Top Ten Tuesday: Author names - Jane who?

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. 

This week theme  Books I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Read but I feel like I did a variation on that not too long ago. I have had this post half written in draft for weeks so I decided to go with this theme instead. I do see myself doing variations on this theme on occasion in the future too!

Have you ever noticed how many authors there are with the same first names. There are a proliferation of books who are written by people named Susan (however it is spelt) or Elizabeth or Jane or Kate or Victoria. Today, I am focussing on the name Jane! So here are ten books written by author's whose first name is Jane.

Jane Austen - Hand's up if this was the first Jane you thought of when I said what my theme was this week!

Jane Harper - I am a long way behind on Jane Harper's books but I do like their Australian setting.

Jane Lovering - A recent favourite author. I have read a number of her books over the last few years.

Jane Tara - I read this book club a couple of years ago.

Jane Harrison - This book tells of the arrival of British settlers from the point of view of the Indigenous people who witnessed, and then suffered because of it

Jane Yolen - A while ago I was reading a lot of fairytale retellings and this was a good one!

Jane Sanderson - I liked this book because it was set in both Adelaide and Sheffield which are both places I have listed 

Jane Harris - I don't know why I haven't read more by this author.

Jane Smiley - I liked this book but I didn't love the abridged audio.

Jane Yang - This is one that is on my Kindle.to read.

Do you have any other authors named Jane that immediately come to mind?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set In a Place I’d Love to Visit (real places or fictional)

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Books Set In a Place I’d Love to Visit (real places or fictional). This is a topic that I feel like I done recently but it is actually a couple of years ago now! So this week I am going to share some books set in places that we plan to visit soon.

We are planning a weekend away in Adelaide for my brother's 40th birthday soon.

Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson (review) - This book is set in both Adelaide and Sheffield in the UK, which is a place I lived in for four years back in the late 1990s.

At some point this year I need to go to Perth to see the family over there


Taking a Chance by Deborah Burrows (review) - Deborah Burrows wrote a couple of books set in war time Perth!

We have a big trip planned for the end of the years where we will start in The Netherlands to see my brother in law and his family.

Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach - we won't be there for Tulip season but still

The Winter Dress by Lauren Chater - recently bought this.

From there we will go to Northern France -We don't know exactly where we are going to be staying so I am choosing the following two locations. What we do know is that there will definitely be some Normandy beaches experiences. After that we will head to Paris. Given that I only just did a French themed TTT post a couple of weeks ago,  I am going to only share one book for all of France.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - set in St Malo

From there the plan is to head to Southern Italy.


The Postcard from Italy by Angela Petch (Review)- I was inspired to want to visit Puglia after reading this book!


The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella - Set in Naples!

We will stop in Singapore on the way home

Tanamera by Noel Barber - I read this in my late teens or early twenties. I also read numerous other books by this author. Not sure they would stand the test of time!

The next year we are planning to spend some time in New Zealand

Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins - Such a fun read!

And then looking even further forward we are thinking about heading to Hawaii which will include a visit to Pearl Harbour for sure.

The Lost Pearl by Emily Madden - This book is set both in Hawaii and Sydney.

I love travelling but I am always grateful to travel via the pages of a book too!

Musings on Music: Mix Tapes

Last year I had a feature called Music A-Z where each week I focused on a song or artist that started with a particular letter. Having gone through from A-Z sharing favourites, it's a bit hard to start again and come up with different favourites so I have had to think about something else to do in relation to music.

Rather than commit to a weekly post, I will be sharing Musing on Music whenever inspiration strikes. It might be a new song I hear that I love, or some obscure fact, or talking about a concert we've been to or it could be anything really. 

I thought I would start my musings to talk about a book that I read not too long ago in which music played a really large part.

Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson was recommended to me by a friend at work who thought I might enjoy it.  And I did, but maybe not quite for the story as much as the idea and the setting. 

