Top Ten Tuesday: Green book covers

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Green Book Covers (In honor of St. Patrick’s Day today!)

To be sure, to be sure, to be sure! Green book covers. Maybe not as easy to find as some other colours but I found enough!

Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - This is the fifth book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series by this Japanese author!

A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K Runyan - A dual timeline set in 1890s and just after WWII Paris! (my review)

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley - I have read this a couple of times, most recently for Cook the Books. (my review)

Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nexhukumatathil - This was another Cook the Books selection (my review)

The Bellbird River Country Choir by Sophie Green - the cover is green but so is the author name!

Sunbirds by Mirandi Riwoe - This book is set in WWII Indonesia and talks about the struggle for independence (my review)

The House of Lost Whispers by Jenni Keer - a sliding doors book set in the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic and during WWI. (my review)

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan -  I had to have at least one Irish author in my list! 

The Secrets of the Huon Wren by Claire van Ryn - This cover is so pretty! It had to make the list. (my review)

A Secret Garden in Paris by Sophie Beaumont - I have enjoyed both the Sophie Beaumont books I have read which are set in Paris! (my review)

Top Ten Tuesday: Library Love!

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Love/Valentine’s Freebie. I am adding my own twist because while Valentine's Day is coming up, and we do always do something, February 14 is also Library Lover's Day. My Top Ten Tuesday is therefore 10 of the 21 books I have out from the library right now. These are the books that are due to be returned soonest 

First though, I thought I would share a pic of my local library which is a gorgeous building itself inside and out.  The building was opened back in 2013 but it still feels very new. This picture is a bit old as the trees have grown quite a bit. 

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters - Reading and enjoying this at the moment.

Antarctica by Claire Keegan - I am working my way through Claire Keegan's backlist

Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon by Sophie Green - I have been meaning to try this Aussie author for a while now!

Sunshine, Lemons and Sea Salt by Donna Hay - I have cooked a few things out of this already and just bought my own copy!

In the Paris Fashion by Sophie Beaumont - I have really enjoyed Sophie Beaumont's other books so I am looking forward to this one!

The Dog Sitter by Zara Stoneley - I love Sue Heath's books so now I am reading what I can from her other author name, Zara Stoneley.

Secrets by Judi Morison - This was the Rachael John's book club choice for January.

Sit, Stay, Love by Amy Hutton - This author was an author for the day in an online book group I am in.

The Golden Hour by Kate Lord Brown - I have read a Kate Lord Brown book years ago. It must be time to read another.

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson - I really enjoyed the last book I read by this author!

Top Ten Tuesday: New to me authors I read in 2025

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Bookish Discoveries I Made in 2025 (New-to-you authors you discovered, new genres you learned you like, new bookish resources you found, friends you made, local bookshops you found, a book club you joined, etc.). I am going to use this as an opportunity to showcase some of the new to me authors I read last year.

All up I read 67 new to me authors which is hard to narrow down to just ten choices, so the first 9 of these authors are those that I read multiple books from. In other words, I enjoyed their first books enough to go and read more!

Finding that elusive 10th author to include on the list was a bit trickier. I thought I would pick one where I only read one book by them but I gave that book 5/5 rating. However, there are still four of those! 

Claire Keegan - I know that I am late to the party with this one but I read two of Irish author Claire Keegan's books last year and I have already read another this year. I am going to run out of her books soon I think. Often her books are quite short but boy they pack a punch!

Claire van Ryn - Another Claire! This one is from Tasmania, and I really loved both books of hers that I read last year which I reviewed here and here. Birds play an important part in the stories and both covers are gorgeous! I will be excited about her next book for sure!

Emma Davies - Emma Davies is a British author. I enjoyed the two books I read from her and have now bought some of her earlier books. I reviewed her books here and here.

Emma Grey - I have mentioned Emma Grey several times now in my best of posts for last year. She is the only author that I have given 5/5 stars to both of the books I read from her last year. I reviewed them here and here. Can't wait for the next book which is out soon.

Hannah Bonam-Young - This is definitely a case of being last to the party. I read Out on a Limb and Next of Kin last year and I am looking forward to reading more this year!

