Tag: TBR

Top Ten Tuesday: Unread Books On My Summer 2019 TBR

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Top Ten Tuesday new

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 Books On My TBR I’m Avoiding Reading and Why. Now, I don’t have any books in my TBR pile I’m avoiding reading because if I was they’d quickly be ejected from my TBR pile and, ideally, found a new, more appreciative home. However, I do have plenty in my TBR pile still unread. Don’t we all? Therefore I’ve decided to revisit an earlier Top Ten Tuesday topic and see how many of my Summer 2019 TBR I actually read. Don’t hold your breath for the words “All of them”!

Links from the book titles will take you to my review or more information about the book.

  1. A Modern Family by Helga Flatland – ‘a beautiful, bittersweet novel of rich insights and extraordinary perception as a family drama creates a quiet earthquake’  A good start as I read and reviewed this one as part of the blog tour.
  2. The Mathematical Bridge by Jim Kelly – historical crime mystery set in 1940s Cambridge, the follow-up to The Great Darkness. I’ve started this one but I’m only a few chapters in.
  3. Improvement by Joan Silber – ‘a bold and piercing novel about a young single mother living in Harlem, her eccentric aunt, and the decisions they make that have unexpected implications for the world around them’  Hmm, yet to pick this one up
  4. The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle – ‘Delicious but never indulgent, sweet with just the right amount of bitter’  Success! Another one I read and reviewed.
  5. The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey – ‘A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream’ Oh dear, another one still sitting untouched on the bookshelf.
  6. Transcription by Kate Atkinson – ‘a bravura novel of extraordinary power and substance’ And another…
  7. Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce – ‘A disturbing, toxic and compelling novel that explores the power of fear and desire, jealousy and betrayal, love and hate’ And another…you can see the way this is going, can’t you?
  8. In My Life by Alan Johnson – ‘this isn’t just a book about music. In My Life adds a fourth dimension to the story of Alan Johnson the man’ Wait a minute, Cathy’s actually read one of the books on her list? Yep, and reviewed it.
  9. Munich by Robert Harris – September 1938. When the stakes are this high, who are you willing to betray? Your friends, your family, your country or your conscience? Thought it was too good to last. This one’s still waiting patiently as well.
  10. Ponti by Sharlene Teo – ‘A radiant, achingly beautiful novel about relationships between women’ (Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From) And this one, unfortunately. Three out of ten. Bet you can’t wait to see my Autumn 2019 TBR list…

Further Tales From My TBR Pile

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bookshelf
Today I’m once again directing the spotlight on a particular section of my To Be Read Pile – review copies I’ve received from authors.

I’m currently closed to review requests but before I pulled up the drawbridge (so to speak) I’d already amassed quite a few books sent to me for review by authors.  I’ll confess I’ve not made as much progress as I would have liked in reducing my author review pile and some of the books have been languishing there for quite some time.

Therefore, in highlighting a few of the books in my author review pile, I’m hoping to assuage my guilt at the length of time they’ve been there, reassure their lovely authors that I haven’t forgotten my promise to read and review them, and perhaps tempt other readers into adding them to their own TBR piles.

Fred's FuneralFred’s Funeral by Sandy Day

Fred Sadler has just died of old age. It’s 1986, seventy years after he marched off to WWI, and the ghost of Fred Sadler hovers near the ceiling of the nursing home. To Fred’s dismay, the arrangement of his funeral falls to his prudish sister-in-law, Viola. As she dominates the remembrance of Fred, he agonizes over his inability to set the record straight.

Was old Uncle Fred really suffering from shell shock? Why was he locked up most of his life in the Whitby Hospital for the Insane? Could his family not have done more for him?

Fred’s memories of his life as a child, his family’s hotel, the War, and the mental hospital, clash with Viola’s version of events as the family gathers on a rainy October night to pay their respects.

Getting HomeGetting Home by Wolfe Butler

It is happening again. A looming sense of doom coupled with an innate need to run plagues him, a rising darkness he cannot escape. Something is coming for Tom. He doesn’t know what, but the ominous presence is moving closer every day. Nightmares and voices haunt him until nothing in his life feels safe.

Vehement denial and copious amounts of alcohol only delay the approach, but leave Tom with missing time and strained relationships. His respectable family, empathetic girlfriend, and prestigious job—all begin to disintegrate as Tom can only watch, anchorless and increasingly adrift.

At his breaking point, the only certain solution seems to be to end it all, but a lingering instinct dares him to hold on to hope. Can Tom find the road leading to redemption? Or will the truth of the crippling flashbacks drive him to madness?

An Engineered InjusticeAn Engineered Injustice (Philadelphia Legal 2) by William L. Myers, Jr.

What if the deadliest train wreck in the nation’s history was no accident?

When a passenger train derails in North Philadelphia with fatal results, idealistic criminal defense attorney Vaughn Coburn takes on the most personal case of his young career. The surviving engineer is his cousin Eddy, and when Eddy asks Vaughn to defend him, he can’t help but accept. Vaughn has a debt to repay, for he and his cousin share an old secret—one that changed both their lives forever.

As blame for the wreck zeros in on Eddy, Vaughn realizes there’s more to this case than meets the eye. Seeking the truth behind the crash, he finds himself the target of malicious attorneys, corrupt railroad men, and a mob boss whose son perished in the accident and wants nothing less than cold-blooded revenge. With the help of his ex-con private investigator and an old flame who works for the competition, Vaughn struggles to defeat powerful forces—and to escape his own past built on secrets and lies.

Read my review of A Killer’s Alibi (Philadelphia Legal 3) – contains spoilers for Book 2