The book is a dual timeline predominantly set between late 1970s Sheffield in Yorkshire and 2013 Adelaide in South Australia. The reason those settings were winners for me is that spent most of my formative years in Adelaide and I lived in Sheffield for four years back in the late 90s. There is always something nice about being able to visualise when a character is driving from one place to another. It was a bit harder to remember Sheffield as it has been quite some time since I have been there, but reading the book did have me consulting Google Maps to look at the houses I lived in there.

The idea of the book is great. Dan and Alison were inseparable as teenagers, bonding over their love of music, until one day Alison disappeared, ultimately ending up in Australia. Years later, Ali writes a super successful novel. Dan, who is now married and living in Scotland, comes across her social media profile which brings back memories of the girl he loved. He sends her a message of a song that meant something to them, and so begins a series of messages they both share songs, reawakening the feelings that they had.

Soon both Dan and Alison are reevaluating their lives, their relationships and remembering what actually happened that cause Alison to leave Sheffield in a hurry and never look back. To be fair, she had good reason given the horrible home life that she had when growing up.

In the end, I didn't love this story, mainly because of the trail of damage that is left in the wake of the actions that are undertaken by the main characters, but I am glad that I read it, if for no other reason that it gave me the chance to reminisce.

One of the things I was very excited about when I opened this book is that the author has included a playlist so you can listen to the songs as the two characters interact which is super cool, and the playlist is even available on Spotify.

I do like it if an author shares playlists that they have listened to as they write books. Authors like Susanna Kearsley and Elizabeth Chadwick often share the songs that have provided inspiration for their characters. It does provide an additional layer.

I know that we can add whatever songs you like to your playlist on Spotify, but I couldn't help but think of the old days when you would create a cassette tape by recording songs that you heard on the radio.

Do you like it when an author shares their musical inspirations?

Rating 3.5/5

From Goodreads

You never forget the one that got away. But what if ‘what could have been’ is still to come?

Daniel was the first boy to make Alison a mix tape.

But that was years ago and Ali hasn’t thought about him in a very long time. Even if she had, she might not have called him ‘the one that got away’; she’d been the one to run away, after all.

Then Dan’s name pops up on her phone, with a link to a song from their shared past.

For two blissful minutes, Alison is no longer an adult in Adelaide with temperamental daughters; she is sixteen in Sheffield, dancing in her too-tight jeans. She cannot help but respond in kind.

And so begins a new mix tape.

Ali and Dan exchange songs – some new, some old – across oceans and time zones, across a lifetime of different experiences, until one of them breaks the rules and sends a message that will change everything…

Because what if ‘what could have been’ is still to come?

This Week....

I'm reading....

Recently at work one of my friends mentioned a book called Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson and suggested that I would like it, so I promptly requested it from the library. I like music and books so it did seem like a book that I would like. It was only when I picked the book up and actually read the blurb that I realised that it was set in two places - Sheffield in the UK and Adelaide in Australia. Coincidentally I lived in Sheffield for 4 years in the late 90s and I lived in Adelaide from the time I was 10 to around 23 and then for another couple of years after I came back to Australia before I moved to Melbourne.

I also started and finished listening to The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. I haven't really listened to much Pratchett, mainly because I wasn't sure how all the footnotes would work. Recently there was a new unabridged version released and I thought I would give it a go, and I really enjoyed it. The narrators were Sian Clifford, Bill Nighy for the footnotes and Peter Serafinowicz as the voice of Death. I can definitely see myself listening to this again in the future. It's a perfect listen for this time of year.

Yesterday, I had to take my mother for a COVID test so she can go back to Adelaide and spent 4 hours in the queue. I started listening to Richard Flanagan's The Living Sea of Waking Dreams while waiting. I've heard a lot about Flanagan but I haven't actually read him before.

This will be one of my first reads for the Aussie Author Challenge hosted at Booklover Book Reviews which I last participated in several years ago.  For years, I have been done the Aussie Women Writers Challenge. That challenge is changing next year to focus on 18th and 19th century writers, which I am not really interested in. I have really enjoyed focussing on women writers, but more particularly on Aussie authors, so I am going to sign up for the Aussie Author Challenge in 2022. I am going to sign up at the Wallaroo level, the definition of which is

Read and review 6 books written by Australian authors, of which at least 2 of those authors are female, at least 2 of those authors are male, and at least 2 of those authors are new to you; Fiction or non-fiction, at least 2 different genre.