Laura Imai Messina - Laura Imai Messina is Italian by birth, but she has lived in Japan for more than 20 years. I loved both of her books but so far I have only reviewed one of them. I have a friend who is a Japanophile and I was talking to her about this authors books, and she started to cry because she said that the stories just sound so Japanese. I don't think any more of this authors books have been translated into English, but if they are I will be reading them!

Mai Mochikuzi - At first I wasn't sure about the mix of human size, walking, talking cats, astrology and food but it is fun. I reviewed the first book here and the second book here.

Shari Low - I read three of Shari Low's books last year. They are mainly set in Scotland and feature a bunch of fun characters, and are often interconnected. 

Yuta Takahashi - This is the author of one of several Japanese foodie series I am reading. This one features a restaurant where you can come to eat remembrance meals and get the chance to have one last conversation with the person you are remembering. I reviewed the two books here and here.

Jodi McAlister - In the end I chose this book because it is the only book by a new to me author that I rated 5/5 stars that I never got around to reviewing, for no other reason than I ran out of time. I also saw her at a couple of events last year as well! If you love smart, funny enemies to lover romances check it out! Highly recommend! One of the members of my book club read it and she absolutely loved it, and she is 80 years old!! I will definitely read more from Jodi McAlister

This week

I'm reading

Happy New Year everyone! 

The beginning of the year means resetting everything, including the counter for the number of books read. However, the counter now sits at 2 after the first 4 days of the year. Admittedly I finished two books yesterday otherwise it would still be at zero. 

I finished reading The Sweet Life Cafe by Helen Rolfe which I really enjoyed. It is set on an island in the Channel Islands. In the list of books it is shown as a standalone novel, but it really does feel like it could be the start of a duology or trilogy! I am planning to review this later in the month!

I also read So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan. Her books are very short, but they do pack a punch!

Finally, I started reading The Girl from Lake Maggiore by Siobhan Daiko.

Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen

Bookish travel

Here's where I travelled too through the pages of books during December

Asia

Japan - The Menu of Happiness, Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop

Europe

Scotland  - The Secret Christmas Library

Britain - Golden Girls on the Run, Hot Desk, The War Time Library, One December Morning, 

Ireland - The Oyster Catcher

Normally this is where I talk about my best books for the month before. I read 8 books in December and they were all good but there was nothing exceptional. I gave every book I read a grading of 4/5. That may well also reflect how busy my brain is with other things!

I'm watching

We went to the movies on New Year's Eve and watched Nuremberg which stars Russell Crowe as Hermann Goerring, Rami Malek and Leo Woodall. It tells the story of the Nuremberg war trials, starting with the arrest of Goerring through to the verdicts in the first trial. It's a serious subject but the movie was very compelling. Here's the trailer

After we got home we watched the concert from Sydney leading up to the always spectacular fireworks. We do get a bit of a show in our local area with all the illegal fireworks!

On the lighter side we also watched Big Fat Quiz of the Year, hosted by Jimmy Carr, which is always a fun way to revisit some of the bigger stories of the year.

Life

On New Year's Day we decided to go and visit the Melbourne Museum where they currently have an exhibition called Treasures of the Viking Age which all about the Galloway Horde which was found in Scotland in 2014. The exhibition itself was very interesting. We also took the opportunity to take a look around the other parts of the museum. They have recently reopened the natural history part of the museum with all the stuffed animals etc. It is now very modern, very interactive with the use of lots of technology like screens etc. It's a very different space to what it was when I used to take my son to the museum! My favourite part is the garden, and it was great to see so many families out there!


Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions
One December Morning by Emma Davies
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - January
January in Japan: Since the last January in Japan
In My Kitchen: December
Six Degrees of Separation: The Four Dutchmen to Case Histories


I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings

This week

I'm reading

It's November and the best of 2025 lists are coming out. It always bemuses me a little bit because there are still 5 weeks of year left and I still might not have read my best book of year yet! The other thing that I am always left wondering at the end of the year is what have I been reading. I have read some really great books this year, and have read more 5 star books this year than I have in the the two previous years combined. However, when I look at all the best of lists, I haven't read any of them!

I finished three books this week. The first was Letters from the Ginza Shihodo Stationery Shop by Kenji Ueda. This is another of the Japanese book which have a number of stories that are really only linked by location and theme. In this case, the location was a stationery shop. I loved all the talk of pens and notebooks and the like, but I am not sure this one worked completely for me.

