Category Archives: Blog Hops

September 23, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Fall 2025 to-Read List


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Two freshly picked apples and several apple leaves lying on an opened book that itself is lying on a wooden surface, possibly a picnic table. I have the full ten books this time, and I’m excited about all of them.

Brandy Norwood’s autobiography that I mentioned in one of my summer TBR posts  has been pushed back to a March of 2026 release. I hope to feature it again on a winter or spring TBR list if the publication date remains more or less the same in several months.

There are a few Top Ten Tuesday bloggers who talked about some fabulous books I ended up adding to this list, so I will be thanking them today as well.

 

 

Book cover for Seven Ways Through the Woods by Jenn Reese White. Image on cover is a painting of a pale-skinned child with dark brown hair wearing a bright red coat and green hat. She is smiling as she walks into a dark woods at dusk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.  Seven Ways Through the Woods by Jenn Reese White

Thank you to Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits for this recommendation.

Why I’m Interested: I love picture books and the woods, so this is going to be a fun read for me.

 

 

Book cover for The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson. Image on cover shows a painting of a foreboding statue or figure wearing a white hood and cloak and standing in the middle of a garden. Weirdly enough, all of the plants are blood red and there is blood dripping from the bottom of the painting as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson

Why I’m Interested:  Two words for you all: cursed paintings. Such a scary topic as we slide into Halloween season.

 

Book cover for Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood. Image on cover shows a white cat standing underneath a neon light and looking up expectantly. Various parts of its fur are orange, red, green, yellow, or purple depending on which lights illuminate it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood

Release Date: Today

Why I’m Interested: Chronic illness amidst a global pandemic sounds intense for sure…but you also don’t get to read about disabled characters in this setting very often. I’m intrigued and hoping this is fantastic.

 

Book cover for Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach. Image on cover shows a human face that is, oddly enough, comprised by dozens of ears, noses, eyes, lips, and pieces of skin that look like they were taken from a variety of donors. There is blue space between each piece and the pieces do not match up evenly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.  Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach

Thank you to AJ Sterkel for this recommendation.

Release Date: September 26

Why I’m Interested:  I know a bit about organ transplants and cadaver skin being used to help heal burn victims but not about all of the other body parts that could be used to give the living better and longer lives. This could be quite interesting.

 

Book cover for The Hunger We Pass Down by Jen Sookfong Lee. Image on cover shows a painting of a frightened woman standing in the shadow slightly hunched over and looking over her right shoulder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.  The Hunger We Pass Down by Jen Sookfong Lee

Release Date: September 30

Why I’m Interested: Yes, I know I may be repeating a few answers from this past summer, but this still sounds like such a good read. I love books that follow the same family through multiple generations.

 

Book cover for Good Spirits by B.K. Borison. Image on cover shows a man and woman embracing. Snow and autumn leaves are tumbling down around them as they kiss. They’re both wearing warm clothes and look cozy despite the cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Good Spirits by B.K. Borison 

Release Date:  October 7

Why I’m Interested: October is often a horror-heavy month for me because Halloween is my favourite holiday, but as I slowly drift away from (most) horror I’m finding other festive books to read. This one looks cute, especially given that I reread A Christmas Carol every December.

 

Book cover for Female Fantasy by Iman Hariri-Kia . Image on cover shows a heavily-muscled white man embracing a middle eastern woman who is wearing a purple dress as she floats underwater with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Female Fantasy by Iman Hariri-Kia 

Release Date: October 14

Why I’m Interested: It looks silly and fun, and I mean that in the best possible way.

 

Book cover for Slayers of Old by Jim C. Hines. Image on cover is a drawing of a black cat who has ten eyes on its head and octopus tentacles growing from its backside. The cat is winding its legs around someone who is wearing yellow trousers and using a cane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Slayers of Old by Jim C. Hines

Thank you to Annemieke @ A Dance With Books  for this recommendation.

Release Date: October 21

Why I’m Interested: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of my favourite shows back in the day. I’ve always wondered what a slayer (or other chosen one) does after they retire.