The challenge for me, other than reviewing, is finding male authors. The female and Australian part  is easy, but male not so much!!

Speaking of reading challenges, don't forget about the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. The sign up post is here

I'm watching...

It's been out a few weeks but we finally started watching The Great! and it is as good as the first season. I think we will finish it later today.

On the festive front, we watched Christmas on the Farm, an Australian Christmas movie. I actually enjoyed it for the most part. It certainly isn't the worst  Christmas movie I have ever watched.

On the other hand, I was super keen to watch Christmas in Paris because, you know, Christmas and Paris, but it really wasn't that great. We won't talk about the fact that more of the movie was in Montana than in Paris, but the bits that were there were beautiful. I am hoping we might make it to Paris for Christmas next year, but we will see.

On Christmas night we wathed The Abominable Snow Baby which is based on a story by Terry Pratchett. It wasn't really what I thought it might  be but it was a nice way to spend 30 minutes or so.

I also gave myself a treat and watched the final two episodes of The Vicar of Dibley, the ones where she marries Richard Armitage. It's been a couple of years since I have watched it but I do like to watch it at this time of year!! It doesn't matter how many times I watch it, I still laugh.

Life

Well Christmas has been and gone with everything associated with that. My brother, nephew and mother have been here to visit so it was nice to gather together, along with my brother in law's  aunt and cousins.

The week before Christmas I went to the Gabrielle Chanel Fashion Manifesto exhibition which is currently on. I am not really a fashionista so I was done much quicker than my firends but it was still an interesting exhibition. There was also an exhibition called Bark Ladies which featured indigenous artists which I liked too

I now have a few days off so I am looking forward to some chill time.

Festive treats...

Not a lot of time for new festive treats this week.  The only thing I got to watch was Christmas in Rome. I needed to prove that I am not all about Paris. Not all of the time!

Here are the festive treats I have read, listened and watched so far this year:

1. Flora's Travelling Christmas Shop by Rebecca Raisin

2. The Happiest Season 

3. The Christmas Secret by Karen Swan

4. Love Harder 

5. A Castle for Christmas

6. Hawkeye

7.  Christmas Train - Paul Kelly

8. Christmas with my Father

9. Wintertime Dreams: A Parisian Christmas- Tatiana Eva-Marie and the Avalon Jazz Band

10. Single all the Way

11. Christmas in Rome

12. Christmas in Paris

13. The Hogfather

14. Christmas on the Farm

Posts from the last two weeks

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my Summer TBR

Christmas Quotes: From the Last Charm

Christmas Quotes: The Christmas Cactus

Weekend Cooking: Baking Kit Crazy

Christmas Quotes: Bringing Hope

Christmas Quotes: What Will the Neighbours Think?

Christmas Quotes: The Christmas Ornament

Weekend Cooking: Merry Christmas

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my summer 2021 TBR

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is books on my Summer TBR pile.

Midnight in the Snow by Karen Swan - When I started writing this post I hadn't yet started this book, but I am around two thirds of the way through and it is so good.

The Christmas Party by Karen Swan - Given that Midnight in the Snow is so good, I will definitely read more and this is one that my library had sitting on the shelf.

A Granite Springs Christmas by Maggie Christensen - Another Christmas book, this time taking me back to Granite Springs.

The Girl From Paris by Ella Carey - I'll be reading this for a blog tour in early January.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - I have heard so many things about this book.

Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Smith - I started this a little while ago and need to finish it.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells = It's been a while since I read a Murderbot book so I must get back to them.

Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson - One of the girls at work mentioned this book so I am going to give it a try

Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone by Diana Gabaldon - In years gone by I would have bought the latest Outlander book the day it came out and probably have read it by now, but I do still intend to read this one. I have been invested in this story for many years.

Midnight Chicken & Other Recipes Worth Living For by Ella Risbriger - The next Cook the Books selection

Do you have any of these books on your TBR pile?