Top Ten Tuesday: Ten 5 star reads from previous years

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a love freebie so I am bringing you ten books I loved so much I gave them a 5/5 rating! And let's face it, I love a good love story so a lot of them will be about love in some form or another!

Given that we have only recently done our best of lists for 2024, I have decided to go with the last ten books that I gave this rating to before 2024. 

The Dressmaker's of Yarrandarrah Prison by Meredith Jaffe - I recently saw that Lisa from ANZ Litlovers had reviewed this book, and I was reminded again how much I enjoyed it! (My review)

The Cartographer's Secret by Tea Cooper - I saw Tea Cooper talking about her latest book a few months ago! I really must read it!

Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak - My goodness I loved this book! And I recently read her latest book which I liked a lot too! (My review)

The Beautiful Words by Vanessa McCausland - The first of two books by this author on my list today!

Book Lovers by Emily Henry - I have really liked all the Emily Henry books I have read but this is the one that I loved the most when I gave it a rating!

The Forgotten Palace by Alexandra Walsh - I have since read a couple more of this author's books. They have all been set in different time periods but all really good. (My review)

The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Litteken - A really good WWII novel with an unusual setting (My review)

The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams - Not as well known as the accompanying book, The Lost Dictionary of Words, but an excellent read!

Dreaming in French by Vanessa McCausland - I really must read this author's newest book and see if it is as good as the two I have on this list (My review)

The Little Paris Toy Shop by Lauren Westwood - I love the cover of this one, the story, the Paris setting! I am about to read another book from this author! I hope I love it! (My review)

Have you read and loved any of these?

Top Ten Tuesday: April reads

 

 

  

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is April Showers — Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt (books with rain on the cover/in the title, that have rainstorms in the story, or that have anything to do with rain)


I expected to find quite a few titles on my list of books I have read with the word rain or showers or something like that but I was wrong. Therefore, my twist is that instead of focusing on the word Showers, I am going to share 10 books I have read in April over the years.

April 2023 - The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Littekin

April 2022 - Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran

April 2021 - The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer

April 2020 - Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins

April 2019 - Lacey by Fiona McArthur

April 2018 - Year One by Nora Roberts

March 2017 - Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms by Anita Heiss

April 2016 - Quarterback Draw by Jaci Burton

April 2015 - Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

April 2014 - Sylvester by Georgette Heyer 

It is interesting to see how my reading has changed over the years.

Top Ten Tuesday: New to Me Authors I Discovered in 2023

 

I read 38 new to me authors last year. Now, I could do a Top Ten Tuesday post with 38 different books, but I decided to narrow it down a bit by only including the new to me authors who I graded as either 4.5 or 5 out of 5 reads.

Here we go:

Erin Littekin - The Lost Daughters of Ukraine was so good. I am definitely intending to go back and read her debut novel! (my review)

Pip Williams - The Book Binder of Jericho - I haven't read Dictionary of Lost Words yet but I need to get onto it as we are going to go and see the play at the end of February.

Anthea Hodgson - My first book by this author was The War Nurses. I also listened to The Drifter which was great too. 

Jane Lovering - I read The Recipe for Happiness. Lucky for me there is quite a backlist available from this author (my review)

Durian Sukegawa - Sweet Bean Paste was so good! (my review)

Lauren Westwood - I loved The Little Paris Toyshop so much. (my review)

Bonnie Garmus - I was a bit late to the party when it comes to reading Lessons in Chemistry. I am supposed to be going to hear her talk soon too. Must check when that is. (review)

Rebecca Yarros - I really enjoyed Fourth Wing, and have since read Iron Flame. I am curious to read more but all of the other books she has written look completely different from these two books.

Kim Fay - Really enjoyed Love and Saffron by this author (my review)

Juliet Greenwood - The Last Train from Paris was really good and I will be trying to read more from this author's backlist as well. (my review)

Have you read any of these authors?

Sunday Salon: 2023 in review

Welcome to my annual year in review post. I would classify 2023 as a pretty good reading year. Let's see if the stats reflect this!

