Top Ten Tuesday: Island time!

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

This week the theme is Books About/Set In Places on My Bucket List (submitted by Rachel @ Sunny Side). In theory this is an easy topic for me as I read a lot of books set in places I would love to visit. I have done entire posts just on Paris alone, France, and Greece, Japan, previous holiday destinations, armchair travelling and more. As I start this post, I am away for Easter on a island called Phillip Island which is a couple of hours away from home. So, my twist this week is that I am going to focus on books set on islands, however, I am limiting it to islands that are not countries. To be fair, I could probably do this topic several times over! I am saving islands that are also countries for another time.

Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett - This book is set on Bruny Island which is in Tasmania. I just read this one recently!

The Bad Bridesmaid by Rachael Johns - A lot of this story takes place on Norfolk Island which is a place I would love to visit (my review)

The Secrets of the Huon Wren by Clair van Ryn - This is another book set in Tasmania (my review)

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa - This one is set in Sicily (my review)

The Islander's Daughter by Patricia Wilson - I am currently reading this one which is mainly set on a Greek island called Milos during WWII

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune - I think a lot of islands are magical but this one is set in a magical world!

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See - This book is set on the island of Jeju in South Korea

The Sweet Life Cafe by Helen Rolfe - Set on an island in the Channel Island (my review)

The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman - Takes place on a tiny island just off the Australian coast where the only structure is a lighthouse

Over the Seas to Skye by Sue Moorcroft - This is the third book in the Skye Sisters trilogy which are all set on the Isle of Skye in Scotland (my review)

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?

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half 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 Most Anticipated Books Being Released in the First Half of 2023

Happy Place by Emily Henry -  April.

Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt by Lucinda Riley and Harry Whittaker - May

The War Nurses by Anthea Hodgson - April

The Homecoming by Alison Stuart - January

Homecoming by Kate Morton - April

Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See - June

Snowy Mountains Promise by Alissa Callen - February

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune- April

Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes - February

The King's Jewel by Elizabeth Chadwick - April

April is looking like a big month for new releases! Are you looking forward to any of these?

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Books of 2022

 

 

 

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 2022. I have linked to reviews where I have one, bu as usual, I didn't write reviews for most of them. Will try to do better in 2023.

I am pretty stingy when it comes to handing out 5 star grades. There were only two but as I look at the list there are several of the 4.5 stars that should probably have been 5 stars. Oh well. First the 5 star reads.

The Island Of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak - I loved this book so much. It wasn't what I expected at all and it was so good! (My review)

The Beautiful Words by Vanessa McCausland - My one word review of this book for an earlier TTT was "beautiful"

Now for some of my 4.5/5 reviews

Book Lovers by Emily Henry - I listened to this on audio and loved it! The way that the narrator has Charlie saying "Stephens" when he is addressing the main character. Ooh la la!

With Love from Wish and Co by Minnie Darke - Darke's previous book, The Lost Love Song was one of my favourites last year. This one was really good too!

The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku - What an extraordinary story. Eddie was a Jewish prisoner of war in WWII and then built a life for himself in Australia after the war.

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci - Do yourself a favour and listen to this one on audio. And then maybe borrow it from the library, and then buy the book.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune - I was definitely getting FOMO so I had to read this one, and now I know what all the fuss is about.

Escape to the French Farmhouse by Jo Thomas - I read this by accident. I had another similarly titled book that I had to read for a blog tour and I read this one instead. I have since read another of her books and just bought another one, so I guess it worked out well.

The Codebreakers by Alli Thomas - This was about a group of Australian women who worked as codebreakers from a garage in the Brisbane suburbs during WWII.

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran - Set in an aged care home, this book tells the story of how an extended family came to Australia from Sri Lanka, and about the current challenges they face in terms of dealing with age and racism. 

Honourable mentions to The Stand In by Lily Chu, and both The Christmas Party and The Last Summer by Karen Swan

This Week....

 

I'm reading....

After at least eighteen months of thinking I should read this book everytime I saw it mentioned, I finally started reading The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. At this point, I am wondering why I waited so long! I am really enjoying italot.

I finished listening to Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barnes. Our read on a theme bookclub theme this month is autobiography or biography. I had this already in my Audible library so this was a good chance to listen to it.


Jimmy Barnes is an Aussie rock legend. I did know that his childhood was brutal as I had heard him speak at the stage show of this book. For me, it was interesting because I spent my formative years in a suburb maybe 15km closer to the city than Elizabeth where Jimmy misspent his youth. Elizabeth was a place that we usually avoided because it was known to be rough, but there were plenty of other places that were mentioned during this book that I was familiar with. My goodness his childhood was more than brutal. It was all about the fights and the drinking and in later years, the girls and the drugs.

I'm watching...

We started watching Andor, the latest series set in the Star Wars universe. My husband is a big Star Wars fan so we do tend to watch all of these series. The first couple of episodes were a bit slow but the third episode was good so we will keep watching!

We also finished watching Around the World in 80 Days and we are still watching episodes of Welcome to Wrexham which is a lot of fun and One Piece with my son.There's more than a thousand episodes of One Piece and we are up to about 53 so I guess we are going to be watching it for a while.

We also watched a new documentary called documentary about the 1983 America's Cup win by Australia II. It was fascinating to watch. I was also surprised at how involved I felt given that it happened so long ago and I knew who won!

Life

We had two public holidays last week. The first was on Thursday for the National Day of Mourning in respect of Queen Elizabeth II. The second was on Friday which is for Grand Final Eve for the AFL Grand Final. So we had a 4 day weekend and yet I still wasn't ready for today to be Monday.

We spent Thursday afternoon at the National Gallery of Victoria seeing their current major exhibition which is called The Picasso Century. Obviously this features plenty of Picasso works, but it also features a lot of his friends and colleagues. It was a really interesting exhibition. 

After that we went to another art exhibition featuring the works of Bruce Monroe. We had seen the amazing Field of Lights when we went to Uluru last years so it was good to see more of his work.

Other than that, we are getting ready for the house sale of the old house, so we needed to get going on cleaning out the shed which is all that is left to do. I say all that is left to do. We filled one skip already and we still need another one I think!

Busy times.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my Spring TBR pile

Weekend Cooking: Lune Lab

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