Top Ten Tuesday Archives - Page 7 of 12 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Books I Really Want to Read But Haven’t Had Time For Yet

By Brookelorren on September 9, 2019September 9, 201929 Comments

Hello! Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! Today we’re supposed to talk about “Books on My TBR I’m Avoiding Reading and Why”. I’m not sure if I do avoid reading books, so I’m going to talk about books I really wanted to read but haven’t had time for yet. There are a lot of reasons why I have to put off reading a book I really want to read. I usually read ARCs in order of publication date to have them read in time. Some of my books I pick with a random number generator and they haven’t been picked yet. So here are ten books I really want to read… and they have to patiently wait.

Any V.E. Schwab book: over the past year, I’ve been slowly whittling away at the authors that I keep saying I have to read, but haven’t. This year I’ve gotten to read several new-to-me authors that I really want to read, but V.E. Schwab, in all her incarnations, remains on my unread author list. (Spoiler alert: I picked one of her books by random number generator and it’s on my fall TBR).

The Unhoneymooners – Christina Lauren: Ever since I started hearing about The Unhoneymooners earlier this year, I thought it sounded like a good book. I just haven’t had time to read it yet.

The Lunar Chronicles – Marissa Meyer: The entire Lunar Chronicles series was on sale over Black Friday weekend last year and I had to pick it up. Alas, I haven’t found time to read it.

Starfish – Akemi Dawn Bowman: I got a copy of Starfish when it was on sale last year. I still want to read it, although it’s been on my TBR lottery at least twice, it hasn’t been picked. Eventually I’m sure I’ll read it.

The Boy & His Ribbon – Pepper Winters: This book looks interesting, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. It didn’t win the TBR lottery this time either, so it’ll have to wait. The cover looks kinda wintery; maybe it will make my winter TBR.

Michael Vey and the Prisoner of Cell 25 – Richard Paul Evans: My daughter read this years ago and I think we own this in both hardback and on the Kindle. It’s just slipped my mind to read it. It didn’t win the TBR lottery for the fall; let’s see if I can get to it in the winter.

Descendant of the Crane – Joan He: This is one of those books I requested on Netgalley and wasn’t approved for, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to read it. Look at the beautiful cover! It was on sale for $1.99 on Amazon a few months after it came out, so of course I picked it up… I just haven’t read it yet.

Opposite of Always – Justin A. Reynolds: This book sounds so interesting… and I bought it on sale. I buy a lot of books on sale (I find it hard to pass up $1.99 for a book). I forgot I even had this book. When I was coming up with the list of books I wanted to add to my fall TBR, I realized that I had gotten this book. This one didn’t win the fall TBR lottery either.

American Panda – Gloria Chao: This book sounds so good! I’ve wanted to read it for about a year now. Although I forgot to put it in the running for the TBR lottery for this upcoming season, it is available on audiobook at my library! So… I’ll probably listen to this next, after I finish listening to this Audible course I’m listening to called The Other Side of History, which is kind of research for the book I’m writing. So I should take this one off my TBR soon.

King of Scars – Leigh Bardugo: Bardugo is an author whom I had only read a short story of before this year. I love her books now though. My library has copies just waiting for me to check out. I’m tempted whenever I see it, but I have other books I should read first.

So there’s a list of several books that I really want to read but haven’t gotten around to yet. This list could continue for several more Top Ten Tuesdays. Next week’s Top Ten Tuesday is supposed to be “Favorite Things to Eat/Drink While Reading.” Since I don’t necessarily eat (except lunch or dinner) while reading and mostly drink water, I think I’ll change it to “Books That Lost the Fall 2019 TBR Lottery” and continue this topic while segueing into my Fall 2019 TBR which I’ll post in two weeks.

Non-YA Books I Enjoyed

By Brookelorren on September 2, 2019September 2, 201929 Comments

Hello again! Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl), where we talk about books! Today’s topic is “Books I Enjoyed that are Outside My Comfort Zone” but I’ll read just about anything (the exceptions would be the ones that I find distasteful or immoral, and I won’t read those on principal). A look at a recent “Currently Reading” list shows that I read quite a variety of books:

There’s a YA book, an adult book, a Spanish book, a German book, and a 3980 page monstrosity whose first volume was published in 1776. So today I’ll focus on non-YA books, since at the moment, YA is what I tend to read the most of.

