Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books to Read During a Storm (these can be cozy/comfy reads, books with storms in them, atmospheric reads for dark and stormy nights, light reads to combat the heavy weather, etc.) (Submitted by Astilbe.)
For my first three choices I thought I would share some books that have components of storms in the title. If there is a storm happening around you, there may be wind, there may be thunder and there may be rain. There could be other things, but let's start with those:
He Shall Thunder in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters - As a bonus this cover also has some lightning on it!
Ill Wind by Rachel Caine - Rachel Caine has a whole series of books called Weather Wardens where all the titles are weather related.
The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith - This is one of the Isabel Dalhousie which is set in Edinburgh, so I imagine you would need to be used to rain!
And now lets move onto books with stormy titles.
Flowers from the Stormby Laura Kinsale - A romance classic from the early 1990s!
Firestorm by Rachel Caine - This is another book in the Weather Wardens series.
Storm Front by Jim Butcher - Apparently I read this in 2008 and again in 2011 - who knew! I certainly didn't remember that!
The Night They Stormed Eureka by Jackie French - I recently started reading another Jackie French book but didn't get very far before I had to return the book to the library!
Season of Storms by Susanna Kearsley - Never miss an opportunity to get a Susanne Kearsley book into the a TTT post!
A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin - this is the third book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, more commonly known as the Game of Thrones books.
The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley - The second book in the Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley. I am currently listening to the seventh book in the series.
Raise a glass! My blog can legally drink in Australia! I started this blog 18 years ago, which is pretty amazing to me. I did have a gap for a while, but I am still here.
You'd think I would be better at it by now, right??
To celebrate, I finally decided what I am going to do about Instagram and now I have an Insta account specifically for bookish goodness. Yes, I am committing to Bookstagram. I am always very late for any trends but better late than never!
You can find me @intrepidreaderandbaker and I would love it if you added it, and I will follow back!
I'm reading
Last week I finished reading Someone Like You, which is the fourth book in the Ever After Agency series by Aussie author Sandy Barker. The review can be found here.
I also then read A Skye Full of Stars by Sue Moorcroft, the second book in the Skye Sisters trilogy, and I reviewed that here.
I then started Crying at the H Mart by Michelle Zauner. I had never heard of the author before, but I am still finding it an interesting read. This is the current Cook the Books selection and will also work for my read on a theme book club as well. I will also need to find something to cook to tie in with this book, and get it all posted by 30 November!
I went to the library last week and noticed something that I had never seen before, or at least paid any attention to. There is a selection of books by the door which they are calling Express Reads. You can't request them, you can't extend them, and they have to be returned within a week. Now, even though I knew I wouldn't get it read, I couldn't resist picking up The Sea Captain's Wife by Jackie French. She is a prolific Australian writer across a number of genres, including historical fiction. I have started the book, but there is no way I am going to get it finished, so maybe I will have to return it and then borrow it again to finish it. We'll see how far I get today or tomorrow.
Speaking of Australian historical fiction authors, I went to see Tea Cooper at an author event and heard her speak about the inspiration for her latest book, The Golden Thread. I have to say the story behind the story was fascinating!!
I'm watching
Before the Tea Cooper event, I went to the see the movie Lee, starring Kate Winslet. This tells the story of the first female war photographer, Lee Miller. She took some iconic pictures during WWII, despite initially being told that she could not go to the front lines because she was a woman. It was a very, very good movie.
Here's the trailer:
I also started my Christmas movie viewing with Hot Frosty. A woman puts a magical scarf around the neck of a carved snowman and he magically came to life! It sounds really naff, but it was actually a lot of fun, with some great nods to other movies like Pretty Woman and Mean Girls.
Life
Yesterday we went to the One Electric Day music festival which is held in the grounds of a historic home not too far from us. The weather threw everything at us, from strong winds, rain, being cold, to quite sunny and warm. Ah Melbourne weather at it's best. I somehow also managed to get sunburnt in a 2cm strip on my wrists, which is a bit odd!
It was a great show featuring the bands Chocolate Starfish, Killing Heidi, Baby Animals, Wolfmother, Birds of Tokyo and finishing with Noiseworks. Birds of Tokyo is one of our favourites so we love seeing them. Chocolate Starfish are always a lot of fun and draw the crowd in, which is a bit tricky seeing as there are so many people just arriving when they are on. It was our first time seeing Wolfmother and Killing Heidi.
Last week was the hardest week so far of the not working thing goes. There were a couple of days where I was struggling for motivation to do some of the things that I know need to be done. I am definitely not missing being stressed all the time, but my brain does have a habit of finding things for me to stress about. For example, I have a blog post due in a couple of weeks and I couldn't sleep the other night because I was thinking about the content. No idea why that was important at that time but apparently it was.
Max
Max is feeling much better than he has been. He wants to play, to be chased, to climb up on us, which he hadn't for a while now. In the picture you can see him being a lap dog again! lol
His fur is starting to grow back again in all the places that he was shaved but it is a slow process!
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