This week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, asks for ten books on our fall/autumn TBR. I’ve already mentioned some of the books I’m hoping to read for the R.I.P. challenge this month and next, so I’ve chosen a different ten to list here.

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1. Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore

“Spring, 1917, and war haunts the Cornish coastal village of Zennor: ships are being sunk by U-boats, strangers are treated with suspicion, and newspapers are full of spy stories.

Into this turmoil come D. H Lawrence and his German wife, Frieda hoping to escape the war-fever that grips London. They befriend Clare Coyne, a young artist struggling to console her beloved cousin, John William, who is on leave from the trenches and suffering from shell-shock.

Yet the dark tide of gossip and innuendo means that Zennor is neither a place of recovery nor of escape…”

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2. Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins

“When a handsome, unscrupulous fortune hunter approaches Harriet, a young woman of means whom most people would call half-witted, no good can result. Elizabeth Jenkins’s artistry, however, transforms the bare facts of this case from the annals of Victorian England’s Old Bailey into an absolutely spine-chilling exploration of the depths of human depravity.”

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3. The Witches of St Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones

“Two Montenegrin princesses, Militza and Stana, are married into the Russian aristocracy of the last Tsar by their father. Initially shunned by society and, in Stana’s case, married to a man she detests, life isn’t easy.

Fascinated by the occult, the sisters soon become close to the Tsarina Alexandra who is willing to try anything to precipitate the birth of the son and heir the country longs for. If she puts her faith in them, Militza and Stana promise they can help the Tsarina produce a boy.

The girls hold seances, experiment with a variety of rituals and bring various men to the Tsarina who they feel have spiritual power. Their closeness to the Empress and power in court is undisputed: until, that is, Grigori Rasputin arrives. Militza and Stana, along with most of female Russian society, are intoxicated, but by bringing Rasputin into their lives, have they taken a fatal step too far?”

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4. The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley

“After the death of her father – Pa Salt, an elusive billionaire who adopted his six daughters from around the globe – Tiggy D’Aplièse, trusting her instincts, moves to the remote wilds of Scotland. There she takes a job doing what she loves; caring for animals on the vast and isolated Kinnaird estate, employed by the enigmatic and troubled Laird, Charlie Kinnaird.

Her decision alters her future irrevocably when Chilly, an ancient gipsy who has lived for years on the estate, tells her that not only does she possess a sixth sense, passed down from her ancestors, but it was foretold long ago that he would be the one to send her back home to Granada in Spain …

In the shadow of the magnificent Alhambra, Tiggy discovers her connection to the fabled gypsy community of Sacromonte, who were forced to flee their homes during the civil war, and to ‘La Candela’ the greatest flamenco dancer of her generation. From the Scottish Highlands and Spain, to South America and New York, Tiggy follows the trail back to her own exotic but complex past. And under the watchful eye of a gifted gypsy bruja she begins to embrace her own talent for healing. But when fate takes a hand, Tiggy must decide whether to stay with her new-found family or return to Kinnaird, and Charlie…”

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5. The Green Gauntlet by RF Delderfield

“World War II is over. But for Craddock and his family there are new battles to be fought and won. The new property laws enable speculators to reap huge profits from agricultural lands, and Paul’s livelihood is threatened. With the help of his children and children’s children, Paul struggles to preserve the happiness and peace he has built up over the years. In doing so, he comes to discover deeper, richer ties with those around him. Ties which hold a ripe promise for the future…”

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6. The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

“In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?”

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7. The Magick of Master Lilly by Tobsha Learner

“In 1641, the country of England stands divided. London has become a wasps’ nest of spies, and under the eyes of the Roundheads those who practice magic are routinely sent to hang.

Living in exile in the Surrey countryside is the Master Astrologer and learned magician William Lilly. Since rumours of occult practice lost him the favour of Parliament, he has not returned to the city. But his talents are well-known, and soon he is called up to London once more, to read the fate of His Majesty the King.