I don’t read a great deal of romance; many of them seem quite generic and a lot of the covers are a bit of a turn-off. If you’re picky about the guys you find attractive like I am, the generic romance covers often leave a lot to be desired. Anyway, I loved Beverly Jenkins’s Rebel and I’d definitely read more from her.

The Fourth Turning was my favorite new-to-me book I read in 2016 (the second post I ever wrote for this blog). Even though I checked this book out of the library, I recently bought a copy of this book because I kept thinking about it and wanted a copy of it for reference.

Ghost Fire was one of the recent books I received from Bookish First; it’s an adult book set in India and in colonial America that I liked a lot.

I should have bought stock in tissues before reading The Last Year of the War. This was such a beautiful story of two friends who met in the US concentration camps during World War II and were separated at the end of the war. I highly recommend it.

Pennies is a darker book with disturbing themes and is definitely not YA. I still haven’t read the last two books in this series, although I did pick the next book from the random number generator for my fall TBR, so I’ll be reading that one soon

Mike Chen’s Here and Now and Then is another adult book (although teens could enjoy it as well). It was the first of three time travel books I’ve read in the last 12 months, and probably is my favorite of the three.

The Kiss Quotient is another adult book, although I wouldn’t recommend it to teens like I would Here and Now and Then. I hope to read the sequel, The Bride Test, at some point.

Never Stop Walking is another adult book, although its contents are mostly appropriate for YA audiences. It is a memoir (which I don’t read too many of) about this lady who grew up in Brazil to a poor family. What she survived is amazing.

Unbroken is the amazing story of Louis Zamporini, who could have been an Olympic athlete if not for World War II. It’s a beautiful story about forgiveness. It’s even more awesome because this is the story of another Trojan like me.

This History of the Renaissance World cover

I was first introduced to Susan Wise Bauer’s works through her Story of the World books, which are great homeschooling books for middle schoolers. I read all of her History of the — World books; The History of the Renaissance World is one of them. All three of her adult books are equally good though.

So there are ten non-YA books that I enjoyed reading. What books did you enjoy that were either outside of your normal genre or are outside of your comfort zone entirely? I can’t wait to see what you have to say.

Next week we’re going to talk about “Books On My TBR I’m Avoiding Reading and Why.” I don’t normally avoid reading books, so I’ll probably do something like “Books On My TBR that I Really Want to Read But Haven’t Yet.” I’ll see you then!

Books I’ve Read That I’d Like in My Personal Library

By Brookelorren on August 26, 2019August 26, 201927 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means! Another episode of Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! Today we’re talking about “Books I’ve Read That I’d Like in My Personal Library”.

I’m in a fortunate position in that I currently get an allowance every month, and since I’m not really interested in much else, most of that money goes towards books. That wasn’t always the case, and since I have a limited amount of space to store books, I have to be careful about that too. Plus there’s collectible editions of some books that I’d kill to get my hands on.

After nearly a year of saying “I have to read something by Maggie Stiefvater someday” I finally read The Raven Boys. I ended up borrowing the first three books from the library. I loved these books, but don’t own them. The fourth book, The Raven King, was unavailable from the library, so it’s coming from Amazon on Thursday. But I don’t own the first three, and I can’t really justify buying the books when I might not read them again for a while.

The reason I don’t own the original edition of Life After Legend (the one that was given away as a free gift for pre-ordering Warcross) is because I can’t find it for sale. Anywhere. I periodically check eBay to see if anybody has it up for sale, but I can’t find it. I don’t blame people for not wanting to sell it though. I’ve read it (I bought the paperback edition of Warcross specifically for this) but I don’t own this collectible edition. I’ll keep looking. If you have one you’d like to get rid of, I’d happily buy it from you.

Another author I talked about reading for months was Leigh Bardugo. I actually own Shadow and Bone (I found it on sale on the Kindle for $1.99) but I don’t own the other two. This would be a nice series to own in hardback.

