Tag: toptentuesday

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.

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This week’s topic is The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf. We’re invited to close our eyes and touch/grab/point to 10 random titles and tell everyone what they are, and what we thought if we’ve read them. 

Since randomly grabbing books from my packed shelves could result in the literary equivalent of an avalanche or a headline such as ‘Woman crushed by unread books’,  I’ve picked ten titles from the top shelf of one of my more organised bookcases. (Apologies to anyone who was expecting the sort of titles that used to appear on a newsagent’s top shelf.) And, yes, I am an alphabetical order kind of girl…

Titles in bold are the ones I’ve read (and liked enough to keep) and the link will take you to my review.  The others… well, they’re still patiently waiting.

The Haunting of Lamb House by Joan Aiken
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
According to Queenie by Beryl Bainbridge
The Improbable Adventures of Miss Emily Soldene by Helen Batten
A Three Dog Problem by S. J. Bennett
Jericho by Dirk Bogarde
The Romantic by William Boyd
The Assassin of Verona by Benet Brandreth
Two Women in Rome by Elizabeth Buchan
The Secrets of Primrose Square by Claudia Carroll

What books did you randomly grab – or, like me – not so randomly grab?

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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.

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This week’s topic is Favorite Audiobook Narrators. Although I know many people find audiobooks a great way to consume books, I don’t listen to that many myself. Possibly it’s because I don’t drive or make many long journeys, or that I’ve never mastered the art of listening to a book while doing household tasks. It might be more accurate to say I’ve never mastered the art of doing household tasks! So my list contains pretty much all the audiobooks I’ve listened to in the past few years, with a couple that are old enough to have been originally issued on DVD or – remember this? – audio cassette.  Some may no longer be available with the original narrators.   

Anton Lesser – Paradise Lost by John Milton (Anton was responsible for getting me through this set text for my OU degree)
Sir Michael Hordern – The M. R. James Collection: No. 13 and Other Ghost Stories (Sir Michael starred in ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come To You’, part of the BBC’s annual A Ghost Story for Christmas series)
Martin Jarvis – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Others, I know, will shout for Tom Baker)
Theo Solomon & Karise Yansen – This Lovely City by Louise Hare (Ideal narrators for the Jamaican patois… oh, and the audiobook has a bonus final chapter that will get you tapping your feet)
Anna Bentinck – The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Simon Mawer (I’m no expert but Anna’s French accent sounded impeccable to me)
Robert Powell – The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Robert Powell starred in the third film adaptation of Buchan’s novel – not quite as good as the first starring Robert Donat but way better than the second starring Kenneth More)
Jessie Buckley – The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Jessie’s was a much better attempt at pronuncing the Norwegian names than mine)
Sir Derek Jacobi – The Cadfael Chronicles by Ellis Peters (Personally, I could listen to Sir Derek reading a telephone directory. For those old enough to remember, he also starred in the ITV series, Cadfael)
Mark Meadows – The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan (My current listen and Mark’s doing a splendid job with both male and female characters)
Ben Miles – The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel (My next audiobook will be the final book in the trilogy, The Mirror & the Light. It’s 36 hours long)

 

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