Only Lilly and a circle of learned astrologers – Cunning Folk – know that London is destined to suffer plague and fire before the decade is through, and must summon angel and demon to sway the political powers from the war the country is heading toward. In doing so, Lilly will influence far greater destinies than his own and encounter great danger. But there will be worse to come…”

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8. Transcription by Kate Atkinson

“In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.

Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.”

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9. A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

“If you look hard enough, you can find stories pretty much anywhere. They don’t even have to be your own. Or so would-be writer Maurice Swift decides very early on in his career. A chance encounter in a Berlin hotel with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann gives him an opportunity to ingratiate himself with someone more powerful than him. For Erich is lonely, and he has a story to tell. Whether or not he should do so is another matter entirely.

Once Maurice has made his name, he sets off in pursuit of other people’s stories. He doesn’t care where he finds them – or to whom they belong – as long as they help him rise to the top. Stories will make him famous but they will also make him beg, borrow and steal. They may even make him do worse.”

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10. Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard

“Confusion is the third novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s bestselling Cazalet Chronicles.

London and Sussex, 1942. The privileged English family in turmoil…

The long, dark days of struggle provide the poignant background to the third book of the Cazalet Chronicles. As the war enters its fourth year, chaos has become a way of life.

Both in the still peaceful Sussex countryside, and in air-raid-threatened London, the divided Cazalets begin to find the battle for survival echoing the confusion in their own lives.”

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Have you read any of these books? What do you have coming up on your own TBR?

We’re into the second half of the year now, but this week’s Top Ten Tuesday – hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl – asks us to look back on the first six months of 2018 and list our favourite books of the year so far.

I found it easy enough to pick out ten books from my 2018 reading, although there were a few others I would have included if I hadn’t been limited to ten. Maybe some of them will appear on my final end-of-year list in December, when I don’t have to restrict myself to a certain number! For now, here is my list of ten, not in any particular order:

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1. Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp

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2. The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby

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3. Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce

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4. Circe by Madeline Miller

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5. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope

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6. Penmarric by Susan Howatch (reread)

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7. House of Gold by Natasha Solomons

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8. The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

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9. The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens

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10. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

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Have you read any of these? What are the best books you’ve read in the first six months of the year?

The topic for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl is: Bookish Worlds I’d Want to/Never Want to Live In. I decided to focus on the second option and list ten of the most unpleasant or unappealing settings from books previously reviewed on my blog…and here they are:

1. The Republic of Gilead (The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood)

From my review: “In this new dystopian society, women no longer have any of the rights or freedoms they had before; they’re not allowed to work, not allowed to have their own bank accounts, not even allowed to read in case reading leads them into temptation.”

2. The room (Room by Emma Donoghue)

From my review: “The story is narrated by Jack, a five-year-old boy who has spent his whole life living with his mother in a converted shed measuring eleven foot square. His mother had been kidnapped seven years ago and Jack was born in captivity. He has no idea that a world exists outside Room and apart from Ma and Old Nick, the man who is keeping them captive, he has never seen another human being.”

3. Tregannon House, Cornwall (The Asylum by John Harwood)

From my review: “Most of the action takes place within the confines of Tregannon House (the private asylum on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, in which Georgina becomes trapped) and the atmosphere Harwood creates is wonderfully claustrophobic and eerie. I really sympathised with Georgina’s situation and shared her terror and bewilderment.”

4. Melanie Langdon’s drawing room (The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski)

From my review: “The book conveys a sense of confusion, panic and disorientation and I could really feel Melanie’s helplessness as she lay on the chaise-longue, trapped in Milly’s body, desperately trying to work out who she was and how she could escape.”

5. The Marshalsea Prison (The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson)

From my review: “The prisoners who had some money to spend or who had influential friends, lived on the Master’s Side, which was almost like a complete town in itself, with coffee houses, bars, restaurants and even a barber. They had the freedom to move around and in some cases were even given permission to go out into London during the day. For the poor people on the Common Side, things were much worse. Crammed into tiny cells and suffering from starvation, disease and overcrowding, they died at a rate of up to twelve a day.”