I read Summer Days and Summer Nights last July. There are so many sweet stories in here. I thought about purchasing a copy this summer, but then I realized that I probably wouldn’t end up reading it this summer, and I’ll be getting Veronica Roth’s story “Inertia” with her book The End and Other Beginnings in five weeks, so I decided to postpone the purchase. Maybe I’ll get a copy next year. Sure, I could just get it from the library again if I wanted to read it, but some books you just want to have on hand whenever you feel like reading it.

I listened to Fangirl on via audiobook (that I borrowed from the library) and I really loved it. I’d probably enjoy having a hardback copy of this book. It’s such a sweet story.

Enchantée was such a lovely book, but I don’t own a finished copy. A lot of times when I receive an ARC, I don’t buy the finished copy, but I occasionally do when it’s a book I really loved. Plus, the digital Enchantée ARC is pretty rough. Maybe I’ll get a gorgeous hardback to go with its sequel, Liberté (which comes out on July 14, 2020). I’d rather reread the first book in a pretty hardback than the rough ARC.

The Evertree is the only Marie Lu book or book containing a short story of hers that I don’t own in at least some form. I’ll probably buy this book at some point, but since it’s the seventh book in a middle grade series, I’m not really in a hurry. The reason I never reviewed this book on my blog is that I never read the six books that came before this one. Perhaps someday I’ll check the six books that came before this one out of the library (my boy is currently on this book of the series) and I’ll buy this one so I can complete my collection.

So the first seven books on my list are all sweet, maybe the world is in jeopardy but there’s still some levity to it, and then you get to this book: In the Garden of Beasts. This is a story about the early days of Hitler’s reign. One of these things is not like the other. Even the cover is pretty dark. I loved this book though, and wouldn’t mind reading it again.

Although I still haven’t read the third book in the Clash of Kingdoms series by Erin Summerill, I really loved Ever the Hunted and Ever the Brave. I read both of these books as library books.

Echoes is another book I own as an ARC, but I don’t have a finished copy. The sequel, Fissures, is supposed to come out in winter 2020. Maybe I’ll buy a finished copy around then. I’ll probably want to read it again, and I’d rather read a nice hardback then a rough ARC.

So those are the books that I’ve read but would like in my personal library. Which books would you like to own? Next week we’re going to talk about “Books I Enjoyed Which Were Outside My Comfort Zone”. I might end up tweaking that topic, because I’ll read just about anything.

Book Characters I’d Love to Be Besties With (TTT)

By Brookelorren on August 12, 2019October 5, 201934 Comments

Another Tuesday, another edition of Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!). Today we’re going to talk about book characters I’d love to be besties with. For the purposes of this little thought experiment, I’m just going to pretend that I’m the same age as any of the other characters. That’s part of the fun of reading, anyway, to pretend that you are living someone else’s life!

Alina Starkov – Shadow and Bone

Alina seems to have a good heart. She just wanted to live a simple life, maybe with her childhood friend, Mal, but that’s not how things were for a while. I think she’d make a good friend who wasn’t arrogant or pretentious or anything.

Clary Fray – The Mortal Instruments

I wouldn’t want to detract from her friendship with Simon, of course, but Clary would probably make a pretty good friend. Certainly life wouldn’t be boring! Maybe she’d sketch pictures of some of my book characters. I don’t know if she plays D&D or not, but if she doesn’t, Simon and I might be able to drag her into joining a campaign.

Violetta Amouteru – The Young Elites

Much as I have sympathy for her sister Adelina, I don’t think she’d make a very good best friend. However, Violetta deserves a million points for loyalty for sticking by her sister even when she’s not exactly being the nicest person. Loyalty is always a good thing to have in a friend.

Scarlett Dragna – Caraval

Part of me thinks that maybe Scarlett’s sister Tella would be the more interesting friend, but she might present more drama than it would be worth. But Scarlett would be a good friend, and like Violetta, she’s likely to be loyal. Then again, if Scarlett was my best friend, Tella would probably end up dragging us both on adventures, giving us the best of both worlds.

Cyra Noavek – Carve the Mark

While I certainly wouldn’t want to deal with Cyra’s brother, Cyra could probably have used a friend. She’s thoughtful, and if you ever got into trouble, she could kick your enemy’s butt.

