Top Ten Tuesday: Big Books!

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books with a High Page Count (Share those doorstop books!)

Once upon a time if I saw a big, thick book on a bookstore shelf then there was every chance I would buy it. The bigger, the better! I even used to participate in a Chunkster Challenge. These days, I don't read that many chunksters. Also, if I am going to buy big books, it would most likely be an ebook that I can read on my Kindle.

Originally I was planning to refer to my spreadsheets and do this topic by looking for the books with the most number of pages. However, I decided to go with a simpler approach. Instead I scanned my overflowing bookshelves and looked for the thickest books I could find! The only rule/guideline I had was that I could only use one book per author. Of course, when I was putting them back on the shelves I found several other books that I should have used for this prompt too!

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb -(863 pages) I swear that I got this book not long after it came out, but I still have never read it!

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - (1270 pages) I am currently doing a chapter a day readalong so after talking about reading it for 15 years I am finally doing it!

The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes - (614 pages) This is another one I haven't read yet. It almost feels like a pattern forming here right?

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon - (980 pages) Most of Gabaldon's books could fit this theme. I have read this one. (My review)

The Shadow Sister by Lucinda Riley - (672 pages)I am not even sure why I have a paper copy of this book because I listened to all 8 books in this series. That's a lot of listening time.

Bettany's Book by Tom Keneally - (599 pages) It looks like I got this off of a remainders table. I haven't read it yet and I am not really sure if I will or not. It survived the last cull of my bookshelves. It might not survive the next one whenever that happens!

A Song in the Daylight by Paullina Simons - (767 pages) I loved many of Paullina Simons's books, but this wasn't my favourite. I did see that she has just announced that she has a new book coming out. It sounds great, but I am not sure if I will rush out and read it or not.

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor - (860 pages) Gosh I loved this epic book! Someone I know is reading this at the moment and called it a great romp, and that is the perfect description of the book! I used the words bawdy romp in my review.

When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman - (909 pages) SKP is another author who wrote big epic books! 

Dawn on a Distant Shore by Sara Donati - (647 pages) This is a favourite series. I noticed when I took it off the shelf that there is a bookmark in it. I must have been intending to reread it at some point.

By looking at the variation in pages numbers on all the page numbers you can really see what a difference the way the book is produced from the thickness of the paper to the size of the font!

Do you love big books!

Six Degrees of Separation: Intermezzo to The Kamogawa Food Detectives

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

The starting point this month is Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. I have read one Sally Rooney book but I am not sure if I will give this one a go or not. If I do, it will be on audio so that the lack of punctuation doesn't bother me.

Rather than go with another Sally Rooney book, I decided to take a different route.  Intermezzo is a musical term. I am therefore choosing A Good American by Alex George because of the musical notes on the cover.

In my review of that book I mentioned jazz, which is music I associate with New Orleans. How to Mend a Broken Heart by Rachael Johns is set in New Orleans.

When I did a post about this book, I shared some photos of our time in New Orleans. We visited a couple of houses that author Sara Donati visited as part of her research into her book Queen of Swords.

Another place that I have visited after reading about it is St Malo which I read about in Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.

From there we go from something we cannot see to something we apparently can see in Seeing a Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters. 

And for the last link, a cat features on the cover of Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai.

Where did your chain take you this month?

Next month, the starting point is Sandwich by Catherine Newman. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Didn't Get to in 2023

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books I Didn't Get to in 2023.  In order to find these books, I looked at previous posts of books that I was looking forward to. I did just have a thought that I should have just looked at this post form last year and see if i read any of those books! Next time!

So here are ten books I meant to read in 2023 but I never got to it!

Daisy and Kate by Meredith Appleyard - I have wanted to read this since I first saw the cover at the reader's retreat I went to last year.

Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See - I can't believe I haven't read this year. I usually love Lisa See's books.

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy - I was given this beautiful hardcover book at a work event, but I haven't actually read it yet.


The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley - Last year Pa Salt's book was released but I didn't read it as I still haven't read this book.

Inheritance by Nora Roberts - This is the first book in the The Lost Bride trilogy, and came out in November. I bought the audio straight away but haven't listened to it yet.


Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - I actually started listening to this over the weekend but when I started writing this post I had not so I am leaving it in!

A Woman's Work by Victoria Purman - I had a proper plan to read this before I went to the Australian Women Weekly exhibition in rural Victoria. However, one of these things happened and the other did not!


Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa - I intend to read this in the next couple of weeks.

Codename Charming by Lucy Parker - I was very excited when this book came out. Still haven't read it.

Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati  - I even got to meet this author when I was in the US last year, but still haven't managed to read this book.

Have you read any of these books? Which book would you recommend I prioritise?

Top Ten Tuesday: Passing time

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the topic is Books With a Unit of Time In the Title (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, eternity, etc.) (Submitted by RS @ The Idealistic Daydream)

My plan is to work through the units, starting with a year and working down to seconds.

Year One by Nora Roberts - Starting with a year. 

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks - It's only as I was putting this post together that I realise that both of these books are about plague or sickness.

Just One Year and Just One Day by Gayle Forman - I couldn't resist using both of these titles for this theme.

Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber - After day comes night. Or does day come after night?

The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati - The next unit of time is hours.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton - and hours

Eleven Hours by Paullina Simons - and more hours

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak - moving down through the next two units!

Time and Chance by Sharon Penman - And time is what this theme was all about!

What books did you share for this week's prompt.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with an Adjective in the Title

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the topic is Books with an Adjective in the Title, which was submitted by Nicole @ How to Train a Book Dragon.

Hands up if you had to take a minute to think about what an adjective is. It has been a long time since I was at school. Don't have to think about verbs or nouns but adjectives... I did have to think a little!  I hope I got them right! If I haven't, don't tell me.

I'll start with the two best  books I have read so far this year!!

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak 

The Beautiful Words by Vanessa McCausland

The Great Passage by Shion Miura

The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati

The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith

The Little Breton Bistro by Nina George

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

The Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wai by Junot Diaz

The Garden of Happy Endings by Barbara O'Neal

How did you go with this week's prompt?

Six Degrees of Separation: From Ethan Frome to The Red Tent

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links.  I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz. 

The starting point for this month is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I really struggled to get started last month. This month I had the opposite problem. I had several ideas of where to start.

 I did think about going using novels with a name for a title as one of my options, but I kept it a bit simpler in the end.

I haven't read Ethan Frome although when I was looking on Goodreads I was surprised to see that it is a very short book, so  maybe I should try reading it. The only book  I have read by Edith Wharton is Age of Innocence, which is a book I read many years ago as part of the Barnes and Noble University.

When I was thinking about Age of Innocence I was thinking of the Gilded Age/era which lead me to thinking about The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati, which coincidentally is also set in New York.

My next choice, City of Dreams by Beverly Swerling is also set in New York, or rather in Nieuw Amsterdam back when the city was under Dutch control.

Taking inspirations from the word dream, my next choice is Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams by  Alexander McCall Smith. This book was part of the Canongate myths series

Also part of the same series is Lion's Honey by David Grossman, which retells the story of Samson from the Old Testament.

My final choice is another Old Testament story, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. If I had to pick one book as the book that got me over the line from thinking about writing reviews for a blog to actually starting a blog, this is the book.

Next month the starting point is Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. This is an author that I have been meaning to read for the longest time. That might even be my starting point but there's only a couple of thousand books that are on that list so it doesn't really narrow it down.

Top Ten Tuesday: Watery books

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books I’d Gladly Throw Into the Ocean which was submitted by Beauty & Her Books. While I could name some books that have annoyed me, I am twisting the theme this week to be books with a water theme.

Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Sea Glass by Maria V Snyder - Must get back to this series this year!

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley - Never miss an opportunity to mention this book.

The Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen - I think I heard that SAA is working on a new book, which is exciting!

The Lake House by Kate Morton

Lake in the Clouds by Sarah Donati - Not my favourite in this series, but still a good read!

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss - This is a book that doesn't come out until next month but I read it last week and really enjoyed it. The title translates to River of Dreams