TBR Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Books That Have Been on My TBR the Longest

By Brookelorren on February 5, 2019February 4, 201929 Comments

It’s Tuesday again, and Welcome to this week’s Top Ten Tuesday! As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Today’s topic was supposed to be “Upcoming Releases I’m On the Fence About” but it seemed a little negative to me and I just put a book on my TBR suddenly without thinking about it much, so I’m doing “Books on MY TBR the Longest that I Still Haven’t Read”. It goes well with the most recent TBR additions, which we did last week. So here goes:

One of the oldest books on my TBR is 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West. These books with the years on them are usually pretty interesting. Lately, I’ve found that history is a great way to find ideas for the books I’m writing too. This book has been on my TBR forever.

To be honest with you, I’m actually not grabbing the books added last on my TBR. I have some entries from 2013… and then they go straight to 2018. So I’m going to mix it up a bit because otherwise it would be really boring. A Court of Thorns and Roses was one of my oldest 2018 adds.

You’ll probably see a pattern between the oldest books on my TBR and the books I added in 2018. Anyway, New Deal or Raw Deal? was a book I added in 2013. There’s a lot of controversy regarding the whole New Deal and I don’t think there’s a clear-cut answer, because it did some good things and some not-so-good things. I suppose what we’re going through today might be looked upon history the same way. Anyway, here’s another book to learn about the past.

Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu is another one of my oldest TBR entries from 2018. It’s going to have to stay on my TBR for about another year, because it’s not supposed to be released until 2020. I think it’s supposed to come out in the spring though, so maybe I can start begging for an ARC by the end of this year at least?

The Real Thomas Jefferson: The True Story of America’s Philosopher of Freedom is another book I added in 2013. These books are really thick, but the type is pretty large. I still haven’t read this one yet though.

Here’s another book that has been on my TBR for a while that hasn’t been released yet. I’m pretty sure I’ll be reading Kingdom of Back long before I end up reading The Winds of Winter.

Throughout history, most of the world’s population has not lived under conditions that we would consider to be free. The Miracle of Freedom: 7 Tipping Points that Saved the World covers seven major events form history, going all the way back to the days of the Assyrians, that led to freedom for people. And I still haven’t read this book, even though I put this on my list in 2013.

All the Little Lights by Jamie McGuire sounded like a good book, and I added it to my Goodreads to try to win a contest, but I still haven’t read it yet. It still sounds like a good book, about two people who become friends, are separated, and then are reunited again, with some trouble brewing too.

Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy sounds like an interesting book. This was another period of history where a lot of people didn’t trust each other. I still haven’t read this book yet, but I really should someday.

When I first heard of the Holodomor, where Stalin tried to starve the Ukrainians, I thought it was a fascinating period of history that I wanted to learn more about. Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine sounded like an interesting book when it came out, but there was a wait list at the library and I didn’t want to wait for it. When I last went to Barnes and Noble with some money to spend, they didn’t have it. So I still haven’t read it.

So there you have it: some of the oldest books on my TBR. I think I’ll read A Court of Thorns and Roses fairly soon… I am on the waiting list at the library for it… but who knows when I’ll get to the others. What’s one of the books that have been on your TBR for a LOOOONG time? I’m looking forward to seeing what books people are on the fence about this week!

Next week: My favorite couples in books.

The Ten Most Recent Additions to My TBR

By Brookelorren on January 29, 2019January 28, 201926 Comments

It’s Tuesday again, which means another edition of Top Ten Tuesday! Today’s Topic is “The Ten Most Recent Additions to my TBR”. I am writing this slightly in advance, so it might change a bit, but these are what was added to my TBR when I wrote this.

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

The Queen of Nothing – Holly Black

I stayed up to finish The Wicked King on the day that I got it. I didn’t want to put it down. While the ending wasn’t a huge cliffhanger (I mean, nobody got stabbed right before the end or anything), I certainly want to find out what happens next. ASAP. I’ll be looking for ARCs of this when it comes out.

The Tiger at Midnight – Swati Teerdhala

This description from the author: “I’m the author of THE TIGER AT MIDNIGHT, which is LEGEND x AN EMBER IN THE ASHES set in a fantastical ancient India.” completely got me. She must be a mind reader or something, because I fangirl over both those books. All the time. I need to read this book! Can I get an ARC? I’ll be stalking Netgalley for this one.