Dimple Shah – When Dimple Met Rishi

Today’s list seems to have a lot in common with last May’s Top Ten Tuesday “Characters that Remind Me of Myself” but I guess that can’t be helped. Dimple Shah would make a good friend though. We could talk about computer code and study for all those computer science tests together.

Taylor Nicholson – Start Here

Taylor would probably make a very interesting friend: after all, she’s willing to take a sailboat from Ohio all the way to the tip of the Florida Keys! I don’t know a lot about sailing (although I had to learn in college) but I’m sure that going on an adventure like this would be a lot of fun. She probably would want to get out and explore other places as well.

Free – Into the Hollow

It just says something good about your character when your dad isn’t really that responsible but you’re willing to do what you need to in order to take care of your younger brother. Despite the difficult circumstances Free grew up with, she still turned out to be a pretty good person. I bet she’d make a pretty good friend as well.

Camille Durbonne – Enchantée

Camille is another person who you can tell would make a good friend because of the way she cares about her family (we’ll just forget about her dirt-bag brother). She’s also curious and is interested in the latest technology, like hot air balloons. If I was transported to pre-revolutionary France and ran into a hot air balloon, I’d probably think they were fascinating as well.

Gin – Crow Flight

Gin from Crow Flight would make an interesting friend. First, she’s into computer programming, so we’d have something to talk about. She’s also pretty smart to have figured out the whole thing with the crows (no spoilers here). Anyway, you couldn’t do worse than to have a friend who’s smart and into computers.

So there are some book characters that I think would make good friends. Who did you put this week? Next week we’re going to talk about my favorite tropes.

All About Covers! (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on August 6, 2019August 4, 201924 Comments

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! Today’s topic is supposed to be “Cover Redesigns I Loved/Hated,” but to be honest, I can’t even think of ten cover redesigns, so we’re just going to list a few cover redesigns and then talk about covers that I love or hate. So here we go!

I do like the redesigned covers for The Mortal Instruments better than I like the original covers (although I really like the original cover to The Shadowhunter’s Codex). The first ones weren’t really all that pleasing to me.

I like the new cover to Flame in the Mist better than the original as well. I think the colors are more aesthetically pleasing, and I’m not sure what the bird from the original cover has to do with the story.

I love the cover to Wicked Fox! It hasn’t been redesigned or anything, but it was the cover that drew me into this book to begin with. The title was just okay for me, but once I saw this cover, I knew I had to read it!

I’m probably alone here, but I think the Shatter Me covers are creepy. I’m not a big fan of the eyes. Sorry. I wouldn’t mind a redesign of these covers with something other than eyes.

They redesigned the American Panda cover for paperback… and I’m just not feeling it. I like the original hardback cover pictured here. I like the model’s angle with her holding the frothy beverage… it makes me think of winter, so maybe that’s why they redid it, but I like this one better.

I’m not a big fan of the Divergent movie tie-in covers either. I prefer the original covers with the flame.

I guess I’m talking about redesigns more than I thought I would today. I really like the original US version of The Kiss Quotient. I don’t really care for the UK cover with the heart. “You had me at math” was why I decided to give this book a try, and the whole division sign on the front added to my love for this cover.

I really like the cover to Rebel with the butterfly and the riot of chalk dust. I don’t know how I’d feel if they re-designed the original trilogy to match this one, but this one is nice the way it is.

There is a redesigned cover for Blood Heir going around, and I’m not sure if they’re planning on using the original cover (pictured here) or the other cover, but I prefer this cover. The publishers and author decided to push back the release date after there was a little bit of controversy, but I don’t see why it would have warranted a new cover, IMO.

I love the cover for Of Curses and Kisses as well. It’s a little hard to see at this size, but I absolutely love the detail on Jaya’s shoes and the detail in the lettering. This is supposed to be a trilogy so I’m looking forward to three of these adorable illustrated covers!

So that’s my Top Ten Tuesday about book covers! What covers do you love or hate? I’m looking forward to seeing what everybody else has to say!

