Tag Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

November 28, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set During Thanksgiving


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A cornucopia set on it’s side and filled with pumpkins, squash, cabbage, potatoes, garlic, onions, and other late autumn vegetables. They are so many books out there set during Christmas that I continue to be surprised by how much less common it is to find books set during Thanksgiving. Let’s see how many of them I can find!

1. Over the River and Through the Wood by Lydia Maria Francis Child

2. Southern Fried Murder: A Thanksgiving Novella (Holiday Shorts Book 5) by Necole Ryse

3. The Diva Runs Out of Thyme (A Domestic Diva Mystery, #1)  by Krista Davis

4. A Zombie Thanksgiving by Anthony Renfro

5. A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving by Godfrey Hodgson

6. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown by Charles M. Schulz

7. A Halloween Happening by Adrienne Adams

8. A Match Made for Thanksgiving (Holidays with the Wongs, #1) by Jackie Lau

9. Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner and Pies: All of your Thanksgiving dinner and dessert classics made vegan!
by Audrey Dunham

10. How to Bake the Perfect Pecan Pie by Gina Henning

Which holidays do you wish had more books written about them?

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November 21, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons Why I’m Thankful for Books


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photo of the hands of a brown-skinned person who is wearing pink nail police and holding up a sign that says “thank you.” Here are some of the many reasons why I am thankful for books.

1. They’re an easy form of entertainment when I’m sick or injured.

2. They introduce readers to people from all walks of life. I’ve learned so much about other cultures from them!

3. They don’t come in arbitrary sizes that are somehow different in every single library or bookstore out there or require you to use a fitting room before selecting which paperback to bring home. (Can you tell I really don’t like shopping for clothes? Ha!)

4. They teach us about the world around us and how things work. This is especially true if you read nonfiction, but fiction can be educational as well.

5. They work when the power goes out. Unless you’re using an e-reader or listening to an audiobook, you never have to worry about draining the battery too much or charging a book up again.

6. They’re (often) soothing when you’ve had a bad day.

7. They (often) encourage readers to assume the best of others and work to make life more fair and harmonious for everyone…or at least many of the books I read do this!

8. They encourage the development of your imagination.

9. They introduce you to all sorts of lovely new people…just like the friendly folks I’ve met as a result of Top Ten Tuesday.

10. They’re a great bonding activity when you read a book aloud with kids or other adults.

11. They’re a free form of entertainment if you’re like me and also use your library card regularly. This is such an important thing for people who are lower income or who have a very limited entertainment budget for other reasons. I am so grateful.

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November 14, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Mainstream Popular Authors that I Still Have Not Read


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A close-up photo of a typwriter. Someone has typed the phrase “something worth reading” on the white sheet of paper that has been put into the typewriter. Thank you to Rissa for submitting this week’s topic.

I used this Wikipedia page to compile my list of mainstream popular authors that I still have not read.

These authors have not published anything that appeals to my taste in books so far, but obviously there are a lot of people out there who do love their work!

If they do ever happen to publish stories that fit my reading interests, I’d be happy to give them a try.

1. Tom Clancy

2. Dean Koontz

3. James Patterson

4. Barbara Cartland

5. Harold Robbins

6. Georges Simenon

7. Eiichiro Oda

8. Akira Toriyama

9. Corín Tellado

10. Masashi Kishimoto

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November 7, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles That Would Make Great Newspaper Headlines


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Thank you to Cathy @ What Cathy Read Next for coming up with this topic. It’s a unique one.

I’d sure want to read all of these newspaper headlines. Many of them could easily appear in a regular newspaper, while others would work best if written by a reporter who lived in a speculative fiction universe.

Some weeks I can only come up with four or five answers, so this time I’ll happily be going over the limit to help make up for that.

A black man sitting at a table and reading a newspaper. He has a serious, thoughtful expression on his face and has just looked up to make eye contact with the reader when this shot was taken. He’s sitting bedside a large picture window that has the blinds drawn, but it’s such a sunny day that you can still see lots of light pouring into the room. 1. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

2. 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth and Other Useful Guides by Matthew Inman

3. I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It by Adam Selzer

4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

5. By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters

6. The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

7. The Spiders of Allah: Travels of an Unbeliever on the Frontline of Holy War by James Hider

8. 15 Days Without a Head by Dave Cousins

9. How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

10. The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
by Lindsey Fitzharris

11. Making Mummies, Shrinking Heads: And Other Useful Skills by Pat Murphy

12. First You Write: The Worst Way to Become an Almost Famous Author And The Best Advice I Got While Doing It by Joni Rodgers

13. Great Gals: Inspired Ideas for Living a Kick-Ass Life by Summer Pierre

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October 31, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Things I Love About Halloween


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates it! This is my favourite holiday of the year, so I’m thrilled to see October 31 come around again on the calendar.

In previous years, I’ve blogged about My Favourite Halloween Treats, Halloween Picture Books, and Halloween Things I’ve Never Done  for Top Ten Tuesday’s Halloween Freebie post.

This time I’m going to talk about why I love this holiday so much, especially since I wasn’t allowed to celebrate it as a kid as I’ve mentioned before.

So what’s so fantastic about this holiday?

1. Presents Aren’t Needed

It’s a relief to celebrate without being expected to give or receive gifts. I have a lot of mixed feelings about that tradition.

Two white people are each holding up a sugar cookie that has been decorated for Halloween. One cookie is shaped like a ghost and the other one a skeleton. 2. Candy and Baked Goods

Halloween candy and baked goods are delicious. If I receive something I can’t eat for allergy reasons, there are a lot of other people who can eat it and who wouldn’t mind taking it home.

3. Free Expression

This is the only time of year when it’s socially acceptable for adults to dress in costumes (unless you’re going to a comic conference or something). I love having the freedom to be anyone I want for that night…even if, truth be told, most Halloween nights find me no longer dressing up at all.

4. You Can Eat Anything 

I enjoy cooking, but I do not like the pressure that can come on other holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas to follow a rigid menu and make all of the dishes the exact same way every time. There is no set menu for Halloween. You could eat pizza, samosas, Pad Thai, or a nice, big salad if you wish!

5. Halloween Music

Don’t tell anyone, but I start listening to Halloween playlists in September. I love jumping around from lighthearted kids’ songs to the season finale song of Supernatural to all sorts of other spooky music.

6. Autumn Is Gorgeous 

I love walking through crunchy leaves in the park and seeing the brilliant red, yellow, orange, and occasionally purple leaves still clinging to their trees or bushes.  Halloween is often pretty close to peak colour here in Toronto, so this is yet another reason why I love this holiday.

7. Ghost Stories 

Whether I’m going on a ghost tour, reading a ghost story, or watching a paranormal film, I think it’s interesting to explore the spirits’ motives for haunting a particular location.

A jack-o-lantern is sitting in a patch of glass. There is a candle inside of the lantern that is making it glow orange and yellow. It’s dark outside, so few other details can be seen other than the lush grass it is sitting on. 8. Carving Pumpkins

Am I good at it? Not really, but it’s still amusing. When else are you going to have permission to play with food? (Or potential food, rather).

9. Acknowledgement of Death

A friend of mine died in a car accident when we were in high school. One of the weirdest parts of that experience for me was how quickly people stopped talking about him. We were all grieving, and of course I respected everyone who found it too hard to discuss him or his accident. Halloween is a relief to me because it’s one time of year when more folks are willing to broach such topics and remember the dead.  Yes, there is pain in those moments…but over time there can also be so much joy to be found in retelling funny or touching stories about those who are no longer with us.

10. Fear Is Fun In Small Doses When You’re Not Really In Danger

Wow, that was a wordy sentence! But, yeah, I do see the value in feeling a little fear from a spooky movie or ghost story when you know that it is 100% fiction. This is such a different feeling than being afraid of something or someone who could actually harm you.

 

 

 

 

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October 24, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: LGBTQ+ Horror Novels


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

An opened book is sitting next to a small pumpkin on a dusty wooden table. There is an illustration of some sort of gnome or other heavily-bearded figure on the right hand side of the page. It looks like an illustration from a dark fairy tale, maybe? Behind the book and pumpkin is a black candle and some orange and black sticks sitting in black pots. The original theme for this week was “atmospheric books.”

I was utterly stumped by it, so I’m going to turn my response into a Halloween post instead. Here are ten LGBTQ+ horror novels I have not read yet because I’ve lost a lot of interest in the horror genre since 2020.

When I do read horror these days, I avoid pandemic-related themes and am much less willing to read anything gory that I was in the past. (Granted, gore was only a rare and occasional part of what I read back then, but now I can do so much less of it than even that!).

It’s been almost four years with few if any adjustments to these mental rules for myself, so this might be a permanent change to my reading habits.

1. The Luminous Dead  by Caitlin Starling

2. Carmilla: The First Vampire by Amy Chu

3. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

4. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

5. Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

6. Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

7. Evergreen by Devin Greenlee

8. The Shadow of Oz by J. Michael Wright II

9. To Kill a Shadow by Katherine Quinn

10. Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

If you’ve read any of these, please feel free to tell me what you thought of them.

If you have other suggestions for Halloween and/or speculative fiction LGBTQ+ reads, I’d love to hear them, too.

Finally, if neither of those apply or if you’re in a chatty mood and want to answer multiple questions, tell me how the pandemic has (or hasn’t) changed your reading habits. I’ve spoken to several folks who had similar reactions to mine and wonder how common it is.

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October 17, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books About Thunderstorms


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A dramatic photo of lighting striking the ground just after sunset. You can see the dim outline of a tree and a house on the land, but everything else is dark. The sky above is partially black, partially purple near where the lightning is striking, and partially lit up from the lighting itself. Assuming I’m able to remain safely indoors during them, thunderstorms are my favourite type of bad weather.

There’s something majestic about seeing the entire sky light up for a moment as lightning strikes in the distance or hearing the deep rumble of thunder as a storm gathers strength.

It’s like watching nature’s version of an action scene!

Here are some books from a variety of genres that are at least partially about thunderstorms. I really thought there might be more of them, but maybe someday there will be.

1. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1) by Rick Riordan

2. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

3. Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World, #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse

4. Storm by George R. Stewart

5. A Magical History (The Mauve Legacy, #1) by Emma Hart

6. Rain: Four Walks in English Weather by Melissa Harrison

7. The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies
by Richard Hamblyn

8. Photographing Weather by Storm Dunlop

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October 10, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Jobs That Sound Interesting


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Thank you to Susan @Bloggin’ bout Books  who submitted the original topic for this week, “Bookish Jobs I Would Do For Free (Real or Imaginary).” 

A brown woman sitting at a desk and grinning while holding up her head with her left hand. She’s looking at something on her laptop. She is wearing a white and black striped sweater and holding a white mug in front of her with her left hand. I’m tweaking it a little because from what I have observed there’s already too much pressure to work for free in a lot of interests that attract people who are passionate about them. If you are a woman and belong to certain niche groups, the pressure can be even stronger due to stereotypes about women being inherently kinder and more generous than men (speaking again here in my experience. Your mileage may vary!)

This wouldn’t be a problem if we lived in a Star Trek world where everyone’s needs for clothing, education, housing, healthcare, and nutritious food are automatically taken care of for their entire lives.

It absolutely can be an emotionally healthy thing for people who have the time, money, and energy to devote their lives to their favourite topics or causes, but I’ve also seen it misused to extract far too many hours of unpaid work out of folks who deeply care about subject X but whose basic needs are NOT currently being met.

I’m ethically uncomfortable with those sorts of arrangements, so I’m going to be blogging about some bookish jobs that sound cool instead.

May we all someday have such abundance in our lives that we can do cool bookish jobs for free if we wish to, though!

 

Job: Researcher

Why It Sounds Interesting: Research is my idea of a good time. Before the pandemic began, I used to go to the library to look up all sorts of interesting topics from foster care to marsupials to the history of medicine and see how much I could learn about them. Now I dive deeply into these things at home instead!

 

Job: Indie/Small Press Book Reviewer

Why It Sounds Interesting: I know I blogged about this last summer, but there are so many amazing indie and small press books out there that I wish I could introduce to new audiences. I do what I can in my spare time, but it would be awesome if this could be a full-time, salaried position with benefits so that many more authors and readers could benefit from it.

 

Job:  Creative Writing Professor

Why It Sounds Interesting: Even if you happen to be born with an aptitude for writing, it still takes many years of practice to hone that skill. It would be so rewarding to teach others how to evaluate their own stories and make them sharper, crisper, and more imaginative.

 

Job: Bibliotherapist

Why It Sounds Interesting: Imagine combining the work of a therapist with that of a librarian! Bibliotherapists recommend specific books to their clients based on what their client currently needs, so being extremely well-read is an integral part of the profession which is honestly my idea of the perfect job.

 

Job: Bookish Event Planner

Why It Sounds Interesting: Word on the Street is a Toronto book festival that’s always well planned and delightful to attend. I wish that the event planners who work on that festival could organize all bookish events! In my opinion, festivals, book signings, book release parties, panels, talks, and other similar things often flow better when they’re designed and organized by people who are already passionate about reading in general and, even better, fans of the specific books and authors being featured there as well.

 

Job: Audiobook Narrator

Why It Sounds Interesting: A great narrator makes all the difference when I’m listening to audiobooks. I admire people who are able to narrate well and think that is a fabulous talent to have.

 

 

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October 3, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Reading Goals I Still Want to Accomplish Before the End of the Year


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Today’s topic made me feel like I was back in college and a professor just gave us a pop quiz. Luckily, I was generally pretty well prepared for such things, and, of course, Jana would never hand out grades or anything.

A drawing of a black question mark inside of a yellow circle. The yellow circle is on top of a white circle, and the white circle is on top of an orange background. In addition, there are about a dozen slips of white paper floating around the question mark. Here are the goals I set last winter. My progress on them will be noted in bold.

1. Read more classic novels this winter. Accomplished.

2. Submit a Top Ten Tuesday theme to Jana that she ends up using. Not Accomplished, but hope springs eternal.

3. Enjoy lots of ghost stories. Accomplished, but I always want more.

4. Attend more library and other bookish events either virtually or in person. Accomplished.

5. Read more nonfiction. Accomplished. 

6. Patronize independent bookstores. Not Accomplished.

7. Eat more food featured in books. Not Accomplished, but working on it. 

8. Try poetry again. Accomplished, but I didn’t find anything I liked. 

9. Buy bookish socks. Not Accomplished, but I have my eye on a few pairs that could work. 

10. Convince the entertainment industry to make excellent film or television adaptations of all of our favourite books. Hehe! Not Accomplished, but hope spring eternal.

5 out of 10 isn’t bad.

Maybe I’ll get up to 7 or 8 out of 10 before the new year?

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September 26, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Secondary/Minor Characters Who Deserve Their Own Book


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Surreal photo of dozens of people wearing suits and the same bowl-shaped hats standing in a neat row on a sidewalk under a stormy sky and next to such a thick layer of fog you can’t tell if they’re many miles up into the air on this surface or if there’s a calm little sea just below the fog. This has been a month filled with me having better luck finding fun stock photos for Top Ten Tuesday prompts than it has been with me actually coming up with ten answers each week due to how tricky I found most of the prompts. 

Sometimes things work out that way. But, hey, at least I’m having a good time in the process and I have the chance to feature some much older books this week that I usually wouldn’t include! 

Here’s the thing about secondary characters. In most cases, I understand why the author wrote them that way and don’t actually feel the need to dive more deeply into their lives.

There are a few exceptions to that guideline, though. I’d love to know more about the following characters for reasons I’ll share below.

Book cover for Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery. Image on cover is a drawing of Anne as a young woman whose hair is tied up into a bow. She’s standing outdoors and gathering yellow flowers on a spring day.

1) Dora from Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery 

Why: While her twin brother, Davy, gets into all sort of mischief at Green Gables, Dora just sits there and doesn’t influence the plot much at all. I know she’s a quiet, good child like I was at her age. Even quiet, good kids who follow all of the rules have hopes and dreams, though, so I would have loved to know more about who she grew up to be in the later books in this series.

 

Book cover for The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. Image on cover shows a drawing of a lion whose mane has been stylized to look like fire.

2) Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis

Why: Yes, she was a major character in a few of the books, but she was quickly dropped from the storyline after that. I think she deserved better, especially when it came to her fate in the final instalment of this series that still irritates me.

 

Book cover for Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Image on cover shows a closeup of a white woman’s face as she looks off to the right with a little suspicion and fear in her expression. She’s concerned about whatever it is she’s seeing.

3) Miss Lucy (or any of the other Hailsham teachers) from Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Why: This is going to be difficult to explain without giving away spoilers, but I’ve always wondered why the teachers at Hailsham weren’t horrified by the fates of the students they looked after for so many years. It’s one thing to be fed propaganda but quite another to spend so much time with children you have been taught are disposable without having second thoughts about your line of work. Why didn’t any of the teachers stir up a fuss? Or did they and were their attempts to change the system futile?

 

Book cover for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Image on cover is a drawing of a maple tree whose leaves have begun to turn colours in the autumn. The tree is growing on a hill and the sky behind it is orange.

4) Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Why: He was described as someone who terrified the local children, ate raw animal flesh to survive, and had a long, jagged scar on his face. (I suspect many of the stories about him were exaggerated by scared kids, if not made up entirely). When I read this book, I was sure those details were going to be explained and his backstory revealed, but it never happened. He deserves to have his tale told, though. I think it would be a fascinating one.

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