#TopTenTuesday Books On My Winter 2023-2024 To-Read List #TuesdayBookBlog

Top Ten Tuesday ChristmasTop 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 Books On My Winter 2023-2024 To-Read List. My list is made up of eight books for my personal Backlist Burrow reading challenge that I hope to read by the end of this month (yes, I know, fat chance) and two NetGalley eARCs that publish in January. Links from the titles will take you to the full book description on Goodreads.

  1. The Slowworm’s Song by Andrew Miller – An innocent-looking letter drops on to the doormat in Stephen Rose’s Somerset home like an unexploded bomb. 
  2. Pure by Andrew Miller – Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby.
  3. Back Trouble by Clare Chambers – On the brink of forty, newly single with a failed business, Philip thought he’d reached an all-time low when a topple on a London street lays him literally flat.  
  4. A Dry Spell by Clare Chambers – In 1976, four students took a trip to the desert. Now the repercussions of that fateful summer are coming back to haunt them.
  5. All Day at the Movies by Fiona Kidman – When war widow Irene Sandle goes to work in New Zealand’s tobacco fields in 1952, she hopes to start a new, independent life for herself and her daughter – but the tragic repercussions of her decision will resonate long after Irene has gone.
  6. The Infinite Air by Fiona Kidman – Jean Batten became an international icon in 1930s. A brave, beautiful woman, she made a number of heroic solo flights across the world. The newspapers couldn’t get enough of her.
  7. Himself by Jess Kidd – A charming ne’er-do-well returns to his haunted Irish hometown to uncover the truth about his mother, and turns the town – and his life – upside down.
  8. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler – The 15 stories, all written in the first person, blend Vietnamese folklore, the terrible, lingering memories of war, American pop culture and family drama. 
  9. The Storm We MadeThe Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan (published 4th January by Hodder & Stoughton) Japanese-occupied Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s children are in terrible danger. Her eldest child Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Jasmin, the youngest, lives confined in a basement for her own safety. And her son, Abel, has disappeared without a trace.
  10. Munich WolfMunich Wolf by Rory Clements (published 18th January by Zaffre) – Munich in the 1930s is a magnet for young, rich, aristocratic Brits. They come to learn German, but also to go wild, free at last from the suffocating constraints of strait-laced England. They ski in the Alps, swim in the lakes, drink in the beer cellars and fall for the charms of dashing SS officers. What they don’t see – or choose to ignore – is the cold, brutal, underbelly of the Nazi movement which considers Munich its spiritual home.

What books are you looking forward to reading in the next few months? 

My Week in Books – 10th December 2023

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared My Five Favourite November 2023 Reads

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday was a freebie and I went with Books That Play With Time.   

Wednesday – I published my review of The Binding by Bridget Collins. And 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. 

Friday – I shared my review of The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn.


New arrivals

Birds Without WingsBirds Without Wings by Louis de Bernierès (Vintage)

Set against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, the Gallipoli campaign and the subsequent bitter struggle between Greeks and Turks, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in south-west Anatolia – a town in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully for centuries.

When war is declared and the outside world intrudes, the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres, and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Birds Without Wings is a novel about the personal and political costs of war, and about love: between men and women; between friends; between those who are driven to be enemies; and between Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim the Goatherd, who has courted her since infancy. 

Munich WolfMunich Wolf by Rory Clements (eARC, Zaffre via NetGalley)

Munich in the 1930s is a magnet for young, rich, aristocratic Brits. They come to learn German, but also to go wild, free at last from the suffocating constraints of strait-laced England. They ski in the Alps, swim in the lakes, drink in the beer cellars and fall for the charms of dashing SS officers.

What they don’t see – or choose to ignore – is the cold, brutal, underbelly of the Nazi movement which considers Munich its spiritual home.

But not every German is a Nazi. Murder squad detective Sebastian Wolff is one of those walking a tight line between doing his job and falling foul of the political party he abhors.

When a high-born English girl is murdered, Wolff is ordered to solve the crime. He has a fine record and, importantly, he is fluent in English. But he realises the mission is a poison chalice, for Hitler is taking a personal interest in the case – as is his young English acolyte Miss Unity Mitford.

Wolff is hemmed in on all sides. At work, he is watched closely by the secret police, at home he could be denounced at any moment by his own son, a fervent member of the Hitler Youth.

And when he begins to suspect that the killer might be linked to the highest reaches of the Nazi hierarchy, he fears his task is simply impossible – and that he will become the killer’s next victim.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading


Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
  • Book Review: The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
  • Extract: Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Alice McVeigh