Books on my TBR From the Last Ten Years

By Brookelorren on July 30, 2019July 25, 201925 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, so it’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). This week was a freebie… at first I had no clue what to do today, but I was inspired by Whimsy Pages to create a list of books from the last ten years that were still on my TBR! I decided to do one book per year, like the one where we listed our favorite books (one per year) that we did on May 28th. I didn’t have a book on my TBR from 2010, but thanks to that week’s list, I was able to find a book that I’d like to read from that year, so now it resides on my TBR as well.

2009: The Maze Runner

I actually checked this one out of the library, read a couple of paragraphs, and then didn’t come back to it. The book sounds interesting enough, but I was interested in other books at the time. This one remains on my TBR.

2010: Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour

I first heard about this book through Top Ten Tuesday a couple of months ago. It sounds like a good book, so it went onto my TBR.

2011: The Miracle of Freedom: 7 Tipping Points that Saved the World

I love history, and this book sounds really interesting. This book is about how lucky we are to be living in the world we are today, because there were several turning points in history, that if they turned out differently, could have caused human history to turn out differently.

2012: The Raven Boys

I talk about how I need to read one of Maggie Stiefvater’s books almost every week. Why haven’t I? So many books, so little time.

There’s actually a readalong going for these books, and I’m really planning on doing it. So maybe I’ll read it this month?

2013: Vicious

V.E. Schwab is another author I talk about wanting to read. Every. Single. Week. I’ve even purchased some of her books. Yet I haven’t read one of her books yet. Soon.

2014: The Auschwitz Escape

I’m pretty sure I’ve liked every single Joel C. Rosenberg book that I’ve read so far. I haven’t read this one yet, but I’d like to. There’s actually several of his more recent books that I haven’t read yet.

2015: Uprooted

I still haven’t read anything by Naomi Novik, even though both Uprooted and Spinning Silver look good. Perhaps sometime this year.

2016: The Underground Railroad

I hadn’t heard about Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad until last year, but it looks like a really good book. Don’t know when I’ll get around to reading it, but hopefully someday.

2017: Eliza and her Monsters

I just recently added this book to my TBR, but it looks pretty good and I’d like to read it sooner rather than later.

2018: American Panda

There are so many amazing books I’ve read from 2018, but one of the books that is still on my list is American Panda. It seems like such a cute book. Why haven’t I read it yet? Probably for the same reasons I haven’t read any of the other books on this list. I’d like to though.

So those are some books from the last ten years that are on my TBR that I haven’t read yet. What are some of the books on your TBR that you have yet to read?

Books with Settings That are New to Me (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on July 23, 2019July 19, 201920 Comments

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, where we make a list about our favorite book topics! Today’s topic is “Settings I’d Like to See More Of” but I’m not too picky about the settings, so this week I’m going to twist the topic a bit and write about books on my TBR that have settings that are new to me. Last month, I challenged myself to read more books from different countries and states. There are so many places in this world and I still have to read about a lot of them. So today I’ll go through my TBR and find books from places I’ve never been and have yet to read about.

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

Piedmont Valley, Italy, Medieval era ~ Rora

My “Read Around the World” challenge doesn’t include historical novels, but I think maybe I’ll make an extra column for historical novels. I’ve never read about this particular part of the world or about this particular group of people (except for a couple of lines in Foxe’s book of Martyrs). This is on my summer TBR, so I hope to read it soon.

Ukraine ~ Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine

Fun fact: while Ukraine is officially known as Ukraine today, during the Holodomor (what this book is about) people usually called it The Ukraine. But don’t do that today because it’s considered insulting. At the time of this book, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and now it’s not. The farmers at the time didn’t want to go for collectivization, and Stalin tried to starve them. I’ve never read a book set in the Ukraine, so it made today’s list.

North Korea ~ Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il

Evidently, Kim Jong Il of North Korea could fart rainbows. Or something like that. There aren’t too many books set in North Korea. I don’t think I’ve ever read one, in fact (maybe some world history books that might talk about it for a chapter).

The Azores ~ The Tenth Island: Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores

I’ve been to the Azores before. It was in the middle of the night at the airport, and I was only there for an hour, but I can technically say I’ve been there. Didn’t really see much because it was dark though. It would probably be more interesting to read this book set in the Azores.