Once & Future – Amy Rose Capetta

A gender-bent King Arthur retelling set in the future? Sign me up. This was another book I found from Top Ten Tuesday bloggers.

Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages – Gaston Dorren

I’m a polyglot, so I’m always learning languages. If you learned twenty languages, you could speak to half of the population. This book sounded pretty interesting.

Sweet on You – Becky Wade

This is another Top Ten Tuesday book that I saw that looked good. Since it’s part of a trilogy, I guess I have to read the others first?

Song of the Abyss – Makiia Lucier

I still haven’t read Isle of Blood and Stone yet, but it’s in my TBR Jar. The second book is Song of the Abyss, which I added to my TBR because I was trying to win it. It looks good. Hopefully I’ll get to read it soon.

Blood Heir – Amélie Wen Zhao

I love how this story is Russian-inspired. I see it on Twitter all the time, and the author seems nice too. I’m looking forward to reading it! I requested an ARC on Netgalley; I hope I get approved.

The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead

I saw this book last summer and it looked interesting, but then I forgot about it. Another person’s Top Ten Tuesday post reminded me about it, so it ended up on my TBR.

The Land of Yesterday – K. A. Reynolds

The cover to this book is gorgeous! It looks like such a cute book. It’s a middle grade book that I plan to read and have my boy read too. My library doesn’t have it (gasp) but I ordered it through inter-library loan.

Ghosts of the Shadow Market – Cassandra Clare

I’ve pre-ordered this book already, so guess what I’ll be reading on June 4th? This book tells a bunch of short stories involving different shadowhunters throughout history, as seen from the eyes of Brother Zechariah (Jem Carstairs). Looking forward to reading it!

So there’s your Top Ten Tuesday for this week. Next week is supposed to be “Upcoming Releases I’m on the Fence About” but after writing it I realized I didn’t want to be so negative, so I changed it to a post on the books that have been on my TBR the longest.

What books did you recently add to your TBR? Are you inspired by other people’s TTTs like I am?

Winter 2018/19 TBR

By Brookelorren on December 18, 2018December 18, 201835 Comments

Welcome to today’s edition of Top Ten Tuesday! This week we’re going to talk about the books on our Winter TBR. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

First, we’re going to talk about how well we did on our Fall 2018 TBR. How many of those did I read?

Wildcard – Marie Lu: Read
Addicted to Outrage – Glenn Beck: Read
The Mortal Instruments – Cassandra Clare: Read. Not only did I read that book, but I also read all of The Infernal Devices and The Dark Artifices. So I was wildly successful on this particular TBR item.
Legendary – Stephanie Garber: Read
Muse of Nightmares – Laini Taylor: Read
Fawkes – Nadine Brandes: Read
A Thousand Perfect Notes – C.G. Drews: Unread.
Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi: Read
Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn – Sarah J. Maas: Unread. See above where I read the rest of Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments, plus TID and TDA. And Queen of Air and Darkness was 880 pages. I think fall had its share of monster-sized books as it was.
My True Love Gave to Me: Read

8/10 books read from my Fall 2018 TBR is pretty good.

Since I didn’t get the chance to read Empire of Storms or Tower of Dawn last season, I still plan on reading it this winter. Now I need to read Kingdom of Ash too. All ginormous books.

I also didn’t read A Thousand Perfect notes either. Just because I didn’t get the chance to read this book yet, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to. I hope to read this one soon.

Shelly Goodman Wright is a friend of mine, and has been teaching my son’s writing class for a couple of years now. I’ll be taking a writing for publication class with her in February, and she’s going to help me improve my book, The Brightness of Shadow. She gave me a copy of her book, Twisted Roots, a couple of years ago, and I think maybe I should read it? So it’s on my TBR, and I plan to read it before February.

I got permission to read an ARC of The Girl King by Mimi Yu, so of course this book is on my winter TBR. I was approved for this book about a month ago, and haven’t read it yet because of NaNoWriMo, and also because publishers don’t like you to write your reviews too early. Since I’m in the time frame where I can post reviews, I’ll probably read this one soon.

