Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Degrees of Separation

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books You’d be a Fool Not to Read (Happy April Fool’s Day! In honor of this silly holiday, share the books you think people must read for whatever reason. They could be your favorites, books you deem classics, books that you learned something important from, books you wish you’d read sooner, etc. You could even narrow it down to a specific genre and share the must-reads for that genre. Get creative!)

I am not really feeling this as a topic so I have decided to be a fool in a different way. Every month, I participate in a meme called Six Degrees of Separation. It 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.

You can choose to make the links between books in any way that you like. It could be from a word in the title, part of the authors name, a cover that reminds you of another book, the subject of the book. It really is just a big game of association. In order to start things off, I am going to choose to use the last book I mentioned in last week's Top Ten Tuesday post and see where that takes me using 10 books instead of the normal 7!

So how does this make me foolish? Because I am doing the wrong meme!

My starting point is White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton as it was the last book that I mentioned in last week's Top Ten Tuesday post. 

One of the main characters names in Daughters of Tuscany by Siobhan Daiko is Rosa which connects nicely to the author's name for the previous book. (my review)

I am choosing to use the fact that the main setting for Still Life by Sarah Winman is Florence which is  the capital city of Tuscany This book is almost a love letter to the city.

From there I am choosing to use the word Life from the title and choose Life After Life by Kate Atkinson 

Another Kate whose writing I enjoy is Kate Forsyth who writes phenomenal fairy tale retellings wrapped up in historical fiction. Normally I would pick Bitter Greens but this time I am going with The Beast's Garden which is set against the backdrop of WWII.

Next I am choosing Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. This is another fairytale retelling I enjoyed, once again set during WWII. There are even some similar motifs on the cover of both of these books. (my review)

Using the word Rose and the WWII setting as the links I am choosing The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, which is about the codebreakers working at Bletchley during WWII. 

Still focusing on WWII settings, and the work of codebreakers, this time Australian women who were based in Brisbane, I have chosen The Codebreakers by Alli Sinclair

I hadn't really intended to have so many WWII connections, but here is another one. My main link though is that both authors have the same first name. I have therefore chose At the Foot of the Cherry Tree by Alli Parker as my next link.  

And finally, I am using the word tree as my link to Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak . (my review)

So there we have it! 10 books linked by various different means taking us from a Korean woman living in Japan in the lead up to WWII to a book where the Cypriot characters are living in London following years of conflict on their island. I inadvertently ended up with quite a few WWII books, as well as several books with roses on the cover!

I would mention that there are lots of option with every level of this there are multiple different ways you could go. For example, I saw Sarah Winman at Melbourne Writers Festival a few years ago now, so I could have picked any other author who I have seen at MWF as my next choice and the chain would have ended up looking very different, and everyone's chains are always unique. Do you think you would have fun doing this exercise?

Top Ten Tuesday: New to me authors in 2022

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2022

I have no idea how this happened but in 2022 more than half of the books I read were by new to me authors! There were 34 of them! Crazy!

Below are just ten of them, chosen for various reasons:

Toshikazu Kawaguchi - I listened to two of his audiobooks in 2022, and I have another one to listen to (review)

Sarah Winman- Not only did I read the book, i also attended a session at Mebourne Writer's Festival which she was appearing at. 

Elif Shafak - I have to mention this one because The Island of Missing Trees was one of only two 5/5 reads for the year. I really need to read one of her other books soon!

Stanley Tucci - Early last year I got a little obsessed with him really. I listened to the audiobook (highly recommend) (review), borrowed the book from the library, watched his TV series, Taste of Italy, twice (review) and watched his movie Big Night (review)

Vanessa McCausland - This is the other 5/5 read from last year.

Jo Thomas - I read two of her books last year, and I will definitely be reading more this year.

Angela Petch - Her book inspired us to go to Puglia on our recent trip.

TJ Klune - Finally! I feel like I should have read this book before now.

Maggie O'Farrell  - about time right?

I have already read a couple of new authors this year!

Have you read any of these authors?

This week....

I'm reading....

Life continues to busy, but I did manage to find some time to do some reading, both in book and audio forms!!  I finished reading It Was All the Pie's Fault by Elizabeth SaFleur which was a fun read! And with all the different flavours of pie mentioned all through the book, it made me just a bit hungry!

I also finished reading The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer. This is the second book I have read by this Australian author. Such a good read!

The book that I started was The Night Ship by Jess Kidd which I am really excited about. It is the story of a ship called The Batavia which was shipwrecked on the Western Australian coast in the 1600s. I have long been interested in the story of this ship.

In addition, I have made good progress in listening to Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barnes as my book club book.

I'm watching....

Have you seen the I am Groot shorts films? They have just been released on Disney+.  They are just 5 minutes long and they are very cute!

We also watched all the current episodes of Welcome to Wrexham. This is the story of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buying Welsh football club Wrexham.  It is touching and funny and I will definitely be watching more episodes as they come out.

Life

We had a very busy weekend!  Let's start with Sunday. 

In the morning we went to Lune Lab. Lune is a very famous croissanterie here in Melbourne. Often the line is out the door on the weekend but we had a prime position which gave a view of the cube inside the building which is where they roll out all the different shapes for the croissants. Lune Lab is a degustation where you get to try experimental fillings. What it was was delicious!

After a delicious breakfast, I headed into Melbourne Writer's Festival and attended three sessions. The first featured Sulari Gentil and Hayley Scrivenor talking about Frenemies. The second was a discussion was titled The Age of Anti-Ambition. The third session was a sensation conversation with Sarah Winman, author of Still Life! I could have listened to her talk all day! 

