#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? 

#WWWWednesday – 6th December 2023

WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!


Currently reading

A book from my TBR pile and for my personal Backlist Burrow reading challenge.

The Leftover WomanThe Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok (Viper)

Yasmine Yang thought her daughter was dead at birth. But five years after she was taken from her arms, she learns that her controlling husband sent the baby to America to be adopted, a casualty of China’s one-child-policy. Fleeing her rural Chinese village, Jasmine arrives in New York City with nothing except a desperate need to find her daughter. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly risky decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her child.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Whitney seems to have it a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardise not only Rebecca’s job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble.

Two women in a divided city, separated by wealth and culture, yet bound together by their love for the same child. And when they finally meet, their lives will never be the same again…

The Heart's Invisible FuriesThe Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne (Transworld)

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery. At least, that’s what his parents make sure to remind him. Adopted as a baby, he feels more and more disconnected with the family that treats him more as a curious pet, rather than a beloved son.

So, as a young adult, Cyril decides to embark on a quest to find his place in the world. Sometimes misguided and often in the wrong place at the wrong time, life has dealt him a difficult hand but Cyril is resolute that he can change things, and find the courage to be himself.

And in doing so, his story will come across that of Catherine Goggin, a young, pregnant woman finding herself alone and isolated at only sixteen. There is a place in the world for both of them, and Cyril is determined to find it.


Recently finished

The Binding by Bridget Collins (The Borough Press)

The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn (Orion)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

Perfume RiverPerfume River by Robert Olen Butler (No Exit)

Robert Quinlan and his wife Darla teach at Florida State University. Their marriage, forged in the fervor of anti-Vietnam-war protests, now bears the fractures of time, with the couple trapped in an existence of morning coffee and solitary jogging and separate offices. For Robert and Darla, the cracks remain below the surface, whereas the divisions in Robert’s own family are more apparent: he has almost no relationship with his brother Jimmy, who became estranged from the family as the Vietnam War intensified.

William Quinlan, Robert and Jimmy’s father, a veteran of World War II, is coming to the end of his life, and aftershocks of war ripple across all their lives once again when Jimmy refuses to appear at his father’s bedside.

And a disturbed homeless man whom Robert at first takes to be a fellow Vietnam veteran turns out to have a devastating impact not just on Robert, but on his entire family.