Tag Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

August 19, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with a High Page Count


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Closeup of a huge hardback book. It looks like it has 800+ pages in it. Sometimes I have to include books I haven’t actually read in my answers to Top Ten Tuesday posts because those weekly topics cover things I have little to no experience reading about.

Luckily, this is not one of those weeks! While I didn’t quite come up with a full ten answers, I have read and enjoyed all of these books. If they catch your attention and you’re interested in older tales, consider this a personal recommendation from me.

1. The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) by Ken Follett (976 pages)

2. Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley (729 pages)

3. Hawaii by James A. Michener (937 pages)

4. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (502 pages)

5. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth’s Children, #1) by Jean M. Auel (516 pages)

6. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1216 pages)

7. The Stand by Stephen King (1152 pages)

8. Dracula by Bram Stoker (488 pages)

9. Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams (478 pages)

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August 12, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Guaranteed to Put an End to Your Book Slump


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A white cat with grey and black spots is sitting in a white windowsill in Cyprus. Behind the cat is a brilliantly blue window that stands out beautifully. When I’m in a book slump, I immediately take a break from this hobby as even the slightest expectation of reading only prolongs and deepens those feelings for me.

What I need to do instead is get out of the house and exercise, attend non-bookish events like festivals or parades, spend a lot of time in nature, visit museums, socialize in person, try a new food, get a new hairstyle, go on a day trip or full vacation, or whatever else it is I have the money, time, and energy to do to shake up my routines.

In no way do I expect this to be the solution for everyone, but I wanted to mention it as a possible option for anyone who is currently in a terrible book slump. You can be a voracious and enthusiastic reader and still take breaks of any duration when necessary.  Hobbies are supposed to be fun and relaxing, after all!

Okay, now I will buckle down and try to answer this question without going off on a tangent.

If someone is in a book slump and finds that reading is actually helpful in that moment, I’d suggest ideas like:

1) Rereading your all-time favourites

2) Poetry

3) Children’s picture books

4) Exploring genres you rarely or never visit

5) Watching film or TV adaptations of books you’ve read

6) Listening to audiobooks (say, while you’re taking a walk in the park if that’s a safe thing to do in your community!)

7) Stories that are much longer or much shorter than what you typically read

8) Books from cultures or places in the world you do not know much about

Why do I suggest these things?

Well, it’s about getting exposed to tropes, methods of storytelling, and styles that you are not used to.  All of these things vary widely from one corner of the library or bookstore to the next.

As much as I love science fiction and fantasy, I’ve read so much of them that sometimes it’s really nice to pick up a mystery or piece of historical fiction instead and enjoy something that has a different flow to it.

In my experience, sometimes a book slump is actually about feeling deeply tired of reading the same types of plots over and over again. If you can shake things up and try something new, reading can be become a joy again.

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August 5, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Nonfiction Books on My TBR List


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A beige agaric mushroom growing in a lush patch of grass.I am grateful for all of the Top Ten Tuesday participants who blog about nonfiction and enjoy talking about it. One of my quiet hopes for the future for this blog hop is that we’ll get even more nonfiction readers to join in on the fun.

With those thoughts in mind, here are eleven nonfiction books on my TBR list that I’m excited to read.

1. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

2. I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying by Youngmi Mayer

3. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Burgoyne

4. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer

5. Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya by Kim Frank

6. How to Be Resilient: Simple Steps to Embrace a Positive Mindset and Build Inner Strength by Gail Gazelle MD

7. Happy to Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser by Amy Wilson

8. The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time by Helen Gordon

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

10. How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty by Bonny Reichert

11. Pseudoscience: An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them by Lydia Kang  Nate Pedersen

Which genres, if any, do you wish you saw represented more often in TTT posts?

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July 29, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Beach Reads


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A glass bottle that has a piece of paper sealed inside of it. The bottle is sitting in the sand at the beach and you can see the water coming in behind it. No idea what message is scrawled on the paper, though!I’ve been participating in Top Ten Tuesday for years now, but I’m still a little confused by the concept of a beach read. Being at the beach is no different than being in a library, coffee shop, waiting room, train car, or at home when it comes to what I read.