6. Starkfield, Massachusetts (Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton)

From my review: “The most striking thing about this book, for me, was the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere Wharton created, making the reader feel locked within Ethan’s miserable world. The town of Starkfield, Massachusetts is as stark as its name suggests; the descriptions of the snow, the ice and the cold all contribute to the heavy feeling of oppression which hangs over the entire book.”

7. Hill House (The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson)

From my review: “I loved the descriptions of Hill House – it has all the characteristics you would expect a haunted house to have, including a tragic history – but there are very few physical manifestations of ghostly activity. The creepiness of the story comes mainly from the fact that we don’t know how much of the ‘haunting’ is caused by Hill House itself and how much is the product of Eleanor’s disturbed mind.”

8. Lexham Manor at Christmas (Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer)

From my review: “I have rarely read a novel with so many nasty, rude, unpleasant characters and I couldn’t think of anything worse than being a guest at the Herriards’ party, even without a murder taking place! From the obnoxious, sarcastic Stephen and the haughty butler Sturry to the cantankerous, bad-tempered Nathaniel, they were all so annoying I was surprised only one murder was committed.”

9. Green Town, Illinois at carnival time (Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury)

From my review: “Good versus evil is obviously one of the major themes of the novel. A feeling of malice and danger hangs over the carnival from the moment it arrives and the people connected with it are both strange and sinister – particularly the blind Dust Witch who hovers over the boys’ houses in a hot air balloon in one of the creepiest scenes in the book.”

10. The future (The Time Machine by HG Wells)

From my review: “Remembering when this novel was published, Wells’ vision of a future world has been developed from some of the issues which would have seemed relevant at the end of the 19th century, such as widening class divisions, theories of evolution and Darwinism. It’s a bleak and depressing view of the future – and if that really is what we have to look forward to, then imperfect as our current society may be, I’m very glad to be living in 2016!”

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Have you taken part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday? Can you think of some bookish worlds you wouldn’t want to live in?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, asks for ten books on our spring TBR. I’m sometimes hesitant to make lists like this because saying that I’m planning to read a book seems to guarantee that I won’t do it. There are still four books from the winter TBR list I posted in November that I haven’t read yet. Anyway, here are ten books that I really do intend to read in the next few months!

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1. Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy (1871)

This was the book chosen for me in the recent Classics Club Spin, so I need to read it before the end of April.

Cytherea has taken a position as lady’s maid to the eccentric arch-intriguer Miss Aldclyffe. On discovering that the man she loves, Edward Springrove, is already engaged to his cousin, Cytherea comes under the influence of Miss Aldclyffe’s fascinating, manipulative steward Manston.

Blackmail, murder and romance are among the ingredients of Hardy’s first published novel, and in it he draws blithely on the ‘sensation novel’ perfected by Wilkie Collins. Several perceptive critics praised the author as a novelist with a future when Desperate Remedies appeared anonymously in 1871. In its depiction of country life and insight into psychology and sexuality it already bears the unmistakable imprint of Hardy’s genius.

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2. Circe by Madeline Miller (2018)

Review copy received from NetGalley.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child – not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power – the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

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3. The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst (2018)

Another review copy received from NetGalley.

Born on the night of an ill-auguring comet just before Charles II’s Restoration, Ursula Flight has a difficult future written in the stars.

Against the custom of the age she begins an education with her father, who fosters in her a love of reading, writing and astrology.

Following a surprise meeting with an actress, Ursula yearns for the theatre and thus begins her quest to become a playwright despite scoundrels, bounders, bad luck and heartbreak.

 

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4. The Pharmacist’s Wife by Vanessa Tait (2018)

And one more NetGalley book.

When Rebecca Palmer’s new husband opens a pharmacy in Victorian Edinburgh, she expects to live the life of a well-heeled gentlewoman. But her ideal is turns to ashes when she discovers her husband is not what he seems. As Rebecca struggles to maintain her dignity in the face of his infidelity and strange sexual desires, Alexander tries to pacify her so-called hysteria with a magical new chemical creation. A wonder-drug he calls heroin.

