#TopTenTuesday “Yum, Yum” – Books Involving Food #TuesdayBookBlog

whatcathyreadnext15 Comments

Top Ten TuesdayTop 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 Top Ten Tuesday topic is Books Involving Food (That Are Not Cookbooks), a suggestion of myself and blogger Hopewell’s Library of Life. Links from each title will take you to my review.

  1. Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson – young Pumkin Patterson finds comfort in creating Jamaican bread puddings and coconut drops
  2. Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford – Jennifer Quinn wins a spot as a contestant on a primetime TV baking show
  3. The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey – carpenter Geppetto (of Pinocchio fame) finds himself in the belly of a huge whale
  4. The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs – the fictionalised story of Eliza Acton, the woman who broke the mould of traditional cookbooks 
  5. A Ration Book Daughter by Jean Fullerton – featuring wartime food under rationing and traditional East End fare such as pie and mash, and jellied eels 
  6. Green Hands by Barbara Whitton – a insight into life as a member of the Women’s Land Army producing food vital to the war effort
  7. Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees – recruited to root out Nazis trying to escape prosecution, Edith sends coded messages back to the UK hidden inside innocuous recipes
  8. The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle – Sabrina arrives at her 30th birthday dinner to find at the table her best friend, three significant people from her past . . .  and Audrey Hepburn 
  9. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood – Marian’s dilemma about her future prompts some very rebellious behaviour by her stomach
  10. Feast of Sorrow by Crystal King – Roman gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius sets about achieving his ambition to serve as culinary advisor to the Emperor Tiberius

20 Books Of Summer 2024 Wrap Up #20booksofsummer24

whatcathyreadnext10 Comments

20-books-of-summerThis annual challenge run by my namesake Cathy at 746 Books is over for another year. It has a simple objective: pick 10, 15 or 20 books you’d like to read during the period of the challenge: 1st June to 1st September.

Once again, I aimed for the full 20 books. So, how did I get on?

Version 1 – I failed. I read only eight books from my list, stubbornly refusing to make use of the option to swap books in/out of my list during the period of the challenge. I am part way through another two though. The other ten? Let’s all meet again next year…

  1. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz –  Read
  2. Transcription by Kate Atkinson
  3. The Draughtsman by Robert Lautner
  4. The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark
  5. Appetite by Philip Kazan
  6. Anna of Kleve by Alison Weir
  7. Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce
  8. Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts – Read
  9. The Cross and the Curse by Matthew Harffy
  10. Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
  11. The Second Sleep by Robert Harris
  12. To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek – Currently reading 
  13. Tidelands by Philippa Gregory
  14. A Place Without Pain by Simon Bourke – Currently reading 
  15. In the Garden of Sorrows by Karen Jewell  – Read
  16. French Windows by Antoine Laurain  – Read
  17. Alvesdon by James Holland – Read
  18. Dark Frontier by Matthew Harffy – Read
  19. The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite – Read
  20. Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan – Read

Version 2 – I succeeded. I read 22 books during the period of the challenge. Only eight were on my original list but who cares?

  1. The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear
  2. French Windows by Antoine Laurain
  3. The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
  4. Alvesdon by James Holland
  5. A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray
  6. The Days of Our Birth by Charlie Laidlaw
  7. The Housekeepers by Alex Hay
  8. In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler
  9. Dead Ground by Graham Hurley
  10. Dark Frontier by Matthew Harffy
  11. The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite
  12. In the Garden of Sorrows by Karen Jewell
  13. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
  14. The Trap by Ava Glass
  15. West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman
  16. normal rules don’t apply by Kate Atkinson
  17. Cabaret Macabre by Tom Mead
  18. Berlin Duet by S. W. Perry
  19. Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan
  20. The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

If you took part, how did you get on?