My state of mind matters far more. If I’m nervously waiting for an update about someone who in the hospital, for example, I’m probably going to need something lighthearted to read that doesn’t require too much analysis. If I’m bored and craving a challenge, I might pick up one of the classics or something from the literary fiction genre that is nuanced and subtle.

I am trying to remain in the spirit of this week’s theme, though, and so I’ll share some fun seafood and marine-themed cozy mysteries as my answers as they’re the sorts of books I could read in almost any situation.

1. Sunny Side Up (Li Johnson Murder Mysteries #1) by Daniel Stallings

2. Dressed to Keel (A Darcy Cavanaugh Mystery #1) by Candy Calvert

3. Murder at the Lighthouse (Exham on Sea Mysteries #1) by Frances Evesham

4. Town in a Lobster Stew (A Candy Holliday Mystery, #2) by B.B. Haywood

5. Beach Blanket Barbie (Zoe Donovan Mystery #6)by Kathi Daley

6. A Shell of a Problem (Sanibel Island Mysteries, #1) by Jennifer L. Schiff

7. The Cruise Ship Lost My Daughter by Morgan Mayer

8. Lowcountry Boil (A Liz Talbot Mystery, #1) by Susan M. Boyer

9. Live and Let Chai (Seaside Café Mystery, #1) by Bree Baker

10. Clammed Up (A Maine Clambake Mystery, #1) by Barbara Ross

(Don’t they have great titles?)

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July 22, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set in Orphanages


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Black and white photo of a vintage classroom where each wooden desk sits two pupils. The room is empty and feels a little desolate. I have a couple of relatives who were adopted as a sibling group after living in an orphanage in the 1940s or 1950s, but it would be quite rare for that to happen these days as most children in the foster system are now either being looked after through kinship care or traditional foster care.

The interesting thing about orphanages to me is how long they’ve stuck around in pop culture after being phased out in North America decades ago with rare exceptions. (Yes, I know they still exist in other parts of the world…but even there I believe the trend is often moving towards placing kids with relatives or foster families).

Here are some books I’ve read and enjoyed that were set in orphanages.

1. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

2. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, #1) by Ransom Riggs

3. The Cider House Rules by John Irving

4. The BFG by Roald Dahl

5. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

6. The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman

7. Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade

8. Baby Alicia Is Dying by Lurlene McDaniel

9. Hollow City (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, #2) by Ransom Riggs

Have you noticed this literary trend as well?

 

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July 15, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Honourifics in the Title


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A blue envelope lying with its flap up. It’s ready to receive the card or letter that will go on there. Thank you to Joanne @ Portobello Book Blog for submitting this theme! Here are ten books with honourifics in the title. I chose as many ones that I’ve read as possible, but I had to branch out a little to other options as well.

1. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, #1) by Ransom Riggs

2. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

3. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

4. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, #1) by Robin Sloan

5. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and other stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

6. The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World’s Most Beloved Neighbor by Amy Hollingsworth

7. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

8. Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan Henry

9. Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen

10. Miss Rhythm by Ruth Brown

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July 8, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’d Like to Re-Read


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Thank you to Becky @ Becky’s Book Blog for submitting this theme.

A deciduous tree - possibly a maple tree - that’s growing next to a pond. This photo was taken at twilight or just after sunrise when part of the sky is dark but there is light at the horizon. The pond water is perfectly still and so you can see a perfect reflection of the tree in the water. Here are some books I hope to reread someday:

1. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

3. The Giver (The Giver, #1) by Lois Lowry

4. Becoming by Michelle Obama

5. The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) by Ken Follett

6. Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams

7. The Shining (The Shining, #1) by Stephen King

8. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

9. A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) by Becky Chambers

10. The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6) by C.S. Lewis

It’s a fun assortment of genres and themes. How about all of you?