Rebecca’s journey into addiction takes her further into her past, and her first, lost love, while Alexander looks on, curiously observing his wife’s descent. Meanwhile, Alexander’s desire to profit from his invention leads him down a dangerous path that blurs science, passion, and death. He soon discovers that even the most promising experiments can have unforeseen and deadly consequences…

Reminiscent of the works of Sarah Waters, this is a brilliantly observed piece of Victoriana which deals with the disempowerment of women, addiction, desire, sexual obsession and vengeance.

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5. Munich by Robert Harris (2017)

One of those unread books from my winter list that I do still want to read as soon as possible!

September 1938
Hitler is determined to start a war.
Chamberlain is desperate to preserve the peace.
The issue is to be decided in a city that will forever afterwards be notorious for what takes place there.
Munich.

As Chamberlain’s plane judders over the Channel and the Fürher’s train steams relentlessly south from Berlin, two young men travel with secrets of their own.

Hugh Legat is one of Chamberlain’s private secretaries; Paul Hartmann a German diplomat and member of the anti-Hitler resistance. Great friends at Oxford before Hitler came to power, they haven’t seen one another since they were last in Munich six years earlier. Now. as the future of Europe hangs in the balance, their paths are destined to cross again .

When the stakes are this high, who are you willing to betray? Your friends, your family, your country or your conscience?

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6. Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d by Alan Bradley (2016)

The latest Flavia de Luce mystery, The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place, has recently been published but I need to catch up with this one first.

In spite of being ejected from Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Canada, twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce is excited to be sailing home to England. But instead of a joyous homecoming, she is greeted on the docks with unfortunate news: Her father has fallen ill, and a hospital visit will have to wait while he rests. But with Flavia’s blasted sisters and insufferable cousin underfoot, Buckshaw now seems both too empty—and not empty enough.

Only too eager to run an errand for the vicar’s wife, Flavia hops on her trusty bicycle, Gladys, to deliver a message to a reclusive wood-carver. Finding the front door ajar, Flavia enters and stumbles upon the poor man’s body hanging upside down on the back of his bedroom door. The only living creature in the house is a feline that shows little interest in the disturbing scene. Curiosity may not kill this cat, but Flavia is energized at the prospect of a new investigation. It’s amazing what the discovery of a corpse can do for one’s spirits. But what awaits Flavia will shake her to the very core.

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7. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (2010)

It’s been a while since I last read any of Guy Gavriel Kay’s books so I would like to read this one soon.

It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father’s last great battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses.

You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor.

Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already…

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8. Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge (1949)

For the last three years I have joined in with Lory’s Elizabeth Goudge Day; she isn’t hosting one this year but I will still be celebrating Goudge’s birthday in April.

Unable to bear the prospect of a life at sea, young Anthony O’Connell deserts his ship at Torquay and escapes into the Devonshire countryside under a new name. When Stella Sprigg, adopted daughter of a local farmer, encounters ‘Zachary’, the pair instantly know they are destined to be together.

Intertwined with the local legend of St. Michael’s Chapel, Stella and Zachary’s story takes them from the secluded Devonshire valley to the perilous Mediterranean seas and finally to the poverty and squalor of eighteenth-century London.

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9. Cashelmara by Susan Howatch (1974)

Having recently re-read Penmarric (review coming soon), I’m looking forward to continuing my Howatch re-reads with Cashelmara and then The Wheel of Fortune.

There were two subjects which lonely widower Edward de Salis never discussed: his dead wife and his family home in Ireland, ‘matchless Cashelmara’. So when he meets Marguerite, a bright young American with whom he can talk freely about both, he is able to love again and takes her back to Ireland as his wife. But Marguerite soon discovers that married life is not what she expected, and that she has married into a troubled family bitterly divided by love and hatred. Cashelmara becomes the curse of three generations as they play out their fates in a spellbinding drama, which moves inexorably towards murder and retribution.

