This week’s prompt is to randomly select ten books from your bookshelves and share them. I sort of did that, only I don’t have a nice, tidy library. I have bookcases in 5 rooms of my house, and the majority of them are double stacked so there are at least two books I could have landed on when I point to any particular spot on the shelf. So this is not an exact science, is what I’m saying. But I did my best.
I haven’t finished any of these yet, though I’ve started the last two and have absolutely no good reason at all whatsoever for not finishing them. I’m hoping to try Unwell Women soon (though I expect it’ll be a bit heavy and anger-provoking and won’t be possible to read in one go without exploding) and The Wild Silence because I’m hoping it will be calm, reflective and life-affirming, which I could use right now.
I’ve read all of these and they are books I universally enjoyed. I was pleasantly surprised by Project Hail Mary, and Still Life was a highlight of my BookTube Prize reading last year. But I’d recommend all of them, but perhaps not to the same audiences!
And finally, we these two, both of which evoked a strong emotional response. I loved Quiet Girl because it felt so familiar and oddly comforting. Hamnet is one I only read because my mum recommended it, and she was right, it was great. I had zero interest in the subject matter, but the writing was excellent.
That’s it for me this week! What about you guys? Any big surprises from your random selections? Anyone else have logistical nightmarish episodes while trying to figure out how to truly select at random from various far-flung and/or inaccessible book storage locations in your homes?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.
Hamnet was very good. I’m curious about Romany & Tom and Wild Silence–the cover looks very much like a book I enjoyed (which is why marketing depts do this!).Good post.
Yes, Hamnet was such a pleasant surprise to me! I’m really glad I took a chance on it. I started both of those and enjoyed what I read. Both authors have written books I’ve loved before (Ben Watt wrote Patient and Raynor Winn wrote The Salt Path which is a prequel to this one – both are excellent) so I need to get back to finish these! I do like it when marketing departments do that effectively and actually match covers to distinctly similar books. It’s such a wonderful thing to pick one up and discover that it’s like another you loved!
I started Hail Mary with my husband on his Audible account while we were on a road trip and then we didn’t finish it and I don’t have Audible and he finished with out me and now I am wanting to finish the book.
Great list, thanks for sharing.
Ooooh if I were you I’d be stealing his Audible to go back and listen to it again! I listened to it on audio as well, and I really enjoyed the experience. I do hope you manage to finish it! Thank you!
The way you talk about your bookshelves reminds me of my friend’s mom growing up. She had shelves double and triple stacked. It was fun to pick a book in front and see what was hidden behind.
Haha! I do enjoy that surprise as I never remember the ones I can’t see! It’s great when I really can’t figure out what to read next and all the books I see aren’t interesting. I can delve! That sounds like a great experience to have as a young reader – it’s always so wonderful seeing adults who still collect as many books as they can!
I read Quiet Girl too recently, and as an introvert, it really hit close to home. The others on your list, I haven’t read them but have of course seen the movie based on High Fidelity.
I really liked most of Debbie Tung’s books, and am just so glad they exist out there in the world, especially for younger people who struggle with feeling overwhelmed or socially anxious. It’s great to see it shared openly and to see that you can find ways to work with it rather than feeling like you have to “fix” it and then feeling awful when that inevitably fails. It’s so important. I haven’t read High Fidelity in decades, so I can’t even really remember how it stacked up against the movie. I feel like they’re pretty similar, so if you enjoyed the movie you might like the book as well!
An interesting selection of books.
https://seriesbooklover.wordpress.com/2023/05/02/top-ten-tuesday-books-i-have-randomly-picked-from-my-shelf/
Thanks!