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July 1, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes About Canada


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Happy Canada Day to everyone observing it today!

A Canada goose sitting in front of a pond looking every bit as grumpy as this species often are. For this week’s freebie/throwback theme, I’m going to share ten quotes about Canada in honour of Canada’s birthday. Many of them are humorous.

I included a photo of a Canada goose in this post because of the old joke that Canadians are so friendly because we channel all of our anger into these beautiful but often grumpy animals.

1. “I get to go to overseas places, like Canada.”
― Britney Spears

 

2. “What part of Canada are you from, honey?”
“THE LEFT PART,” said Jay.”
― Adam Rex, Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story

 

3. “Every Canadian has a complicated relationship with the United States, whereas Americans think of Canada as the place where the weather comes from.”
― Margaret Atwood

 

4. “We would drive to Canada, where it would probably be legal for us to get married- it was Canada where they let people do whatever they wanted because it was too cold to bother stopping them.”
― W. Bruce Cameron, Emory’s Gift

 

5. “The maple leaf in 1965 was chosen to symbolize our land
Its points are five; like the fingers of a hand”
― Mohamad Jebara, The Illustrious Garden

 

6. “A major principle of Canadian foreign aid has been that where the USA wields its big stick, Canada carries its police baton and offers a carrot.”
― Yves Engler, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy

 

7. “This was Canada after all, where no one was overly impressed by anything.”
― Harper Lin, Killer Christmas

 

8. “Cemeteries are deceptive places. You go there for quiet remembering and find yourself assailed by noisy questions. If Mr. Wong didn’t turn his back on his homeland, if he didn’t forget it or forsake it, what then did he feel about becoming a Canadian citizen? Was it a statement of belonging?”
― Susan Crean, Finding Mr. Wong

 

9. “There is room on this land for all of us and there must also be, after centuries of struggle, room for justice for Indigenous peoples. That is all we ask. And we will settle for nothing less.”
― Arthur Manuel, Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call

 

10. “I was obligated to be nice. I couldn’t be the one Canadian who ruined the country’s reputation. How could I live with myself if I caused a Yankee to say, “I used to think Canadians were so nice, then I met that asshole, Steve”?”
― Steven Barker, Now for the Disappointing Part: A Pseudo-Adult?s Decade of Short-Term Jobs, Long-Term Relationships, and Holding Out for Something Better

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June 24, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025


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A row of colourful beach huts painted red, blue, yellow, green, and other primary colours. The beach has white sand and looks pristine. This week’s list is going to be a shorter one because there aren’t many books that have been announced for the second half of this year yet.

It will remain as eclectic as always, though! Jumping around between genres is so much fun.

I’m sure I’ll find more titles that pique my interest once we’re further into the year.

In the meantime, I’m excited about….

 

 

Book cover for The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson. Image on cover shows a painting that has blood dripping out from behind it. The painting itself shows a faceless figure wrapped in white gauze standing in front of a terrifying forest where all of the trees are red and look like they’re covered in blood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson

Publication Date:  September 9

Why I’m Interested: Haunted paintings are so interesting to read about.

 

Book cover for Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood. Image on cover shows a possibly AI-generated image of a white cat sitting and peering up at a light that has a rainbow assortment of coours in it. The cat’s face is orange, purple, green, blue, white, and pink depending on where you look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood

Publication Date: September 23

Why I’m Interested: The protagonist has a mysterious disease that is resistant to all treatments. I am so hungry for more books about characters who are not perfectly able-bodied and healthy.

 

Book cover for . The Hunger We Pass Down  by Jen Sookfong Lee. Image on cover shows a painting of a frightened-looking woman who is peering over her shoulder at you from the shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. The Hunger We Pass Down  by Jen Sookfong Lee

Publication Date: September 30

Why I’m Interested: The comparisons in the blurb to The School for Good Mothers and Jordan Peele’s Us make me think this will be exactly the sort of story I like.

 

Book cover for Good Spirits (Ghosted, #1) by B.K. Borison. Image on cover shows a drawing of an olive-skinned man kissing a pale blond woman gently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.  Good Spirits (Ghosted, #1) by B.K. Borison

Publication Date: October 7

Why I’m Interested: I reread A Christmas Carol every year and am curious to see how this spinoff of it goes.

 

(This book doesn’t have a cover or a specific publication date available yet.)

5. Brandy Norwood’s untitled memoir. That link goes to the People article about it. 

I will probably include this title again in an autumn TBR post once we have more details.

Publication Date: October 2025

Why I’m Interested: I was a huge Brandy fan as a kid and am curious to read her life story from her perspective. There are some interesting clues about her life in her music, but of course you never know how much artistic license may have been taken with lyrics or storytelling. Will she discuss her occasional past controversies in her personal and professional life? Is she happy now? I hope she’s thriving!

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June 17, 2025 · 1:00 am

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


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A 1970s, muted rainbow-themed graphic that reads “here comes the sun.” The rainbow colours are arranged to look like a circle or the sun instead of a traditional rainbow. I have been saving some of these titles in a document for months as I slowly accumulated them in an attempt to make my seasonal TBR posts a little longer than they have been previously.

Here’s hoping they are all excellent reads.

Do you all do similar things with these seasonal TBR posts and have to do a lot of digging to find books for them?

I am so impressed with Top Ten Tuesday blogggers who routinely come up with ten or more answers for these prompts.

 

 

 

Book cover for The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed. Image on cover looks like an oil painting of a valley filled with spruce and fir trees that has a meadow in the centre of the valley. It looks like it was painted in the 1800s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed

Why I’m Interested: I love science fiction novels about time travel and trying to save humanity from extinction!

 

Book cover for One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford. Image on covers shows a stylized drawing of a pale person turning their head away from the viewer. In place of hair, they have fire flickering their head. As well, a portion of their neck skin is missing and you can see the various muscles and tendons in the neck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford

Publication Date: July 15

Why I’m Interested: Of course some people would try to cure their loved ones if zombies were real. I like it when this genre explores what those cures might look like.

 

Book cover for The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Image on cover shows a drawing of a pale-skinned hand reaching up and out to a small golden phoenix that is flying away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Publication Date: July 15

Why I’m Interested: Ms. Moreno-Garcia writes such interesting premises.

 

Book cover for  The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman. Image on cover shows a painting of a little farmhouse sitting next to the woods at dusk. There are a few fireflies flying around outside as well as some flowers of various hues at the top of the cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman

Thank you to Susan @ Blogging’Bout’Books  for alerting me about this title.

Publication Date: July 29

Why I’m Interested: Eugenics was an ugly chapter of history that still echoes loudly through to the present.  I shudder and then become angry when I read about folks who think people with disabilities are somehow less valuable than the able-bodied or express even more horrifying opinions than that one.

 

Book cover for Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz. Image on cover is a neon drawing of a large robot picking up red neon noodles from a gigantic neon orange pan of noodles while a small golden robot stands next to the pan and looks on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.  Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Publication Date: August 5

Why I’m Interested: Science fiction has given us so many frighting stories about robots that a cozy one is a refreshing change. I wonder what sorts of dishes service bots make?

 

Book cover for The Space Cat by Nnedi Okorafor. Image on cover shows a drawing of a tabby cat that’s lying comfortably on the word Space in the title and peering ahead at the audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. The Space Cat by Nnedi Okorafor

Publication Date: August 12

Why I’m Interested: She writes such interesting stuff.

 

Book cover for Legendary Frybread Drive-In by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Image on cover shows a drawing of two Native American women holding a platter of fry bread in a parking lot and gazing down at it as a red heart blooms from it. Behind them there is a car and a few other people standing around. Perhaps they are waiting for food?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.  Legendary Frybread Drive-In by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Publication Date: August 26

Why I’m Interested: I love interconnected collections of short stories and poems.

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