#TopTenTuesday ‘Hold the Front Page’ – Books Featuring Newspapers or Journalists #TuesdayBookBlog

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s Ten Tuesday topic is April Showers. I struggled to come up with ideas to fit the topic so I created my own – Books Featuring Newspapers or Journalists. Having said that, I guess reading the news might be something to occupy you when it’s raining. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

  1. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers – When a young woman contacts a local paper claiming her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, feature writer Jean Swinney is sent to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud
  2. A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie – The residents of Chipping Cleghorn are intrigued by an advertisement in the local paper announcing the time and place a murder will occur
  3. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh – A case of mistaken identity transforms William Boot from country columnist into war correspondent
  4. Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce – Emmeline Lake obtains a position as typist to the fierce and renowned advice columnist of the London Evening Chronicle, Henrietta Bird
  5. The Northern Light by A. J. Cronin – Henry Page, owner of The Northern Light, the oldest and most respected newspaper in Tynecastle, is offered a vast sum to turn over control to a mass-circulation group based in London
  6. The Quiet American by Graham Greene – A British journalist in his fifties who has covered the French war in Vietnam for more than two years meets a young American idealist who is an undercover CIA agent
  7. My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isobel Allende – An ambitious young woman lands a position as a journalist for the Daily Examiner and is sent to cover a brewing civil war in Chile
  8. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn – Fresh from a brief stay at a psychiatric hospital, a reporter is sent to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two young girls
  9. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx – A journalist relocates to Newfoundland after a personal tragedy and lands a position on a small town paper
  10. The Gap in the Curtain by John Buchan – Guests at a country house party are enabled by an eccentric scientist to see a glimpse of an issue of The Times newspaper dated a year hence

What other books have you read that involve newspapers or journalism?

My Week in Books – 19th April 2026

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On the blog last week

Monday – I published my review of Love Lane by Patrick Gale and a Q&A with Luna Westish, author of Meet Me at the Ruins. I also shared my Top 3 March 2026 Reads.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books Titles That Describe Me. And I shared an extract from The Oxford Affair by Lynne Kaufman.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.

Thursday – I celebrated the announcement of the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026.

Friday – I published an excerpt from The Unforgettable Mailman by April Howells.

Saturday – I joined other gardeners for the #SixonSaturday meme, sharing six things happening in my garden this week.

Sunday – I concluded a busy blogging week with my review of Thunderball by Ian Fleming for the #1961Club.

New on my shelves

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne (Doubleday via NetGalley)

When the Marquis of Queensbury left his calling card at the Albemarle Club in February 1895, it bore only his name and five words: ‘For Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite’. The most feted playwright of his day famously sued for libel, which led to his arrest, criminal prosecution and ultimately prison. From then on, his gilded existence spiralled into public disgrace, humiliation and an early death.

But what if he had simply ignored the insult? What direction might his life have taken? This is the premise of John Boyne’s extraordinary new novel, The Weight of Angels.

Rather than dying in penury in Paris at the age of forty-six, what if he had lived to bear witness to the momentous events and cataclysmic changes of the first part of the twentieth century, and even influence some of them? What if the second half of his life were as celebrated, dramatic, tumultuous and exhilarating as the first?

In imagining the life that Oscar Wilde never had, John Boyne has written one of the great what-if stories of modern literature, giving the great Anglo-Irish poet and playwright a fresh new voice and the opportunity to take an entirely different path.

Miss Veal and Miss Ham by Vikki Heywood (Muswell Press)

It is 1951 and behind the counter of a modest post office in a leafy Buckinghamshire village Miss Dora Ham and Miss Beatrix Veal maintain their careful facade as respected local spinsters. But their true story is one of passion: suffragist activists who fell in love in the 1900s, danced in London’s secret gay clubs between the wars, and comforted one another during the first night of the Blitz. Together they have built a life of quiet dignity and service in rural England.

But now the harsh realities of the post-war world are encroaching as over the course of one pivotal day their carefully constructed world begins to fracture, forcing Miss Veal and Mis Ham to face heart-breaking decisions.

Farewell to Eden by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson Heinemann via NetGalley)

Philip Deval, a soldier recently returned from the beaches of Normandy, arrives in Palestine on a peace-keeping mission in the final days of the British Mandate. The Sea of Galilee glitters in the distance as war-weary troops marvel at the novelty of oranges and sun – a paradise that belies a fierce new conflict about to erupt.

Some years later, Philip begins work teaching at a school in the English countryside and meets the enigmatic music mistress, Frances Darwood. Over long evenings spent listening to records in her music room, they grow close. But Philip is a changed man, and must confront the secrets and scars of all he has lived through – which threaten, even now, to upend his future.

What I’m currently reading

I’m reading Paper Sisters, Dark is the Morning from my NetGalley shelf and All Cats Are Grey for the blog tour.

Look out for…

  • Book Review: A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia
  • Book Review: A Far-Flung Life by M. L. Stedman
  • Book Review: All Cats Are Grey by Susan Barrett