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 topic is Indie/Self-Published Books, a topic suggested by Nicole at BookWyrm Knits. My list is made up of books from three of my favourite independent publishers. If you have time, do browse their websites and view their full catalogue. Links from the book titles will take you to my full review. My thanks to the publishers for providing me with review copies.
- El Hacho by Luis Carrasco – Set in the stark beauty of the Andalusian mountains, it tells the story of Curro, an olive farmer determined to honour his family tradition in the face of drought, deluge and the lucrative temptations of a rapidly modernising Spain.
- Seek the Singing Fish by Roma Wells – Growing up in the lagoon town of Batticaloa, a young girl, with an unquenchable curiosity and love of the natural world, is entangled in the trauma and turmoil of the Sri Lankan civil war.
- Three Gifts by Mark A. Radcliffe – If you could save the life of a loved one by trading in years of your own life, how many years would you give? How many lives could you save? Would you know when to stop?
- Lean on Me by Serge Joncour, trans. by Jane Aitken & Louise Rogers Lalaurie – the unlikely love story of two lonely people in present-day Paris
- The Bone Flower by Charles Lambert – A deliciously Gothic ghost story in which the wrongs of the past are not easily forgotten, and the boundary between the living and the dead begins to thin…
- Devils and Saints by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, trans. by Sam Taylor – A teenage boy sent to a religious orphanage plots his escape from his cruel and unforgiving reality.
- Little by Edward Carey – Based on the incredible life story of the world’s most famous wax sculptor, Marie Tussaud.
- Blitz Writing: Night Shift & It Was Different at the Time by Inez Holden – Emerging out of the 1940–1941 London Blitz, these two short works – a novel and a memoir – depict the courage and endurance of ordinary people in the factories, streets and lodging houses of a city under bombardment.
- Jane’s Country Year by Malcom Saville – A classic novel from 1946 about eleven-year old Jane’s discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle’s farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London.
- Latchkey Ladies by Marjorie Grant – First published in 1921, a novel about the lives and choices of four women determined to use their new freedoms, and treading a fine line between independence and disaster.
This week’s topic is a Top Ten Tuesday Rewind. In other words, pick a previous topic you missed or would like to do again. I’ve gone for one from March 2020 – One Word Book Titles – but I’ve given it a twist by choosing only books nominated for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Links from the titles will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.
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