Tag: toptentuesday

#TopTenTuesday Revisiting My Winter 2025-2026 To-Read List #TuesdayBookBlog

whatcathyreadnext14 Comments

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 Authors You Wish Were Still Writing Today. It’s an excellent idea for a topic but I spent far too much time trying to come up with something so I decided to revisit an earlier topic – Books On My Winter 2025-2026 To-Read List. Did I read any of the ten books I said I wanted to by the end of February? Let’s find out…

  1. Helm by Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber) Read & reviewed
  2. A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (Riverrun) Read & reviewed
  3. Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor (Picador) Read & reviewed
  4. Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Polygon) Read & reviewed
  5. Room 706 by Ellie Levenson (Headline Review) – Read & reviewed (on Goodreads only)
  6. Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World by Parmy Olson (Macmillan) Read & reviewed
  7. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Macmillan) Read & reviewed
  8. Female, Nude by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (Tinder Press) No longer on TBR
  9. The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall (The Borough Press) Read & reviewed
  10. Julia Sleeps by Zoe Caryl (Self-published) Read & reviewed

Well I think this proves I like to create a reading list, generally stick to it and will never be admitted to the ‘mood reader’ or ‘Don’t know what to read next’ club.

#TopTenTuesday Fictional Housekeepers #TuesdayBookBlog

whatcathyreadnext22 Comments

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 a freebie so we’re invited to come up with our own topic. I’ve chosen Fictional Housekeepers. Links will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – Featuring probably the most memorable housekeeper in literature, the creepy Mrs. Danvers
The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain (published in September) – ‘Daphne du Maurier stole my life.’ A fictional take on the inspiration for Rebecca
Mrs Hudson and the Capricorn Incident by Martin Davies – Sherlock Holmes’ housekeeper turns detective herself
The Housekeepers by Alex Hay – Housekeeper Mrs King is suddenly dismissed from her post and plots her revenge in the form of the heist of the century
Mrs Finnegan’s Guide to Love, Life & Laxatives by Bridget Whelan –  Mrs. Finnegan, doyenne of housekeepers, dispenses practical advice and words of wisdom
Thunderball by Ian Fleming – One of the few appearances by May Maxwell, James Bond’s Scottish housekeeper
The Household by Stacey Halls – Housekeeper Mrs Holdsworth presides over Urania Cottage, a refuge for ‘fallen’ women one of whose benefactors is Charles Dickens
The Well of Saint Nobody by Neil Jordan – A young woman answers a job advertisement – ‘WANTED. HOUSEKEEPER.’ – and goes to work for William Barrow, once an internationally renowned pianist who can no longer perform
4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie – When her friend Mrs. Elspeth McGillicuddy witnesses a women being strangled in the carriage of a passing train, Miss Marple asks Lucy Eyelesbarrow to take a job as housekeeper at Rutherford Hall
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – Mrs Alice Fairfax, the elderly, kind widow employed as housekeeper at Thornfield Hall

Rebecca
Jane Eyre