Book cover for The Look by Michelle Obama. Image on cover shows Mrs. Obama wearing a stunning, floor-length, light blue gown. She’s standing at a window and looking out at the light and whatever is on the other side of that glass. She looks thoughtful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. The Look by Michelle Obama

Release Date: November 4

Why I’m Interested: Fashion is generally a topic that doesn’t’ interest me at all, but I’m hoping Mrs. Obama might throw some more stories in with the photos of her various outfits over the years.

 

Book cover for Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood. Image on cover shows Ms. Atwood smiling and holding one finger up to her lips as if to shush the viewer. She’s wearing a bright read sweater and red gloves, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood

Release Date: November 4

Why I’m Interested: I know almost nothing about Ms. Atwood’s personal life but am curious to change that.

 

 

 

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September 17, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Authors I Wish More People Knew About

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

This was a bit of a tricky topic for me because  I have no idea which authors you all are already aware of. People that I read regularly might be well known to some of you and a brand new corner of the literary world to others. (And vice versa, of course!)

Let’s see if I can dig a bit deeper and find some new folks to mention. I’m including one recommendation of a good place to start for every person on this list as I know I sometimes feel a little overwhelmed when checking out a new author and seeing a long list of possibilities.

 

Photo of a maple leaf lying on the blank white page of an opened book. There’s a cup of tea in a white mug with the word tea on it sitting next to the book. Both of these items are lying on top of a white blanket.George MacDonald was a Scottish poet and author who lived in the 1800s and early 1900s and played a major role in creating the modern fantasy genre. C.S. Lewis was one of many writers who was inspired by him. 

Read This First: “The Golden Key,” an allegorical fairy tale he wrote about death and the afterlife. He excelled at creating seemingly inconsequential details in stories that later pay off wonderfully…or at least that’s how I felt when I was a kid reading this!

 

Sonia Hartl is a contemporary fantasy writer who loves playing around with audience’s assumptions about what should happen next.

Read This First: “The Lost Girls,” a more realistic take on what would happen  if vampires were real and actually went around falling in love with teenage girls. That is to say, a one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old man who is romantically interested in a sixteen-year-old girl probably doesn’t have good intentions and should not be trusted any further than you can throw him.

 

Claire Keegan is a contemporary fiction author who writes gentle but honest stories about (mostly) rural settings. 

Read This First: “Foster,” a novella about an eleven-year-old girl who is sent to live with childless relatives in the countryside for the summer as her mother deals with a difficult pregnancy.  This was such a kind and hopeful story that I’d love to see expanded into a tv series that shows more of their lives and what happens next. The relatives welcomed the main character with opened arms and loved her just as if she were their own child. It was so wholesome.

 

Nnedi Okorafor is a contemporary science fiction and fantasy author who writes dark fantasy and science fiction set in Africa. I mention the setting because it plays such a huge role in her characters’ lives in all of the books from her I’ve read. She’s another author whose work I wish would be made into some films. 

Read This First:”Remote Control,” a novella about a preteen girl who has an accident that helps her develop the ability to kill or to heal people just by touching them. This was such a page turner because she didn’t know what was happening at first or what to do with her gift.

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September 16, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Literary Scents for Candles


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

 

Thank you to  Heather @ The Frozen Library for submitting this theme!

Star anise soaking in some dark tea in a white teacup. Beside the teacup on a wooden table are two slices of dehydrated oranges. Scents are an allergy, migraine, and headache trigger for me, so my first reaction to scented candles, along with any other scented item other than most types of food,  is to run away from them as fast as my legs can carry me ;).

I’m going to tweak this topic just a little so I can answer it better.

1) Turkish Delight for The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe. I was well into adulthood before I realized that this type of candy actually exists and was not made up for this book. There are many different flavours of Turkish delight,  but the kind I tried tasted a little floral and sweet which might make for a good candle scent.

2) Chocolate for Chocolat. I craved chocolate so much while reading this.

3) Sugar for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1). Yes, chocolate could be also included here, but so could bubble gum, cinnamon, blueberries, roast dinners, gum drops, and all sorts of other delicious scents. 

4) Peaches from James and the Giant Peach. They’re such a delicious fruit and scent. 

5) Flowers from Flowers for Algernon. 

6) Tea from The Tea Rose (The Tea Rose, #1). I feel like there aren’t enough tea-scented possibilities out there for people who enjoy scents.