Really though, the highlight of our weekend is that we got a dog! Meet Max!

We have been talking about getting one for a while. However, I got impatient waiting for my son to make a decision last week, so I provided him with a shortlist of five different sets of puppies to choose from and Max was the lucky dog! Expect to hear more about Max!

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Lost Books

Weekend Cooking: Blind Ambition

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

This Week...

I'm reading....

I finished a book this week. It was a relatively short book, and it was audio, but it still counts. And....and....I also reviewed it! Before the Coffee Gets Cold was a really enjoyable read and I am looking forward to listening to the follow up book.

But first, I have decided to listen to Stanley Tucci's narrate his memoir Taste: My Life Through Food. You may notice why when you see what I have been watching. I have just started listening today but I can already tell I am going to enjoy this one!

via GIPHY

Keeping with the Italian theme, I should be able to finish Still Life by Sarah Winman tonight or maybe tomorrow. I have enjoyed it, and it does make me want to visit Florence. It has food, art, history and a touch of politics. What it doesn't have is speech marks!

I'm watching....

Last week we watched a series called Muster Dogs. This is the kind of reality TV I can get behind. The idea is that there are 5 puppies from the same litter of Australian Kelpies which are famous as working dogs here. They are each given to a farmer to train and then at the end of a year, they come back together to see which of the puppies has turned into the best working dog. It was lovely, feel good TV and reminded me of my grandfather who always had a working dog. They weren't always kelpies but there was at least one of those.

Our Saturday night had a distinctly Italian feel. We started watching Stanley Tucci's Search for Italy series and ended up watching 5 episodes. Tucci is travelling from one end of Italy to the other and looking at the food history of this fascinating country, meeting interesting people, eating delicious looking food and showcasing the country in general. I am looking forward to watching more

Life

I am a bit tired today, and a little bit sunburnt, but it was worth it. Yesterday we went to a music event at the local historical house, or more precisely in the gardens. We set up our chairs in the sunshine at around 11.30 in the morning and proceeded to watch quality Australian music all day. It was around 28C/80F which you would probably think would be ideal, but boy it was hot! I am so glad that it wasn't hotter!  I am not very burnt but just a couple of spots here and there where I didn't quite get the sunscreen every time I reapplied. 

The artists we got to see were Chocolate Starfish, Vika and Linda Bull, Black Sorrows, Jon Stevens, The Living End and Jimmy Barnes. There were so many highlights but I thought I would share something from Jon Stevens. He started out as the lead singer of Noiseworks who are a great band, but he also spent some time as the lead singer of INXS, so I thought I would share one of him singing Never Tear Us Apart. This is a more mellow version but the crowd went wild for this yesterday.

Posts from the week

Top Ten Tuesday: New to me authors in 2021

Weekend Cooking: Before the Coffee Gets Cold

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

Top Ten Tuesday: 2021 Releases I Was Excited to Read But Didn't Get To

 

 

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is 2021 Releases I was excited to readd but didn't get to. Now, it's going to be a very short post if I just say all of them, so let me work through some of my posts from last year!

Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone by Diana Gabaldon - I have been invested in this series for at least 20 years. Normally by this stage I would have bought the book the first time I saw it in the shop and finished it. I will read it at some point I am sure.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston - I really enjoyed Red, White and Royal Blue so I was very excited about this book coming out.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah - I have several books still to read by Kristin Hannah. I did intend to read this one!

The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley - I have listened to all of the Seven Sisters books and they are all very long books. I am just not sure when I am going to have time to listen to this one.

From the Ashes by Kristina Gruell - This is the first in a series written by a friend of mine who I met on the forums for Sara Donati back in the day.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - I haven't actually read Andy Weir before, but the movie of his book The Martian is one of my all time favourites.

The Fossil Hunter by Tea Cooper - This author wrote one of my few 5/5 reads for last year so I really should read this one.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr - I loved All the Light We Cannot See and I have heard good things about this book too.

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin - I have heard such good things about this book

Still Life by Sarah Winman - Several people I know have raved about this book. I just started it this week and so far so good.

Have you read any of these books?

This week....

I mentioned last week that I was reading The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison and I am pleased to say that I finished it over weekend. I also mentioned that I was using Bookly to keep track of my reading to see what it ends up producing as a graphic. This is what it ended up looking like.

I think I am going to continue keeping track as I start reading my next book which is Still Life by Sarah Winman. I have heard so many good things about this book, to the point that it is one of my Twelve challenge reads. I have read the first 20 or so pages so far and I have to say I am already hooked.

I'm watching...

We finished Wheel of Time last week. While I haven't read the books, my husband has and he spent the whole series basically saying that isn't how it was in the books. I liked it, but given that we watched The Whicher at the same time, I have to say if I had to pick between the two, I would definitely choose The Whicher.

We also started Brooklyn 99. I am kind of surprised that we have never watched it before because we really liked it. We will definitely be watching more.

Life

We were lucky enough to go away for the weekend to a place called Yarrawonga over the weekend. One of my friends, who I met a bookclub we are both no longer involved in, recently retired up there! The town sits right on the state border with New South Wales and is on a lake formed when the Murray River was dammed. For me there is something almost spiritual about the Murray River. Whenever I drive anywhere where I get to see it, I have to take a moment to breathe in deeply and appreciate the moment. 

The weekend was filled with a lovely combination of relaxing, swimming, doing touristy things and great company!

On the way home we stopped at a small town called Picola where there was painted silo that we haven't ever seen before. We do love looking for the silo art. I must have a look at the map and see if there are any others in the state that we hven't seen yet.

Posts from the week

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to my TBR

Weekend Cooking: Meditteranean Vegetable Tart

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