Another ARC I was approved for is The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. I haven’t read it yet for the same reasons I haven’t read The Girl King yet. This one has a later publication date, so I’ll probably read the other one first, but I plan on reading it this winter.

The Invisible War is a graphic novel that I got from Netgalley. It looked interesting, so I requested it. I’m pretty good about reading my ARCs, so this is one of the books I’ll be reading soon.

On many of the Top Ten Tuesday posts about cozy and wintry reads, The Grisha Verse trilogy showed up multiple times. I’ve wanted to read it for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I want to read it before I get to Six of Crows too. So onto the TBR it goes.

Since I plan on finishing the Throne of Glass series this winter, I thought I’d follow it up by reading A Court of Thorns and Roses, and the books after that. This was another series that found its way onto the Cozy/Wintry reads edition of Top Ten Tuesday. Perhaps I should make an attempt to read it before the winter is over.

I got so many books on Black Friday this year it’s shameful. Okay, maybe not shameful, but I did get a lot of books. One of the books that I bought was The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. It definitely has a wintry feel to it — I mean, look at the cover. This isn’t exactly a book that I want to read in the middle of July.

Sky in the Deep was another Black Friday purchase. It’s been one of those books that I’ve been looking at for months, but never got around to reading. Now that I have a copy on my Kindle, I don’t have an excuse for not reading it. Besides, this story is about Vikings… can we get anything more wintry than Vikings? It’s cold up in the North! I should probably get to this book before the weather gets warmer again.

So there’s my Top Ten Tuesday list for this week. What are you planning on reading this winter? Did you knock out a big portion of your fall 2018 TBR, or did you end up throwing that thing out the window and just read whatever sounded good at the time?

Next week is Christmas Day! I’ll be talking about books I hope to find under my Christmas tree. If I don’t… well, there’s always Amazon gift cards!

Welcome to the Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout Challenge

By Brookelorren on July 1, 2018July 1, 201815 Comments

Welcome to the Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout Challenge, hosted by The Candid Cover. It is the chance for you to get some of those books off of your Want to Read list. Signups will be going on until July 5th. Plus, you could win a prize just for signing up! Good deal, yeah?

I have set a goal to read 10 books between now and when this challenge ends, on August 12th. That’s about two per week. If I read more, great! If not, The Candid Cover is going to come to my house and flog me (well, not really; this is a low-pressure challenge).

So what am I going to read for the summer TBR challenge? I’m not 100% sure, but I am on the waiting list for several books at the library and Amazon is delivering a few more.

Here are the book series on my waiting list. If they become available, I will read them:

Throne of Glass Series – 6 books
Mortal Instruments Series – 5 books (I read City of Bones already, you can read my review here)
Red Queen Series – 4 books
Caraval Series – 2 books

I’m currently reading Origin by Dan Brown and will probably finish that in the next day or two.

I checked out Ever the Hunted from the library and am on the waiting list for Ever the Brave by Erin Summerill. I’m #5 on the waiting list for the second, so it may not become available during the Summer TBR Wipeout, but if it is, I’ll probably end up reading it.

With part of my birthday Amazon credits, I recently bought:

Batman: Nightwalker – Marie Lu – I am normally not into superheroes or anything, but I like every other book that she has written, and I guess I’m wondering if she could do the superhero theme justice.
Rora – James Byron Huggins – this has been on my TBR for more than 5 years. I figure I should probably read it.
This Savage Song – Victoria Schwab – it looked interesting and it was on sale for $1.99, so I figured that I should get it.

Outside of the books listed above, I don’t have any top priority books at the moment for the TBR Wipeout Challenge. There are a few books coming out on September 18th that I want to read fairly badly, but they’re not out yet. So, for the most part, I will probably let serendipity be my guide as I pick books to read. I’m trying to read about one pre-release ARC per week, so I’ll probably pick out books from there that sound good at the time. Lately, I’ve been seeing quite a few sale announcements on Twitter for books I want to read (I’ll try to remember to post them here when I see them); if I see a book that I’ve been thinking about reading and I can get it for cheap, I’ll probably end up getting that.

I hope you join me for the TBR Wipeout Challenge and get some of those books off your TBR list!