By contrast, I loved  Good Spirits by B K Borison and started telling my friend to read it when I had only read the first chapter. It was so much fun and I am really looking forward to the second book of the series coming out in the second half of next year.

I was trying to get through my library books which I can't extend again, and so I picked up Foster by Claire Keegan. This is such a small book, less than 100 pages, but Keegan definitely knows how to tell a great story, about not a lot, in very few words! I am already looking forward to reading more from her.

I am currently reading Kim Nash's Life Begins at the Cornish Cottage and I am having so much fun with it! The main character is producing a pantomime which is very British Christmas to me. My review for this one will be up in the next few days for the blog tour.

I thought I had gone to my last author event for the year but it turns out I have two more in me. Last week I went to see Holly Brunbauuer talk about her book What Did I Miss? at my old library system. It's funny because the branch we went to is at the major shopping centre in the area but I had never been in the branch before even though it's been open for years! I have another library event this week  and then maybe that will be it for the year. Maybe!


I'm watching



We went to the movies on Saturday night to see The Choral which is showing as part of the British Film Festival. The movie stars Ralph Fiennes as a choirmaster who is recruited to lead the choir of a Yorkshire town. He's a controversial choice because he has spent a lot of time in Germany. It also follows the lives of some of the younger people in the village who face the inevitability of being sent to the War and the impact of the conflict on life.  It was a really lovely movie! If you've read either of the last two books by Helena Simonson you might enjoy this! Here's the trailer:

Life


We went to a lovely lunch with my sister and brother in law on a moving restaurant called Q Train. It was yet another meal on a train, although as far as I know that is the last one for the year.

We moved into this house 3 years ago. It was built new so there wasn't anything major to be done but there were still projects. This week, my lovely, handy husband finished building a deck by our front door. We upcycled the wood from my sister's old deck and it came up a treat! Now to the next two, much bigger projects. 

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Classics I Haven't Read
The Lucky Sisters by Rachael Johns
Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce
Cook the Books: Maame by Jessica George
Spell the Month in Books: November




I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings

This week....

I'm reading

My European reading continued last week. I mentioned last week that I was reading Daughter of Genoa by Kat Deveraux which is set in Italy (my review), and then I read A French Inheritance by Jennifer Bohnet which I reviewed here.

I then moved away from the Mediterranean to Ireland when I read my first ever book by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These. This book was only around 120 pages long but it packed a punch. I have already requested another book by this author and I am looking forward to reading more from her.

I now have a bit it of a gap between blog tour books so I can read some of my library books and other review books from some favourite authors, so I am looking forward to a bit of mood reading, or at least a little more freedom!

I'm watching


We went on a date night on Monday night when we went to dinner and a movie...yes...on a Monday! But before you wonder what new release we saw, we actually watched a movie that was released in 1969. The Battle of Britain is my husband's favourite movie but he had never seen it on the big screen and with big sound! I did enjoy seeing it too. I have seen most of it but only in bits so this time I got to watch it from beginning to end without being distracted on my laptop or my phone. 

Here's the trailer

On Thursday night, a couple of friends and I went to hear Jelena Jokic speak. She was actually being interviewed for show called Australian Story and the show will be on TV later this year! We watched her documentary earlier this year and she does have a really inspiring story to tell and is very humble. I look forward to watching the show when it comes out!

Life



We had a really busy birthday weekend this weekend. On Saturday night we attended a really lovely dinner for my friend's 60th birthday. It was such a lovely night, and as a bonus, she had a caricaturist there and we each came home with a drawing. I actually don't mind ours. 

Then on Sunday, we had a family lunch to celebrate my nephew's 18th birthday. I think I am going to have to go back to work for a rest.

In other news, I ended up getting a new laptop this weekend which is exciting. Now I am trying to work out what needs to be transferred from one laptop to the other laptop. I also got a new keyboard and mouse because at least half of the letters are missing off my old keyboard due to overuse!

Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: That Smells So Good!
Blog Tour: Daughter of Genoa by Kat Deveraux
Blog Tour: A French Inheritance by Jennifer Bohnet
Weekend Cooking: Making Scones
Spell the Month in Books: September



I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings