A Year of Reading: 2018

1. Lab Girl by Hope Jahrens
2. The Jewel by Amy Ewing
3. Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson
4. Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor
5. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
6. The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
7. Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris
8. Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
9. The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes
10. Tempest by Beverly Jenkins
11. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
12. Fetch by Nicole Georges
13. Longbourn by Jo Baker
14. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
15. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat
16. Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
17. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
18. Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
19. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
20. Wrong To Need You by Alisha Rai
21. So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
22. The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley
23. My Real Children by Jo Walton
24. Sourdough by Robin Sloan
25. Alexander Hamilton: Revolutionary by Martha Brockenbrough
26. All the Beautiful Lies by Peter Swanson
27. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
28. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
29. Pro by Katha Pollitt
30. The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
31. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
32. The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines (re-read, original review is here.)
33. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
34. Made For Love by Alissa Nutting
35. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor
36. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
37. The Girl is Trouble by Kathryn Miller Haines
38. Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck
39. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
40. The Outsider by Stephen King
41. Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
42. The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls by Jessica Spotswood
43. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
44. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
45. A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole
46. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
47. The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
48. Good Luck With That by Kristan Higgins
49. Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
50. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
51. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
52. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
53. Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren
54. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
55. From Here To Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
56. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
57. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
58. Journal Me Organized by Rebecca Spooner
59. The Psychopath Test by Ron Jonson
60. The Radical Element edited by Jessica Spotswood
61. The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight by Gina Ochsner
62. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
63. One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus
64. The Arrangement by Mary Balogh
65. Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
66. Slade House by David Mitchell
67. Can't Nothing Bring Me Down by Ida Keeling
68. The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
69. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
70. Mercies in Disguise by Gina Kolata
71. Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
72. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
73. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
74. The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
75. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
76. Hurts to Love You by Alisha Rai
77. The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
78. Working Stiff by Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell
79. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
80. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
81. Are U Ok? by Kati Morton
82. A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns by Archie Bongiovanni and Tristan Jimerson
83. Your Best Year Yet! by Jinny Ditzler
84. Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore
85. The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

This is the least number of books I've read in several years, which is interesting. I think it's because I didn't listen to a ton of audiobooks (so many great podcasts out there now!) and also I read a few books that were quite long. Catherine the Great, for instance, took me something like 3 weeks to read (and I don't regret a moment of it!) A Little Life also took me longer than most books. I think there were a few other lengthy tomes in there as well, and I'm glad I finally buckled down and read them, since I had previously been daunted by their length.

Checking my Goodreads shelves, it looks like my 5-star reads for the year were:

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Huh. I've really been talking up An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh but managed to give them each only 4 stars. The more I look at this list, the more I see some really great books that got fewer than 5 stars. But I've always been stingy with 5-star ratings, and they usually go to books that I'm blown away by in the moment rather than those that I'm thinking about months later after I've given them the rating. Which is all just to say that the star ratings aren't everything.

In 2019 I'm participating in the TBR Pile Challenge again, which always means discovering wonderful books that I've put off reading for far too long. I'm looking forward to finding some new favorites this year!

2019 TBR Pile Challenge

It's time it's time it's time! It's time to make a book list for 2019! Yay!

As you may know, I've been doing the TBR Pile Challenge for many years and it never gets old. In fact, there were a couple years when Adam at Roof Beam Reader wasn't hosting it and I just did it on my own. This reading challenge works for me and I can't let go of it.

The way it works is this: you make a list of 12 books (and 2 alternates) that have been languishing on your TBR pile or list for more than a year and try to read them in the upcoming year. Right now this means books I've been wanting to read since before January 1, 2018. I don't own a lot of books myself, so most of mine are from my Goodreads "to read" shelf, which I stopped using for a while and started again in mid-2017. Most of these are from that list, but a few are books I do have copies of sitting around.

My 2018 list is here, and as you can see from my linked reviews, I read all but one book on my main list and both alternates. Which counts as a win! It was such a great list too - I can't believe how long I put off reading some of these amazing books. Here's hoping this year's list is as good.

1. Nefarious Twit by Tony McMillen (failed in 4/19)
2. Shattering Glass by Gail Giles (finished 1/18/19)
3. Version Control by Dexter Palmer (finished 8/11/19)
4. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (finished 3/17/19)
5. We Are All Shipwrecks by Kelly Grey Carlisle (finished 5/18/19)
6. Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller (finished 2/19/19)
7. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (finished 2/3/19)
8. Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
9. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser (finished 3/10/19)
10. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (finished 5/28/19)
11. Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright (admitted defeat 2/17/19)
12. Paradox Bound by Peter Clines (finished 4/28/19)

My two alternates:

1. The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson (finished 8/24/19)
2. My One and Only by Kristan Higgins (finished 7/4/19)

This is a very different list from last year. For one thing, I've only got three nonfiction books on the list, and one of those is a memoir. Two of them are fairly short, though Prairie Fires is apparently over 600 pages. Yikes. The only other books over 400 pages are Pachinko, Red Sister, and Version Control and I'm not super worried about them because they're all fiction and still under 500 pages.

I am most excited about Pachinko and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, because I've heard so much about them! And most intimidated by Prairie Fires, now that I realize how long it is. I'm so interested in Laura Ingalls Wilder though. As you can see I've also got another book about that family on the list - the novel, Caroline: Little House Revisited.

As usual, as I complete and post about the books on the list I'll update the list above with links to the reviews. Wish me luck!

Top 10 Books I Meant to Read in 2017

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and Bookish, which is shutting down so today is the last Top Ten Tuesday. They'll continue on That Artsy Reader Girl, but I don't know yet if I'll be following it there.

At any rate, this week's topic is the top 10 books we meant to read in 2017 and totally plan to get to in 2018! Here are mine:

1. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
It was on my TBR Pile Challenge last year, so I really should have read it. But now it's on my challenge list for this year too, so if I manage not to read it again I'm going to completely give up on ever doing so.

2. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
I was first attracted by the cover, but everyone I know who has read it has loved it.

3. From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
Her first book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, was fantastic and I'm sure this one is too.

4. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
I've heard lots of great things about this book!

5. The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley
At some point last year I bought the audiobook from Audible and then forgot about it until about a week ago.

6. Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I've read all of her other books and thought I'd read this one over the summer and now I'm surprised to find that I still haven't read it.

7. Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder
This looks fascinating and I told a coworker about it, who immediately read it and really liked it.

8. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
I realize this wasn't even published until late November, but I was all over it the moment I heard about it and really thought I'd read it right away.

9. Paradox Bound by Peter Clines
His other two books were great, so I thought I'd snatch this one up the moment it got published, but here I am months later, still having not read it.

10. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
I have no excuse with this one. I received a galley back in the early spring, thought it looked good, and then decided to give it away because I didn't think I'd get to it. I've only heard good things about it since then! I even bought it for a friend for Christmas, but somehow have still managed not to read it myself.

Have you read any of these? Which should I make my priority?

A Year of Reading: 2017

1. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
2. Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
3. After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid
4. You Can't Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson
5. The Painter by Peter Heller
6. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
7. The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian
8. The Good Braider by Terry Farish
9. Grandville by Bryan Talbot
10. Compartment No. 6 by Rosa Liksom
11. Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson
12. The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg
13. The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
14. Sugar Changed the World by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
15. Miss Jane by Brad Watson
16. Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor
17. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
18. To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
19. The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
20. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
21. Breathless by Beverly Jenkins
22. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
23. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
24. Bleaker House by Nell Stevens
25. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
26. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
27. The Wanderers by Meg Howrey
28. Nation by Terry Pratchett
29. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
30. An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
31. The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking
32. Angel Catbird by Margaret Atwood
33. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
34. American War by Omar El Akkad
35. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
36. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
37. Anything For You by Kristan Higgins
38. The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
39. Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
40. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
41. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
42. Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy
43. If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
44. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
45. The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell
46. The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
47. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
48. Touch by Courtney Maum
49. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
50. Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder
51. A Scot in the Dark by Sarah MacLean
52. The Killing Zone by Felix F. Giordano*
53. Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud by Anne Helen Peterson
54. The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
55. My Last Continent by Midge Raymond
56. Thomas Holland in the Realm of the Ogres by K.M. Doherty*
57. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
58. Falling for Trouble by Sarah Title
59. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
60. Call Me Madame Alice by K.W. Garlick*
61. One of Windsor by Beth Caruso*
62. The Fold by Peter Clines
63. The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz
64. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
65. Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
66. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman**
67. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
68. The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
69. They Can't Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery
70. The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean
71. In the Shadow of Liberty by Kenneth C. Davis
72. The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
73. Wonder by R.J. Palacio***
74. Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
75. Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta
76. Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too by Jomny Sun
77. Ghost by Jason Reynolds
78. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith***
79. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
80. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
81. Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado***
82. Angels in America by Tony Kushner
83. Hunger by Roxane Gay
84. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
85. The Lady Traveler's Guide to Scoundrels and Other Gentlemen by Victoria Alexander
86. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
87. The Proposal by Mary Balogh
88. The Power by Naomi Alderman
89. The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Saenz
90. Hate To Want You by Alisha Rai
91. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
92. The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
93. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
94. The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
95. Vincent and Theo by Deborah Heiligman
96. Middlemarch by George Eliot
97. In the Country We Love by Diane Guerrero

*These are books I read for a book award committee and decided not to post about them publicly.
**I literally forgot to write a post about this, and didn't realize it until now. D'oh!
***These are re-reads that I just didn't want to post about for a second time.

So there's my list! The last 5 years I've gone a little over a hundred, and I think my recent lack of audiobook listening is what made a difference this year. It doesn't matter to me though - it's not a contest.

I had so many favorites this year, but those I gave 5 stars to on Goodreads were:
The Wanderers, The Hate U Give, The Fact of a Body, Touch, and Moxie.

Special mention goes to The Power, Binti, Miss Jane, and Young Jane Young, though truthfully I could keep going. I read a lot of great books.

Here's to another great year of reading!

Top 10 Books I'm Looking Forward To in 2018

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. (But not for long! The site is shutting down in January.) This week is all about 2018 books. I've barely begun looking at what's coming out in 2018, but there are a few I've been anticipating and I just checked out some lists in order to compose this post and now I have a TON more. Here are the top 10 books I'm excited about, by month:

1. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas (January)
A feminist dystopia in which women have lost all their reproductive rights. Let's hope it's not a harbinger of what's actually to come in 2018.

2. Tempest by Beverly Jenkins (January)
Third in her Old West series, I'm particularly excited about this one because it's about a character from the last book becoming a mail order bride! And I hear it begins with her shooting her new husband. Excellent!

3. So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (January)
I follow Ijeoma Oluo on Twitter and I'm always interested in what she has to say.

4. A Princess in Theory by Alissa Cole (February)
In this contemporary romance by the author of An Extraordinary Union, a young woman receives an email from a Nigerian prince saying that he is supposed to marry her. Of course, she ignores it because it's just a scam BUT IT'S NOT. (Fun fact: that amazing dress on the cover is by Adorned by Nicole, from where Alyssa Cole purchases lots of her conference dresses.)

5. I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (February)
This memoir about a woman's obsession with unsolved crimes is very intriguing! I'm hoping it will be a little like The Fact of a Body.

6. The Radical Element (A Tyranny of Petticoats #2), edited by Jessica Spotswood (March)
"An anthology of revolution and resistance"? Yes, please! (Spotswood is also co-editor of Toil & Trouble: 16 Tales of Women and Witchcraft, which will be out in August, and which I'm also looking forward to.)

7. The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by Mallory Ortberg (March)
She wrote great posts at The Toast. Does she also have a talent for short stories? There's only one way to find out.

8. All the Beautiful Lies by Peter Swanson (April)
I have no idea what this is even about, but it doesn't matter. Peter Swanson!!!

9. Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave by Zora Neale Hurston (May)
A previously unreleased true story of the last known survivor of the slave trade. Huston interviewed him in Alabama in 1931 and I don't know why we're only getting it now, but it's absolutely going on my To Read list for 2018.

10. The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls by Jessica Spotswood (June)
Her books are all amazing!

After combing through some lists of forthcoming books, it was hard to keep it just to 10. These are the ones I'm most likely to read, I think.

Are there any books coming out in 2018 that you're excited about?

Top Ten Favorite Books of 2017

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. Posting a list of my favorite books of the year before the year is over makes me anxious but I'm powering through it.

I made this list by finding the books I rated 5 stars on Goodreads (minus the 2 re-reads), then sifting through my many, many 4-star books to choose the ones I like most at this very moment. The Because I am fickle. This always makes me second-guess my book ratings. Like, why didn't I give 5 stars to Young Jane Young or Miss Jane or The Power when I keep recommending them to everyone I ever talk to? My ways are a mystery even to me.

Without further ado, I present my top 10 favorite books of the year. The first half are my 5-star reviews, followed by the top 4-star, but within that they're in no particular order. All links go to my reviews.

1. The Wanderers by Meg Howrey

2. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

3. The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

4. Touch by Courtney Maum

5. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

6. Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

7. The Power by Naomi Alderman

8. Miss Jane by Brad Watson

9. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

10. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Interesting things about this list: 9 of them are written by women; 7 were published in 2017. It looks like 28 of the 95 books I've read this year were published this year, which I think is more newly-published books than usual.

I'd say it was a pretty good reading year!

What are the best books you read this year?

Ten Characters Who Would Make Great Leaders

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. Today's topic is 10 characters who would make great leaders.

I think about leadership a lot, and the ways things could be better if, oh, I don't know, someone different had won the U.S. presidential election last year? Or if, in general, women ran the world. Because honestly, I am running out of patience with men and their stupidity and the sexism that so permeates our culture. So here's my list of characters from books who should be running pretty much everything and yes they are all women.

1. Frankie Landau-Banks from The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
She's very good at planning, scheming, and plotting, all in secret while maintaining a relationship with the person in charge of the organizing she is undermining. Brilliant.

2. & 3.  Vivian Carter and Lucy Hernandez from Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
Viv started Moxie, the zine encouraging girls to fight back misogyny in their school. Lucy was part of the catalyst for Viv to start it and one of her strongest supporters. They worked really well together.

4. Jane Young from Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
A strong capable women who bounces back from being slut-shamed, à la Monica Lewinsky.

5. Elle Burns from An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
She's intuitive, resourceful, with good judgment, a photographic memory and a passion for justice. Any black woman who do something as risky as going undercover as a slave during the Civil War is clearly not afraid of anything.

6. Willowdean Dickson from Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
A self-confident fat girl who assumes she has as much chance of winning a beauty pageant as anyone else is exactly the sort of role model teenage girls need. In fact, she did inspire many other girls who considered themselves misfits to also enter the pageant. She is thoughtful, introspective, self-assured, and very determined.

7. Ifemelu from Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
As a Nigerian who has also spent years living in America, her perspective on race in America is invaluable. It also helps that she's a fantastic writer and communicator, as we learned from her blog Raceteenth.

8. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I mean, she volunteered as tribute.

9. Binti from Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Here is a woman who left her planet to attend an elite university, the first of her people to do so. On the way there, she was faced with an incredibly dangerous enemy. She's very brave, but maybe more importantly, she's not afraid to be different, nor is she afraid to those who are different from her. Would make an excellent diplomat.

10. Jin Ling from The Walled City by Ryan Graudin 
Jin disguised herself as a boy to survive, determined to get her sister out of the house of prostitution where she was being held captive, whatever the cost. Really anyone who survives and even thrives in a dystopian setting while remaining a good person is someone who should be in charge of things.

And a shoutout to the entire cast of Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. A group of beauty queen contestants crash on an island and rather than killing each other to survive, they join forces against a common enemy while encouraging each other to be their true selves.

You know, there are so many great female characters who would be fantastic leaders. Just like there are many women in real life who should be in charge.

Top Ten Unique Book Titles

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week is all about unique book titles, which is super fun! A lot of book titles are rather samey, using words that aren't very memorable, not to mention trends like all the books with "girl" in the title, which just leads to confusing them all wiht each other. But some really knock it out of the park with creativity. I'm sure there are some great titles out there I'm not remembering now and I'll kick myself later when I think of them, but here are a few that came to mind right away.

1. The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage
I can't seem to make a book list of any sort without this ending up on it.

2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
A classic. But I love it. It's a whole sentence and it's kind of creepy even when you don't know much about the story.

3. We Are All Shipwrecks by Kelly Carlisle
This is a new memoir and I'm planning to read it, based almost entirely on the title.

4. Nefarious Twit by Tony McMillen
I haven't read this yet, but I think I'd like it. I keep coming across it at the library where I work, because it's in both our regular collection and our local author collection. It's a very satisfying title to say.

5. Normal People Don't Live Like This by Dylan Landis
A great book of short stories that I read based on the title alone. It's also a refrain that goes through my head a lot when I look around at the condition of my house.

6. I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
A book of essays that didn't really live up to the title, but was still ok enough. I really like cake.

7. The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders
A book of essays by Saunders back before he got really well-known with Tenth of December. It's very good!

8. When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman
Slightly magical British coming-of-age novel that I kept hearing about on The Readers podcast, and remembered because the title really stands out.

9. Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye
Pretty ominous, and it was totally appropriate to the story. A bizarre little book. Great title and a creepy cover.

10. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
Those aren't two words you'd generally think to put together if you're not Andrew Smith, and most of us aren't.

I didn't even get into all the punny romance titles, which I totally love, but I guess they aren't unique since so many of them do employ puns. I can think of some more that are unusual, but in ways that I find annoying because they're just too long or too precious-sounding. Are there any great ones that I forgot?

Ten Books That Feature Black Female Characters

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is Ten Books That Feature _____ Characters and I decided on black women. All of these books feature black women as main characters and the authors are also black women.

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
This is one of the best books of 2017. Please read it. The novel was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and it does a great job of telling one story about how police brutality affects lives, and all the ways that it's not a clear-cut issue. The characters are incredibly well crafted, both teens and adults. Amazingly, it's a debut novel.

2. The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Also a teen novel, this one focuses on immigration issues. There's also a romance. If you like it, you should check out her other novel Everything, Everything which I also really enjoyed.

3. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Vividly detailed historical novel that takes place in 1960s Nigeria. I've read all of Adichie's books, but this one remains my favorite. I also highly recommend Americanah.

4. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
I don't know why these books all have "sun" in the title. This play about a black family in the 1950s who are trying to better their lives. Even though it's a play, it somehow felt richly detailed and I could picture everything as it was happening. Beneatha is a smart, ambitious young woman who wants to become a doctor, and she tries to expand her horizons by trying out different things, which her mother characterizes as "flitting around" by I see more as experimentation and trying to figure out who she is and what she wants to do.

5. An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
In this harrowing story, a woman named Mireille is kidnapped while visiting her parents in Haiti. The story is graphic and real, and we get both her experiences during her captivity and the aftermath and recovery. Roxane Gay is one of the most talented writers out there, and I'm already behind on reading her books.

6. An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
Ok, totally different. This is a romance about a free black women who goes undercover as a spy during the Civil War. Elle Burns is incredibly smart (she has a photographic memory) but she's also very resourceful and intuitive, and stronger and more mature than most romance heroines.

7. Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins
Another romance! This is the first in a series which takes place in the Old West, so it's after the Civil War but still not a super-friendly time for young black women to be setting out on their own like Eddy Carmichael has done. But I loved how she settled in a new town and started a new life there (which is totally my book catnip for some reason.) I also enjoyed the second in the series, Breathless.

Now I'm going back in time a bit because there are some classics I want to include even though I read them way back before I even considered having a blog.

8. Push by Sapphire
This is the book that the movie Precious is based on. It's very hard to read because of the graphic violence, but that's what people sometimes have to endure, like this teenage girl. It stuck with me for a very long time, and then all those wounds reopened when I saw the movie.

9. The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
A classic in urban fiction, I read this in my early 20s I think, and was so struck by it because everything about this story was so incredibly different from anything I had experienced. The main character, Winter, grows up in the inner city and her dad is a drug kingpin. She gets very caught up in the glitz and glamour and becomes very materialistic, but I think later on she figures out that maybe it's not all worth it. I remember being rather impressed by how driven and focused Winter was in going after what she wanted.

10. Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
There was a period in my 20s when I read everything I could get my hands on by Alice Walker and Toni Morrison and out of all those books, this is the one that sticks with me. It's about a woman caught between African and American culture who ends up being genitally mutilated because that's what women in her tribe do. I felt so terrible for her and so traumatized by what she put herself through.

Top Ten Books On My Fall TBR List

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is the top books we're looking forward to reading this fall.

I only recently began adding books to my To Read shelf on Goodreads again, and I've been exercising a lot of restraint so it's not (yet) out of control as it used to be. Of course in some cases I've just put the books on hold at the library and then frozen the hold, which is basically just adding another list altogether. At any rate, I have grand plans to fly through my To Read list(s) before the end of the year. I still have some things to read for the Community Read committee and my personal reading challenge, but still. I have more than 3 months to do all of this. No problem, right?

Here's what I'm most looking forward to reading this fall:

1. Middlemarch by George Eliot
Ok, this might put a cramp in my plans to "fly" through my list. This isn't even technically on my list, but I recently made plans with some friends to read it together beginning in October. I just bought my own copy and I really love the cover. I'm excited!

2. Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
I have a library copy and plan to start it later this week. I adore E. Lockhart and the reviews for this new novel have been pretty great.

3. Hunger by Roxane Gay
She's just an incredibly talented writer, and I've heard from two different friends that this book is amazing. Also, I've already bought a ticket to see her speak in March!

4. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
New John Green! I don't even know what it's about! It doesn't matter!

5. Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta
A new book by Tom Perrotta is always cause for celebration. And reading.

6. The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
Initially I wasn't thinking I'd necessarily read this, but it's a pretty short book with a compelling premise, and I'm still rather haunted by the last Claire Messud book I read.

7. Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too by Jomny Sun
I don't even remember where I heard about this. It's a graphic novel about a lonely alien sent to observe Earth, and I just now discovered that it's based on the author's Twitter account. Anyhow, it looks so adorable I might die of cute overload.

8. What Happened by Hillary Clinton
At this point I just want to read it because everyone right now is so indignant about the fact that she had the audacity to write it, and honestly is there anything she can do that people won't be upset about?

9. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
Speaking of unruly women and books that have gotten flak for stupid reasons...

10. We Are All Shipwrecks by Kelly Carlisle
I think I mostly added this to my list because it's my favorite book title that I've seen in a while. But it also sounded pretty good from the reviews.

There are so many exciting books that didn't even make this list, but these are the ones that I'm the most urgently interested in right now. Which, obviously, could change at any moment.

What are you most looking forward to reading this fall?

Top ten books I read the first year I had my blog

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. I feel like I haven't done one of these in a while! They were on hiatus for a bit, and I've just been very busy/tired/lazy and sometimes the topics haven't appealed to me. This week's topic is a throwback freebie. One of the ideas was Ten Books I Loved During the First Year I Started My Blog. I really like that idea!

These are all books I read in 2007 and loved, in the order that I read them.

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

2. The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

3. The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

4. Sunshine by Robin McKinley

5. Firmin by Sam Savage

6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

7. The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken

8. A Secret History by Donna Tartt

9. Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

10. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Fun fact: when I started this blog it was primarily going to be about knitting and librarianship. I hardly posted about books at all! A couple of these were mentioned in passing in posts on other topics, but only one had a full post devoted to it.

The complete list of books I read in 2007 is here. (Thank goodness I was doing that from the very beginning!) What an amazing reading year that was! It was HARD to narrow down this list. There were so many other great books by some of my favorite authors, like Tom Perrotta and Nick Hornby. Wow. The books on the list are not just books I loved, but ones that I still consider favorites, and in most cases really want to read again.

That was a fun trip down memory lane!

Best Books of 2017 So Far

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. Today's list is our favorite books we've read so far in 2017. Yay!

Interestingly, I've only finished about 48 books so far, which means I'm on track to read slightly fewer than usual this year. I definitely feel like I'm reading a little less and taking longer to read each book, but I'm not certain why.

These first two are my only 5-star reads so far this year (I'm very stingy with my 5-star ratings!)

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I think we can all agree that this book is something special. The issues are timely, the characters are realistic, the story is complex and nuanced and thoughtful, and the audio narration is stellar.

2. The Wanderers by Meg Howrey

Character-driven science fiction about astronauts in a Mars mission simulation. I can't tell you what I loved most about it without giving too much away, but I loved spending time with these characters and the writing was accessible and sophisticated at the same time.

The rest of this list was difficult to compile! The first few were easy, but it got harder to choose after that without falling into the trap of listing the most recent ones because they happen to be more fresh in my mind. I have a lot of 4-star reads, so I went back and read my own reviews and compared them to determine which ones I liked more than others.

3. Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson

I honestly don't know why this author isn't more well known. I'm getting a bit tired of thrillers with twists, but this guy does it so much better than most that I'll read anything he writes. If you like Gillian Flynn, you need to check out Peter Swanson.

4. Miss Jane by Brad Watson

The premise was so unusual, and Watson beautifully crafted it into a very compelling portrait of his main character's life. If you like historical fiction about women, definitely pick this one up.

5. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

Another work of historical fiction, this one felt very cozy to me in that I wanted to move to this town and befriend all of these characters. It's not cozy though, as the looming war and death begins to affect their lives, but it's so much about coming together and supporting one another.

6. If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

This story about a transgender girl trying to fit in has so much heart, and managed to be realistic without being cruel about it. Bonus points for being set in a rural area in the South.

7. Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

Another teen book that takes place in a rural area, also with an LGBT theme, and also really, really good. I love Ramona.

8. The Painter by Peter Heller

I read this way back in January and had to re-read my blog post to remember how much I liked it. Peter Heller is fantastic at creating complicated characters who feel real.

9. The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

The final volume in the trilogy that began with The Tea Rose. I loved this series the whole way through. It's a must-read if you like historical fiction.

10. After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reid is a new favorite author. I love the inventive ways she finds to explore relationships, and her books are so easy and fun to read.

There are so many others I want to cram on here, but I'm sticking with ten!

What are you favorites so far this year?

Top Ten Series I've Been Meaning to Start

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. Today's topic is series we haven't yet read but want to.

1. The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin

The first book, The Fifth Season, sounded so great when I first heard about it but I wanted to wait for the whole series to be out before starting it. Otherwise I run into that problem where a new book is released but I can't remember what happened in the last book. But I can't wait to finally read this apocalyptic story. N.K. Jemisin is one of very few black women who write science fiction and I hear she's really really good at it.

2. Cormoran Strike by Robert Galbraith

I love J.K. Rowling and I've heard great reviews of her mystery series, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Her style is so friendly and humorous I'll read anything she writes. I've had Cuckoo's Calling on my radar since it came out, but somehow it just never seems quite the right time to start it.

3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

I'll be honest: part of the reason I've been wanting to read this series is because of the covers. The series of 4 books is both science fiction and fantasy with fairy tale elements - basically, it's everything. I've been trying to decide if I want to tackle it on audio. I hear it's great, but the books are pretty long and I do prefer shorter audiobooks. It's a conundrum.

4. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

There was a lot of hype when this first came out, but I heard the series was consistently good from beginning to end. I put it off so all the books would be released and then by the time they all were, I had moved on. But every time I see it mentioned I think I should pick it up (someday!)

5. Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

I feel like everyone was reading this series at the same time as Daughter of Smoke and Bone. The first book of this fantasy is Shadow and Bone, which I came really close to reading a couple of times but somehow still haven't.

6. Bill Hodges Trilogy by Stephen King

I've honestly never heard it called that - it's always the Mr. Mercedes series when people talk about it. At any rate, I can't keep up with Stephen King so here I am, having missed this entire mystery series.


These next three I've actually started by reading one book a long, long time ago and then not continuing.

7. The Dark Tower by Stephen King

Speaking of not being able to keep up with Stephen King! I read The Gunslinger back in high school and I think maybe it wasn't as much my sort of thing as King's other books so I didn't keep going. I had in my head that this was a long series, though I just looked it up and there are only 8 books. My vague plan for this series has been that someday Stephen King will die and I will feel very sad, and then I'll remember there's a whole long series of his that I haven't yet read.

8. MadAddam by Margaret Atwood

I read the first book, Oryx and Crake, when it first came out and always meant to get to the second. But, as often happens, I couldn't even remember the first one by then so I just stopped. I've actually been planning to read the whole thing in the next year or so.

9. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Of course I've read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe multiples times. Who hasn't? But it's ridiculous that I never read any other book in the series.