Israel ~ Lone Wolf in Jerusalem

I’ve read several books where the characters visit Israel, but I don’t think I’ve read a book where the main setting was Israel.

Russia on the Eve of Revolution ~ Blood Red, Snow White

I did read The Bear and the Nightingale, so I don’t know if this should count, but these are completely different time periods. This is an interesting period of history though.

Ottoman Empire ~ And I Darken

This is another book that’s on my seasonal TBR for this summer. While we can travel to the location that And I Darken was set today, we can’t exactly travel to the old Ottoman Empire.

Afghanistan ~ The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

I don’t think I’ve read any books set in Afghanistan. This one is set in the 1980s. I’m sure the country has changed since this book took place, but the great things about books is that you can visit different locations at different time periods.

Hong Kong ~ Somewhere Only We Know

Hong Kong is another location that I’ve never been to in real life, and probably not in a book either. If I did, it was only a small part of the book. This book looks a lot more fun than most of the other books on this list too.

Thirteenth Century Wales ~ Here Be Dragons

The Infernal Devices took me to Wales in the 19th century for a bit, but I’ve never been to Wales in person, and I’ve certainly never been to thirteenth century Wales. It looks like it might be an interesting place to visit.

So that’s ten places that I’ve never taken a book to. Have you been to these places, either virtually or in real life? What bookish settings did you write about today? Next week is a freebie, and I took some inspiration from Whimsy Pages and will be writing about ten books from the last ten years that are still on my TBR!

Auto-Buy Authors (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on July 16, 2019July 9, 201936 Comments

It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means! Another edition of Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! Today we’re going to talk about Auto-Buy authors. You know, the authors that are so good they could write about the alphabet and you’d buy it. You’d die for a chance just to buy a copy of their grocery lists. To be honest, I actually only have two 100% auto-buy authors. But there are other authors that I adore that, when I hear they have a new book coming out, my ears perk up. So I’m going to include some of my favorites on this list too.

Let’s get started!

Marie Lu

So this one shouldn’t be a surprise at all if you read this blog regularly. Like my other auto-buy author, I own all of her books in English (except for her Middle Grade book, although I’ve read it), multiple books in Spanish, and one book in German. I’ve also written multiple fanfiction works for both my auto-buy authors.

And I have two of her upcoming books pre-ordered at the moment. My husband thinks I’m weird because I have Rebel pre-ordered both on the Kindle and a signed hardback ordered. I started ordering her books on Kindle because I don’t really want to wait to start reading her books. And Kindle books download at midnight Eastern time, which means 10 PM in my time zone.

Veronica Roth

Veronica Roth is my other auto-buy author. I own Divergent in four languages. Of course I’ve also pre-ordered The End and Other Beginnings, which happens to come out on the same day as Rebel. Curse you publishers!

I felt so bad because earlier this year, Ms. Roth came to Denver and I found out about it about three weeks ahead of time… and all the tickets were sold out. I got on the waiting list but wasn’t high enough on the list. Now I check the Tattered Cover’s web site regularly, just so I make sure I’m not missing anybody.

I don’t own all her short stories, but I’ll probably have to start working on that one. I don’t have The Chosen Ones (out May 4, 2020) pre-ordered yet because right now only the Kindle one is available for pre-order and I want the hardback edition.

Cassandra Clare

I don’t own all of Cassandra Clare’s books, and probably won’t buy them all. She’s pretty prolific. I did buy all of the core Shadowhunter books (although not all in hardback), but I don’t own any of her books in a foreign language.

At some point I probably will read all or most of her books, but I’ll probably get some of them from the library.

Oh, and Chain of Gold is currently scheduled to come out on the same day as Marie Lu’s Kingdom of Back, both of which I’ve pre-ordered. Again, what gives, publishers?

Leigh Bardugo

I don’t own the Grisha Verse books and don’t own King of Scars (yet), nor do I own The Language of Thorns or any of the Grisha Verse novellas. But I have pre-ordered Ninth House, which happens to come out on… October first, the same day as Rebel and The End and Other Beginnings. It’s going to take me over a week to read just the books coming out that one day.