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10. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope (1876)

Another book from my Classics Club list. I started to read it earlier this year but the time wasn’t right and I’m ready for another attempt now.

Despite his mysterious antecedents, an unscrupulous financial speculator, Ferdinand Lopez, aspires to marry into respectability and wealth and join the ranks of British society. One of the nineteenth century’s most memorable outsiders, Lopez’s story is set against that of the ultimate insider, Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, who reluctantly accepts the highest office of state, becoming “the greatest man in the greatest country in the world.”

The Prime Minister is the fifth in Trollope’s six-volume Palliser series and a wonderfully subtle portrait of a marriage, political expediency, and misplaced love.

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Have you read any of these? What do you have on your own spring TBR?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to list our ten favourite quotations from books, but I have taken a slightly different approach to the topic. There are so many passages I love from so many books that I would never be able to narrow them down to ten favourites – or even remember them all (which is why, for the last few years, I have been putting together my monthly Commonplace Book posts so that I will have some sort of record to look back on in the future).

Back to today’s post, though, and I have turned to Goodreads for help. Those of you who use Goodreads may know that there is a ‘Quotes’ function where you can find, ‘like’ and save notable quotations – and I have quite a few stored there, from which I have picked out ten that I found beautiful, funny, interesting or memorable in some way. Not necessarily all-time favourites, then, but I hope you’ll enjoy reading them anyway.

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1. One that all book lovers will understand:

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

Alan Bennett – The Uncommon Reader

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2. One from a favourite children’s book:

“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”

Richard Adams – Watership Down

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3. One I find beautiful and inspiring:

“A hard truth: that courage can be without meaning or impact, need not be rewarded, or even known. The world has not been made in that way. Perhaps, however, within the self there might come a resonance, the awareness of having done something difficult, of having done…something.”

Guy Gavriel Kay – The Last Light of the Sun

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4. One of my favourite opening lines:

“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”

Rafael Sabatini – Scaramouche

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5. One that I can identify with at the moment:

“Are there any leading men in your life?”

“Several, but they’re all fictional.”

Catherine Lowell – The Madwoman Upstairs

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6. One with which anyone who has read Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles will sympathise:

“I wish to God,” said Gideon with mild exasperation, “that you’d talk – just once – in prose like other people.”

Dorothy Dunnett – The Game of Kings

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7. One from a favourite classic:

“Some of us rush through life and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey sat through life.”

Wilkie Collins – The Woman in White

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8. One of Dickens’ best:

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

Charles Dickens – Great Expectations

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9. One which gives us some good advice:

“The past can teach us, nurture us, but it cannot sustain us. The essence of life is change, and we must move ever forward or the soul will wither and die.”

Susanna Kearsley – Mariana

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10. One I find comforting when I’m having a bad day:

“Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.”

William Shakespeare – Macbeth

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Do you have any favourite quotations? How do you remember them? Do you keep a notebook or do you record them online somewhere?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, asks us to list the ten books that have been on our TBR the longest. I keep track of my TBR through Goodreads so I decided that the easiest way to approach this week’s topic was simply to take the first ten books on my Goodreads ‘to-read’ shelf, which were all added in 2010/2011. Before I started blogging I was very good at reading the books that I’d bought before buying more, so I don’t have any very old books on my TBR.

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1. The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon

Historical fiction set during the Crimean War. I remember buying this on a visit to my favourite bookshop, Barter Books; I did start to read it once but didn’t get very far with it.

2. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

I added this to my TBR – and then read two other Kate Morton books instead. Because I was disappointed by The Distant Hours, I never went back to read this one. Maybe I should.

3. The Blasphemer by Nigel Farndale

A dual timeline novel divided between the First World War and the modern day. I won this one in a giveaway by the publisher, so I feel very guilty that I still haven’t read it!

4. Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

I don’t know much about this one except that it’s set in Palestine, but I remember reading some glowing reviews from other bloggers a few years ago, which was why it was added to my TBR.

5. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

This novel about a 17th century village ravaged by plague has been recommended to me many times, but every time I’ve picked it up I’ve found that I was in the wrong mood for it.

6. Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry

I love Sebastian Barry’s writing and have read several of his other books about the Dunne and McNulty families, but this one has been languishing on my shelf for years while I’ve been drawn to the newer ones instead.

7. Trespass by Rose Tremain

I added this to the TBR at a time when I hadn’t read anything else by Rose Tremain and I wasn’t sure whether or not I would like her writing. I’ve now read three of her other books and enjoyed them, so I think it could be time to try Trespass!

8. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

The Booker Prize winner from 1988. It has never felt like the right time to read it, but I said recently that I wanted to read more books set in Australia, so perhaps the time has now come.

9. Blood Harvest by Sharon Bolton

This is the only one of Sharon Bolton’s crime novels that I still haven’t read. I’ve no idea why not as I’ve loved all of her other books and her standalones, like this one, tend to be my favourites.

10. Beloved by Toni Morrison

I included this book on my original Classics Club list but removed it to replace it with something else. I do still want to read it and will hopefully find time for it soon.

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Have you read any of these? Which books have been on your TBR the longest?

Starting this week, Top Ten Tuesday is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Her first topic is “Bookish resolutions and goals”. I sometimes put a post like this together at the beginning of January but didn’t get round to it this year, so I’m posting it today instead.

I don’t set goals in terms of numbers (apart from the Goodreads Challenge which I use more as a way of keeping track of what I’ve read rather than an actual ‘challenge’) so I prefer to call this a list of resolutions. Some of these are the same as my resolutions from previous years (most of which I didn’t manage to keep) and others are new.

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1. Make more time for re-reads. I say this every year and never seem to do it. I re-read three books last year, because I needed to so I could finish my Classics Club list, but there are many more old favourites I would like to revisit as well. I will definitely try to re-read some of them this year!

2. Make some progress with my new Classics Club list. I posted my second list in November after completing my first one. The new list has 50 classics on it and a target date of 14th November 2022. So far I have only read one book from the list – Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather – but there are a lot of others I’m excited about reading.

3. Continue to work on my Walter Scott Prize project for which I’m working my way through all of the shortlisted titles since the prize was first awarded in 2010. This year’s shortlist will be announced in March, but I still have some from each of the previous years’ lists to read too.

4. Read more books set in different countries. Reading can be a great way to learn about the culture and history of countries other than our own. When I posted my analysis of the historical fiction I read in 2017, I found that the majority of the books I read last year were set in Britain, with the USA, France and Italy also well-represented. This year I want to include more books set in countries I know less about.

5. Join in with other bloggers’ projects or events which sound appealing e.g. Jane’s Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors (for which I’m currently reading Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp) and Karen and Simon’s club years (1977 Club is coming in April).

6. Request fewer books from NetGalley and get caught up with my backlog. I have had the opportunity to read some great books through NetGalley but it’s easy to find yourself requesting more than you know you’ll realistically have time to read. This year I want to limit the number I request until I’ve read all the books already on my NetGalley shelf.

7. Continue to work through some of the series that I’m in the middle of reading. I’m very good at starting them but not so good at continuing with them!

8. Read the books that I really want to read. There are a lot of books that I’ve been wanting to read for years and am sure I’m going to love, but that I’ve been avoiding reading because I’m ‘saving them for later’ or ‘want to have something to look forward to’. I’m aware of how silly this is, so 2018 is going to be the year I finally read those long-anticipated books!

9. Abandon books that I’m not enjoying. Sometimes I can tell almost immediately that a book is not for me, but sometimes I’m not sure and decide to keep going in the hope that it will get better – and then even when it doesn’t improve I still struggle on to the end.

10. Try to make every book I read a potential favourite book of the year. I know this won’t actually happen, but it’s what we would all like, isn’t it? Resolutions 1-9 should help with this!

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What resolutions, goals or plans do you have for your 2018 reading?