Tag: memes

#TopTenTuesday Books I Was Excited For But Still Haven’t Read #TuesdayBookBlog

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Top Ten Tuesday

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 a throwback to one from 2022 – Books I HAD to Have Immediately but Still Haven’t Read. I thought it would be ‘fun’ to look back at the post I did at the time and see how many of them I’ve read since then and how many still linger unread. Links from the titles will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

  • The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel – Finally read in August 2025
  • Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee – Finally read in July 2025
  • Pompeii by Robert Harris – Purchased in August 2017 and still unread
  • Transcription by Kate Atkinson – Another one finally read in 2025
  • Tombland by C. J. Sansom – Yet another one finally read in 2025. I was obviously on a roll…
  • The Binding by Bridget Collins – I managed to get to this one in 2023
  • The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood – Purchased in August 2019 when it was nominated for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction but still unread
  • The Night Raids by Jim Kelly – Another one I managed to get to in 2023
  • Hammer to Fall by John Lawton – Received via Readers First in March 2020 but still unread
  • Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce – Purchased in July 2020 but still unread

As it turns out there are only four books I still have’t read, although given we’re now four years on I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of. To get to the required ten, I went even further back to a similar post from 2022 featuring books published in 2021 that I hadn’t read at the time. Sad to say these six remain in that state…

Do you have books you can’t believe you haven’t read yet?

#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Yesteryear to The Psychology of Time Travel

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own #6Degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, a book you can’t get away from at the moment if you spend any time on social media. I haven’t read it but I’ve read so much about it I feel I hardly need to, plus I’m pretty sure it will be my book club’s pick at some point. Links from each title will take you to my review.

I could have gone with the time travel element but instead for my first link I’ve picked another book about a wife, The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry. It’s the story of Emma, wife of Thomas Hardy, whose own literary ambitions had to take second place to her husband’s and whose role as his assistant was eventually supplanted by a younger woman.

The wife of another literary figure – Charles Dickens – is the focus of Outside the Magic Circle by Heera Datta. Dickens seperated from his wife Catherine after twenty-two years of marriage but it was she who was shunned by society and left estranged from her ten children whilst he painted himself as the victim.

Dickens is shown in a more positive light in The Household by Stacey Halls, which although fiction is based on historical fact. Along with his friend the wealthy Angela Burdett-Coutts, Dickens did establish a home for ‘fallen’ women, a ‘halfway house between a refuge and a social experiment’, where women “rescued” from jails, hospitals and workhouses were educated, trained for domestic service and sent to start a new life overseas.

Another refuge for those in need features in Sanctuary Motel by Alan Orloff. Kindhearted Mess Hopkins, proprietor of the rather run down Fairfax Manor Inn, throws open its doors to the homeless, victims of abuse, or anyone else in need of a roof over their head. 

The Regent Hotel in Birmingham, the setting of Hokey Pokey by Kate Mascarenhas, may seem the epitome of 1920s glamour and hospitality on the surface but underneath evil stalks its corridors.

Kate Mascarenhas’s previous novel The Psychology of Time Travel starts in 1967 when four female scientists create the world’s first-time machine. They have no idea of its repercussions for themselves or the world.

Oh look, my chain has brought me in a time travelling circle. Who could have seen that coming? Where did your chain take you?