I guess I only have nine. Or, if you count the two series I've read but really want to read again, eleven:

Jessica Darling by Megan McCafferty

For years I've suffered under the delusion that I only ever read the first book and I kept thinking I should finally get around to reading the rest of it. Then I was looking through the little notebook where I've been listing every book I've read since mid-2000 and saw that I've read the whole series. Anyhow, I went to my local bookstore and bought all three books with plans to reread the series sometime in the definite future.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

I loved this series on audiobook! According to my aforementioned book-tracking notebook I read the whole thing a second time, which I didn't remember doing. But kind of. I think I read it in print that time. Anyhow, now that Pullman has announced another series related to that series I want to read it all again in preparation. I think I'll listen to the audio again because it was really wonderful.

Are there any series that you keep meaning to read but haven't? Share in the comments!

Top 10 Most Anticipated Books for the Second Half of 2017

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week we're talking about upcoming books, which is one of my favorite types of list! I don't pay as much attention to upcoming books as I used to just because I get so overwhelmed at what's out there, but I'm actually doing a library program in August about fall books so I do need to do some research. There are a lot of lists of books coming out this summer, but not much for fall yet (I'm pretty sure there's a Booklist fall issue at work, but I haven't looked at it yet.)

My list is a mix of books published in the second half of 2017 and books that are already out but I'm hoping to read in the second half of the year. Let's take a look!

1. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (June 27)
I think it was last fall that another librarian (and former coworker) read a galley and told me how amazing it is. I'm on hold at the library. Bonus: the author is also a bookseller at my favorite local bookstore

2. The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman (October 19)
I don't even know if it's called that - Pullman is writing a trilogy by that title and the first book is due out in October. It's a companion trilogy to His Dark Materials and I cannot wait! I think I might re-listen to His Dark Materials before then in preparation. It's amazing on audio.

3. Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta (August 1)
A 40-something divorcee gets an anonymous text message saying "U R my MILF!" and she becomes obsessed with it, breaking out of her bland life to explore her new interest in the sexual exploits of women her age. Meanwhile her chauvinistic frat-boy son finds that college isn't what he expected. Honestly I don't even care what this book is about because NEW TOM PERROTTA NOVEL!

4. Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin (August 22)
Kirkus says "it is the most immaculate takedown of slut-shaming in literature or anywhere else." Sign me up! It sounds like it's inspired by Monica Lewinsky (and have you watched her TED talk? You should!) and Gabrielle Zevin is such a great writer I don't know why I haven't read more of her books.

5. Bonfire by Krysten Ritter (November 7)
I think this is a crime/thriller which I'm not super into these days, but I loved Krysten Ritter in Jessica Jones and she's really fun to follow on Instagram (she knits!) so I'm pretty interested in this!

6. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson (May, out now)
This is super popular and I've heard lots of great things about it. I just read and enjoyed a book about physics by another author and have been wanting to read something by Tyson for a while.

7. The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (May, out now)
Part true-crime, part memoir, in which the author's staunch anti-death penalty views are challenged. Interested because I'm also strongly opposed to the death penalty so I'm very interested to see if my own views waiver. I also haven't read any true crime in a while although I find it fascinating.

8. Made for Love by Alissa Nutting (July 4)
A woman leaves her marriage and moves in with her dad and his sex doll in a trailer park. The life she escaped was one controlled by her husband and the company he founded ("Gogol Industries") and came to a head when he wanted to wirelessly connect them through brain chips in the first "mind meld." I hope this book is just as daring as Tampa.

9. Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore (September 19)
A new Kristin Cashore novel is always cause for excitement (though I still haven't read Bitterblue). This one sounds like a departure from the world of Graceling. A young woman is raised by her aunt Magnolia who is then lost on an Antarctic expedition. Jane then embarks on her own adventure, and I imagine she maybe learns about what happens to her aunt? I don't know, but this description had me at "Antarctic expedition."

10. See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt (August 1)
I don't usually hop on debut novels, but this one is about Lizzie Borden and the events surrounding her notoriety, and has a fantastic cover. Yes, please!

Oh my gosh, once I got going it was difficult to narrow down the list! There are so many more books coming out that I'm interested in, but as of right now these are the ones that intrigue me the most. (Oh shoot - I just found a note reminding me about Touch by Courtney Maum, so I'm just going to squeeze that one in real quick!)

This summer I have to read books for our community read and also for a book award committee I just agreed to be on, but hopefully I'll have time to read some of these too so I don't have to wait until fall.

What are you looking forward to reading in the second half of the year?