What Cathy Read Next…

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 Top Ten Tuesday topic is Books I Was Super Excited To Get My Hands On But Still Haven’t Read. Oh, the joy of acquiring a book you’ve been eagerly awaiting and then the frustration of not yet having found the time to read it. Repeat, ad infinitum. For the purposes of this post, I’ve excluded ARCs; mine are all books I’ve purchased myself. So read on and find out why I was particularly excited to acquire them. Do not expect me to be able to explain why I’ve not yet read them…

Links from each title will take you to the book description on Goodreads.

1. Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux – Well, it’s by Paul Theroux for a start and it depicts George Orwell’s early years in Burma. I love historical fiction featuring the lives of authors, such as The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry (Thomas Hardy) and The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (Somerset Maugham)
2. James and John: A True Story of Prejudice and Murder by Chris Bryant – Chris Bryant is a politician I admire and this sounds similar to The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed which I loved.
3. Mr Timeless Blyth by Alan Spence – As a lover of historical fiction, I always try to read the books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. This was one of them and, although it didn’t make it to the shortlist, its subject matter – a fictional autobiography of poet, scholar, musician, linguist and student of Zen, Reginald Horace Blyth – intrigues me.
4. The Fraud by Zadie Smith – Another one that made the longlist but not the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize. The author and I have something in common: it’s her first historical novel and it will be the first book of hers I’ve read.
5. Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson – And here’s another that didn’t make the Walter Scott Prize shortlist. It involves the Highland Clearances which was the background to another book I read and loved recently, Clear by Carys Davies.
6. Everything Is Everything by Clive Myrie – My husband and I both admire Clive for his journalism and we also enjoyed his recent TV series describing his travels around Italy. My husband was thrilled to meet Clive at last year’s Henley Literary Festival and have him sign our copy of his book, especially as they have something in common: they’re both married to someone called Catherine. 
7. The Good Liars by Anita Frank – I love hearing authors talk about their books and this one was purchased at an author event hosted by Fourbears Books in Caversham, the closest independent bookshop to where I live. 
8. The Fascination by Essie Fox – The same evening I came home with this lovely thing. ‘Victorian England. A world of rural fairgrounds and glamorous London theatres. A world of dark secrets and deadly obsessions…’ sounds good to me.
9. In Memoriam by Alice Winn – I know, so many people have said, ‘you must read this!’ and I still haven’t found the time. Given all the ecstatic reviews, I’ve no idea why it didn’t make the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize.
10. The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller – There’s a pattern emerging here because I’m pretty sure I acquired this book after hearing the author talk about it at a literary event. Plus I loved her previous book Unsettled Ground. 

What books have you excitedly bought or been given that you still haven’t got around to reading?