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 Books I Read/Avoided Because of the Hype. I’m interpreting “hype” as extensive publicity for a particular title by the publishers, social media influencers, in newspapers or on TV. The books you see piled up on a table in a bookshop, displayed in vast numbers in their windows, shown on billboards or all over TikTok.
I don’t think I’m influenced by “hype” but being part of a book club does mean I read books I may not otherwise have chosen. So, let’s call that “book club hype”. Here are the ten most recent books chosen by my bookclubs with an indication of what I thought of them – good, just okay, or not so good. Links from each title will take you to my full review.
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ⇑
- Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent ⇓
- The Housekeepers by Alex Hay ⇓
- The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis ⇑
- The Wager by David Grann ⇑
- Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf ⇑
- His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet ⇑
- The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan ⇑
- Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes ⇔
- Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough ⇔
Does “hype” turn you on or off when it comes to choosing books?




