7) Black coffee from Black Coffee (Hercule Poirot, #7.5). Now this is one scent I actually do enjoy!

8) Nutmeg from Silver Nutmeg. It makes me feel a bit fancy to use this spice. 

9) Gingerbread from The Gingerbread Man. What a heavenly scent this is. 

10) Oranges from The Christmas Orange. Citrus scents can be nice. 

And that is my list. Heather, I hope I stuck closely enough to your idea and that there are many scented candles in your future.

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September 10, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What Is My Superpower?

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I believe that the last time we had this topic I talked about my uncanny ability to look away from the screen just as something exciting happens in a show. It’s not something I ever do on purpose, I simply get a little bored sometimes depending on which show my spouse picked.

Let’s pick another answer this time.

A white woman wearing a grey sweatshirt is listening to a conch shell at the beach on an overcast and what appears to be somewhat chilly day. Listening is another superpower of mine. I’m good at making people feel heard – so far as I’ve been told – and helping them to figure out what to do without actually ever giving advice.

Here’s the thing: most people don’t need advice in most cases in my experience, especially if they’re not directly asking for you to tell them what to do.

There are often factors outsiders aren’t aware of, or they’ve already tried X, Y, and Z without success and truly do not need yet another well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful person suggesting those options for the tenth time this week.

What they need is a sympathetic ear and someone to validate how difficult and frustrating life can be at times. If they feel heard, seen, and maybe even loved depending on how close I am to them, it can become much easier to try something new, pick themselves up and try again after disappointment, work on one of their flaws, or tackle whatever else it is they’re struggling with that can rarely if ever be fixed by an outsider.

It’s sort of like dancing in that I try to match their energy and glide into the rhythm of the conversation without pushing it into any particular direction.

They’re smart. They’ll figure it out on their own. 🙂

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September 9, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: My Favourite Villains


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A pale-skinned person wearing jeans is sitting in the park and reading a book as the sunlight streams down onto the grass and trees. The one thing all of these books have in common are their memorable and scary villains. Thank goodness villains can’t go traipsing around to visit other books because we’d all be in trouble if these folks teamed up!

No, I won’t be going into detail there. I’d rather new readers be surprised by these villains than know ahead of time what to expect from them.

1. The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter, #2) by Thomas Harris

2. Misery by Stephen King

3. Matilda by Roald Dahl

4. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

5. Othello by William Shakespeare

6. Animal Farm by George Orwell

7. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

8. Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1) by V.C. Andrews

9. The Shining (The Shining #1) by Stephen King

10. 1984 by George Orwell

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September 3, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Keep Meaning to Read (but Haven’t)

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A dozen hardbacked books placed with their spines sticking up. The angle of the photo isn’t quite high enough to read their titles, but you can see their white pages and the yellow wall behind them. Since I’m such a huge mood reader, some books hang around on my TBR list for a very long time. Here are some of them:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2. Dune (Dune, #1) by Frank Herbert

3. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

4. The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

5. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

6. Children of Time (Children of Time, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Now I’m drawing a blank at what else to add!

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September 2, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Occupations in the Title


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

 

A fisherman walking in thigh-deep water and carrying a large net. Thank you to Lisa of Hopewell for submitting this topic! Here are ten books with occupations in their titles.

1. Teacher Man (Frank McCourt, #3) by Frank McCourt

2. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land

3. Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

4. Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by Steve Dublanica

5. The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth

6. Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor’s Life at Sea by Richard Henry Dana Jr.

7. Quiet, Please: Dispatches From A Public Librarian by Scott Douglas

8. Dishwasher: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States by Pete Jordan

9. Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R. by Julie Holland

10. Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus

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August 27, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Deal Well With Tough Topics

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A person with long straight hair is sitting on a pier at sunset and leaning their head on their knees. Their body language looks bent over and sad. Most of my picks are in the nonfiction genre, but I did try to branch out a little to other options.

I am including the topics these books discuss so that my readers will know in advance if a particular title is or isn’t something that piques their interest.

1. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou’s Autobiography, #1) by Maya Angelou

Topics discussed: Childhood sexual abuse, kinship care, separation from parents, racism, and trauma.

 

2. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

Topics discussed: Sexism and misogyny.

 

3. 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food by Susan Albers

Topics discussed: Emotional eating, binge eating disorders, and mental health.

 

4. CBT for Social Anxiety: Simple Skills for Overcoming Fear and Enjoying People by Stefan G. Hofmann, Robert L. Leahy

Topics discussed: Social anxiety and mental health.

 

5. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Topics discussed: Sexual abuse and mental health.

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August 26, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Things I Love About Museums


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

As we have the option to discuss non-bookish stuff for this week’s freebie, today I’m going to gush about one of my favourite hobbies: visiting museums.

Closeup of the head of a t-Rex skeleton that’s displayed in Belgium. Its mouth is opened and you can see teeth sticking out of it. I was homeschooled for several years growing up, and we sometimes visited local museums as part of our education. Those early experiences taught me not only to love museums as well as learning in general. It’s exciting to be so close to paintings, pottery, or other items that are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions of years old. For a brief moment, it almost feels like stepping into a Time Machine and actually going to visit those places!

Here are ten things I love about museums:

1) Reading the plaques

You can learn so many interesting details about an item this way.They can include funny stories about the creator or unusual facts about the piece. For example, sometimes artists have reused old canvases to create new paintings, but modern scanning techniques can still kind of tell what was originally painted there.

2) Windows into the past

Did you know that watermelons used to have much thicker rinds and whiter flesh? This painting by Giovanni Stanchi shows a cut watermelon that doesn’t look much like our modern fruit at all. It’s a little detail about the past that I never would have known had I not seen that painting.

3) Likeminded people

Not everyone is interested in science, art, or history, so I relish the opportunity to be surrounded by people who share these interests regardless of if or how much I talk to them.

4) Peace and quiet

So many public places are noisy and overstimulating that it makes me smile to enjoy a quiet place that doesn’t have any flashing lights or heavy scents.

5) Truth

Yes, sometimes our understanding of certain things changes as new evidence is uncovered, of course, but that’s not what I’m talking about. One of the downsides of social media is how easy it is for half truths and sometimes completely made up stories to circulate there. When I’m at a museum, I can generally be reassured that what I’m looking at or reading about actually happened. It’s not photoshopped or a LLM hallucination. That painter really did exist. This fossil really does represent a living creature that lived X number of years ago.

6) A bonding opportunity 

There’s nothing like visiting a museum with a loved one and talking about what you find there. I have so many happy memories of doing this over the years from everyone from my preschool-aged nephews to my grandparents and everyone in-between.

7) Beauty

Museums are filled with so many beautiful old paintings, ceramics, outfits, swords, fossils, displays, and other things to enjoy. I don’t know about all of you, but I need more beautiful things to think about in life!

8) Repentance

On the other hand, not everything in museums is pleasant to look at or think about, but I do see the benefit in acknowledging the ugly parts of them and taking note of how future generations can avoid making the same mistakes. It takes courage to admit what one’s country or culture got wrong in the past. I think there’s something to be said for talking about these things, now more than ever.

9) Music and dance

I love music and dancing, so any display or special event that includes them will have my attention immediately.

10) The gift shop

I rarely buy anything in them, but it sure is fun to window shop!

How many other TTT bloggers also love museums?

 

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August 20, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Had to Read in School and Liked

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A hardback book, a quill, and a bottle of ink artfully arranged outside in the grass. The book and quill are propped up so the viewer can better see them. This is going to be a much longer list than the one I had a few weeks ago. I liked to loved most of the assigned reads in school, including:

1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

2. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (but I thought these two should have listened to their parents and not been so impulsive or dramatic!)

3. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

4. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

5. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

7. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (even though it made me permanently suspicious of books about beloved pets and what will probably happen to those poor animals by the final scene)

9. The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings by Edgar Allan Poe

10. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

11. Walden or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau (although I wanted a sequel where his poor mother went off into the woods to find herself while Henry stayed home to do all of the washing, mending, gardening, and cooking for once!)

12. Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) by Chinua Achebe

13. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (I wish we had lived in the same era. I think she and I could have been great friends).

14. Selected Poems by Langston Hughes (I feel the exact same way about Mr. Hughes and wish I could have been his friend, too).

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