Sabaa Tahir

The only books I’ve read by Sabaa Tahir so far are the An Ember in the Ashes books, but I’ll definitely buy Ember 4 as soon as it comes out. I’ll have to wait until she publishes something else until I can truly say whether I’m ready to hand over the private keys to my Bitcoin account and just say “please, take my money! Just keep writing!”

Renée Ahdieh

I haven’t read everything that Ms. Ahdieh has written (still trying to get around to reading The Rose and the Dagger) but I’ve enjoyed everything that she’s written so far. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to read The Beautiful or not (when I heard it was a book about vampires I was like “meh”) but I got to read the beginning of that book and I thought it was really good.

Holly Black

Ms. Black is another author that I haven’t read everything she’s ever written (I haven’t even read The Lost Sisters) but I jumped at the chance to pre-order The Queen of Nothing as soon as I could. I’ll probably end up reading more of her backlist at some point as well.

Joel C. Rosenberg

I haven’t read everything by Joel C. Rosenberg either, but I’ve liked everything that I’ve read that he’s written. I haven’t read any of his nonfiction books, but I have read two of his completed series as well as one of his books from another series. Eventually I’ll have to read some of the books that I’ve been missing. Not many of my blogger friends write about his books, so I don’t hear as much about them.

Brad Meltzer

To be honest, there are a lot of Brad Meltzer books I haven’t read. Some I have no interest in reading (like his superhero books and books for kids). But I do like a lot of his books, and I’ve liked all of the thrillers that he’s written so far. So, while not quite an auto-buy author, an author I enjoy reading a lot.

Glenn Beck

You can tell that some of these photos (which I got from Goodreads) are old, because right now Glenn Beck looks like he’s auditioning to be the next Colonel Sanders. Anyway, I’ve read most of Glenn Beck’s books and I really like them.

He’s written several different kinds of books, from political nonfiction books to thrillers to Christmas books. His nonfiction books of short stories like Miracles and Massacres and Dreamers and Deceivers are pretty informative.

So there’s my two auto-buy authors and eight more authors that I usually enjoy reading. I didn’t think I was going to make it to ten today! Next week, we’re going to do a summer activity (kind of) and talk about bookish settings I’d like to see more of. See you then!

Characters that Travel (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on July 9, 2019July 8, 201930 Comments

Hello! As you know, it’s Tuesday again, so it’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). Today’s topic is “Character Freebie”. Am I the only person that has trouble coming up with topics for the freebie days? I found a topic that I wanted to do for the freebie at the end of this month, but what to do about characters? I searched around and discovered that today was the Call of the Horizon Day. So I decided to celebrate this (very) minor holiday by highlighting characters who have traveled or who have gone on journeys, answering to that call of the horizon (or perhaps being forced on that journey).

The first character that came to mind when I decided on this topic was Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. I once did part of one of those “virtual walks” which was supposed to cover the distance walked on this epic journey. I didn’t get very far though.

A real person that traveled a lot was Laura Ingalls in The Little House on the Prairie series. She was born in Wisconsin, made the trek to “Indian territory,” then moved to Minnesota, and then finally settled in Dakota territory for the remainder of the books.

A lot of things can make you decide to travel. Perhaps you’re running away from something. Maybe you have to move due to poverty. Or perhaps you’re traveling across the country because you think your little brother needs to be rescued, as Free did when she took a road trip across the country with Cole in Into the Hollow.

Perhaps a lot of people like to hang out in their comfortable homes and avoid the call of the horizon unless they are forced to make it. Maia in Spin the Dawn probably wouldn’t have chosen to leave her family and travel as far a she did if she hadn’t felt compelled to do so as a way to protect her family. It’s this beautiful story’s book birthday today, by the way.

I thought this topic would be a lot more difficult than it seems to be. Maybe because traveling and avoiding enemies can make for an exciting book. One of the books that I’ve read recently that involves an epic journey is Julie Kagawa’s Shadow of the Fox.

I don’t talk about The Iliad much because Gareth Hinds’s graphic novel representation was just okay for me, but you can’t deny that the journey taken by these warriors certainly was noteworthy. Even more so would be the journey taken in The Odyssey, which I might have enjoyed more, but I haven’t read that one.