My Goodreads challenge target for 2023 was 60 books, which I met with ease. I actually completed 71 books which was approximately 22256 pages. This year I have made my challenge total 75 books so that might be a little more challenging. 

Let's take a closer look at the stats

I do tend to read a lot of new books so no surprise to me to see the vast majority of books I read were published in 2023. The oldest book I read was Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Once again fiction was the genre that I read the most of, although that is a bit of a catch all for every novel that isn't exactly a romance, could be women's fiction or foodie fiction or whatever. It is also not a surprise to see Historical Fiction right up there either!

As a rule, I don't reread a lot. The only books I reread last year were Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (which has become a bit of a Christmas tradition for me now) and The Secret History of Christmas by Bill Bryson which I listened to, and then listened to again when my husband was in the car with me. Interesting that they were both Christmas related and both audiobooks!

The fact that I read so many new to me authors was a bit of a surprise for me. I think it reflects the blog tours that I participate in more than anything. There were a number of authors who I read more than one book. I read 3 books by Gillian Harvey, Maggie Christensen, Sandy Barker and Siobhan Daiko and then there were 6 authors I read two books from. This is the second year in a row that Maggie Christensen has been one of the authors I have read the most books from. Actually, scrap that. It's actually the third year in a row!!

I mentioned last year that my reading has completely swung around from being predominantly paper based to now being most E-book and I don't see that changing any time soon really

No surprises with this stat either. My reading has long been skewed towards female authors

This is another stat that did surprise me for this year. Last year around 40% of my reads were by Australian authors but this year, I read quite a few more British authors. I think this is being influenced a lot by the blog tours I am participating in.

Back in the day, I would have sourced most of my books from the library but these days I am more likely to either buy books or get them for review.

I am always pretty stingy when it comes to giving out 5/5 grades. The four books I gave top marks to in 2023 were:

The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Littekin - I hadn't read any WWII fiction set in the Ukraine before (my review)

The Book Binders of Jericho by Pip Williams - I went to hear Pip Williams speak at Melbourne Writers Festival this year which prompted me to read this book. I still need to read Dictionary of Lost Words, hopefully before I go see the play in a couple of months.

Dreaming in French by Vanessa McCausland - I loved this book so much! Haunting and evocative. (my review)

The Little Paris Toyshop by Lauren Westwood - I read this as part of a blog tour and I was blown away by it! (my review)

So there is it is....my 2023 reading year in review!

Previous year in review posts

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

Top Ten Tuesday: Best of 2023

 

 

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Favourite Books of 2023.

I read four books that I rated 5/5 stars and they were 

The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Littekin - I hadn't read any WWII fiction set in the Ukraine before (my review)

The Book Binders of Jericho by Pip Williams - I went to hear Pip Williams speak at Melbourne Writers Festival this year which prompted me to read this book. I still need to read Dictionary of Lost Words, hopefully before I go see the play in a couple of months.

Dreaming in French by Vanessa McCausland - I loved this book so much! Haunting and evocative. (my review)

The Little Paris Toyshop by Lauren Westwood - I read this as part of a blog tour and I was blown away by it! (my review)

In exciting news, I have already read my first 5 star read for 2024!!

Here are just some of the books I rated 4.5/5 in 2023

The War Nurse by Anthea Hodgson - I was lucky enough to hear Anthea Hodgson talk about this book at the book club retreat I went to earlier this year.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - I was a bit late to the party on this one, but I loved it. I just finished watching the TV adaptation too. (My review)

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - I expect to see this on quite a few lists this week!

The Martian by Andy Weir - After watching bits of the movie approximately 2,735,478 times I finally got around to reading/listening to this book. And it was good!!

The Last Train from Paris by Juliet Greenwood - I really need to read more of this author's books now. (my review)

Without Further Ado by Jessica Dettmann - When I read this book I felt like I really need to go and watch the Emma Thompson/Kenneth Brannagh version of Much Ado About Nothing. I still must do that!

This list is a bit of a mix of Australian and non-Australian authors, books I read for fun and for blog tours, some I reviewed and some I didn't and different genres!

Are any of these books on your list this week?