this book out and just have a good stare at it for a little while. (Liz can definitely attest to this fact; I’ve shown her it multiple times.) If nothing else, I need to finally read this so that I stop doing that. This seems, on the surface, to be a fairly basic exploration of ‘us vs them’ mentality, though I have heard that it actually ends up being wonderfully profound and relevant to a lot of the conflict that is going on around the world right now. I’m intrigued to find out if that’s true.

Well, that’s all folks – that was my Top Ten (kind of) Graphic Novels.
Are you a big graphic novel or comics fan?
Is it a format you reach for or not so much?
Let me know in the comments and if you have your own Top Ten Tuesday please do feel free to link it below!

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Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Loved But Never Reviewed

Emma2 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a Freebie week! I thought I would take this opportunity to revisit one of the Top Ten Tuesday topics I never did because uh it was 2011 and I didn’t know Top Ten Tuesdays was a thing then. So this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, for me, is all about my Top Ten Books I Loved But Never Reviewed.

Now, there are a variety of reasons why I might not review a book – if I don’t have anything more to say than has already been said the world over, if I don’t feel inspired enough to write a review, if I’m feeling super lazy, or if the book is just so.damn.good. that I couldn’t even begin to do it justice in my review. That last reason applies to all of the books I’m about to mention but, regardless, I still truly regret never having reviewed these books because I loved every single one of them. This post goes some way to righting this wrong – for every book I mention, I’ll do my best to do a mini review/gush/why-you-should-definitely-stop-reading-this-post-and-go-read-the-book-instead. Everyone understand? Ok, good, enough of me babbling and onto the books I loved but never reviewed, because I’m dumb.

10. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I studied this book in my postgrad Posthumanism class and I didn’t hate it at the end of analysing it to death in an essay so, hey, you know it’s good stuff. I could say a bunch of things about it but basically, if you like dystopia, you need to read this. It takes place in a future, allegedly utopian society featuring genetic engineering, sexual freedom, and liberal drug policies, all of which make its citizens very happy… and very easy to manipulate.

9. The Arrival by Shaun Tan

I constantly struggle to review graphic novels because the whole beauty of the graphic novel is in the artwork, not necessarily the words. And The Arrival has no words, no dialogue, no captions, and yet it manages to convey an absolutely amazing story about immigrant experience. The world is whimsical and mystical and almost dream-like, but it also portrays the gritty reality of life as an immigrant, isolated from faraway family and friends in a new country. The artistry, though, is the real MVP so, in lieu of a review, I should just show you the artwork because it’s stunningly gorgeous. I mean…

the-arrival2

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Top Ten Tuesday | 2016 Releases I Didn’t Get To

Emma7 Comments

toptentuesdayIt’s yet another Tuesday, so that means another Top Ten Tuesday. For those who don’t know, Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and each week they post a topic for bloggers to respond to.

This week’s theme is Top Ten 2016 Released I Didn’t Get To. It’s safe to say I get very excited anticipating and pre-ordering new releases, but it can often be weeks or months until I get round to reading them. Often, I’m hesitant to get to them in case they prove to be disappointing in some way, meaning all my excited anticipation was for nothing special. I know this is a silly mindset to have because, at that rate, I’d never read any books ever for fear of them being not as good as I’d anticipated! However, last year I was particularly susceptible to this mindset, as well as not being up-to-date enough with books series to read the latest released book. The list below is a mixed back along those lines, so let’s just get to it…

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