The characters in An Ember in the Ashes and the following books take quite a long journey. Like many of the characters here, I’m sure they would have preferred to stay at home. Nevertheless, struggle strengthens a person and also makes for a more interesting book.

The Throne of Glass series certainly takes you on an epic journey. Over the course of these books, Aelin and her allies travel the world in order to defeat their enemies and save the world.

A Song of Ice and Fire covers the lives of many characters across a vast world. Like most of the characters answering the call of the horizon today, most of them aren’t embarking on their journeys for the fun of it. Their survival is at stake.

While they don’t travel particularly far in the first book of The Mortal Instruments, the characters in this series do quite a bit of traveling. These books take you from New York City to Idris to Paris… and even to an alternate world. Life as a shadowhunter evidently involves quite a lot of travel.

Well, there you have it: characters who have answered the call of the horizon. Next week, we’re going to talk about my auto-buy authors. I actually only have two actual auto-buy authors, but there are several that I will read most of what they write, so we’ll talk about them.

Childhood Favorites (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on July 2, 2019July 2, 201936 Comments

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! Today’s topic is childhood favorites. That can encompass a long period of time, so I’m just going to throw out anything I can think of between elementary school and high school.

I don’t remember a lot of books from when I was really little, but I do remember Are You My Mother? It’s a cute little book where a little bird tries to go find it’s mother.

When I first heard about this challenge, I remembered something about the Berenstain Bears and it was a scary book (well, it was scary at the time, at least). Not remembering the book in the least, I decided to do an internet search. I knew it when I saw it. The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree was a book that I really liked when I was little.

I’ve been reading books for as long as I can remember. Well, for as long as I’ve been able to read, at least. I don’t remember a lot of the books that I read when I was really young though. I do remember reading the Ramona Quimby books. In particular, I read Ramona Quimby, Age 8 when I was 8 years old.

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher was Ms. Cherin. She was an awesome teacher. One thing I remember her doing was reading to us. I don’t know if it was every day or once a week, but it was a regular thing. One of the books she read was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. I don’t recall much from the book anymore, other than they lived near a park, he had an annoying older brother, and somewhere in this series he had an annoying baby brother too.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was another book that was read to us in class, again, I think, by Ms. Cherin. It was a magical book to me. Even though I really liked the book, I’ve never been particularly fond of the movie(s). The books just seem way more magical in my head. Especially the part with the elevator at the end.

I must have read the Little House on the Prairie set by Laura Ingalls Wilder perhaps about a bajillion times. I had the little blue boxed set (which my kids ended up destroying… oops). Anyway, I don’t think this set was what inspired me to become a writer (I remember a story I wrote about the Care Bears from 2nd Grade) but I think this set made me want to write my autobiography someday. I haven’t done that, but maybe someday. In the meantime, I have this blog.

My grandma let me borrow a lot of her books when I was a kid. One of the books that I borrowed was the Anne of Green Gables set. I borrowed that set more than once. When she died, I ended up inheriting that set. I was fortunate in that the one thing I really wanted from her was some of her books, and nobody else really did… so I ended up with a whole box full of them (which I mailed home using media mail).

Another book I read a lot of in school was Sweet Valley High. I have all of the first umpteen books of this series. I could tell you about all of the characters in the series, and even recognized plot holes and inconsistencies with this series, because I read it so much.

I remember reading a lot of the Nancy Drew books, although I can’t really remember how old I was when I read them. I think they were my mom’s. A lot of books I read when I was a kid belonged to my mom (and a lot of them I don’t remember).

I almost gave up thinking of a tenth book that I read as a kid, until I did a google search. How could I forget Choose Your Own Adventure books! I can’t tell you which Choose Your Own Adventure books I read (not even sure if I’ve read the ones pictured), but I checked these out of the library a lot. These still seem to be pretty popular; my boy used to like getting these from the library, although they’re almost always checked out, so I think he gave up looking for them.

So that’s this week’s Top Ten Tuesday. Which books did you like when you were a kid? Next week is a character freebie, and in honor of Call of the Horizon Day, I’m going to list characters that like to travel or who went on a long journey.