Tag Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

September 19, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Fall 2023 To-Read List

We were already asked to share the books we were looking forward to in the second half of the year, so I’ll do my best not to have too many repeats for this post.

I think it can be just as, and maybe even more, interesting to hear why someone is excited for a specific book as it is to read the blurb of that book in many cases.

You get such a fabulous peek at a reader’s personality, reading habits, thought processses, and what they value in a story that way.

Here is what I’m hoping to have time to read this autumn and why I’m curious about them.

Book cover for Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Image on cover shows a housecat who is sitting up and posing for a portrait. The cat is wearing a suit and tie. They have light brown fur with black streaks in it and a darling little white nose and mouth.

1. Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Why I’m Interested: Scalzi is a talented storyteller, and it’s always fun to see pets being anthropomorphized.

Book cover for Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things by Dan Ariely. Image on cover shows a drawing of a profile of a human head. There are grey, red, and white lines squiggled up everywhere inside of the head. At the end of each line is a little arrow the same colour as the rest of the line.

2. Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things by Dan Ariely

Why I’m Interested: I believe everyone should work to improve their critical thinking skills no matter who you are, how much formal or informal education you may already have, or what labels best describe your stances on religion, politics, etc. While some people do seem to fall for misinformation more often than others, it’s something that can fool any of us if we’re not careful. We all have blind spots, and I hope to learn how to start correcting mine by reading this book and learning more about the psychology of irrational beliefs.

Book cover for This Is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara. Image on cover shows a dried yellow flower - possibly a rose? - that is lying against a light yellow background. Most of the flower has been fairly well preserved, but a few petals are loose and just about to fall off.

3. This Is Salvaged: Stories by Vauhini Vara

Publication Date: September 26

Why I’m Interested: I’m in the mood for slice of life fiction. The reference to a story about a character who decides to build a replica of Noah’s Ark also intrigued me. There were a few people in the churches my parents pastored back in the day who might have tried something like this if they had the money for such a project.

Book cover for The Wrong Girl & Other Warnings by Angela Slatter. Image on cover is a drawing of a short, red haired person standing in a smoky magical forest. There is a massive, about 15-foot-tall tree monster with glowing yellow eyes looking at the person as it slowly turns around.

4. The Wrong Girl & Other Warnings by Angela Slatter

Publication Date: October 17

Why I’m Interested: This looks like a great Halloween read, and you all might remember how much I love that holiday. I previously reviewed and enjoyed another book of hers, No Good Deed: A Sourdough Tale, so I’m hoping my second attempt with her work is just as worthwhile.

Book cover for Like Thunder by Nnedi Okorafor. Image on cover shows a photograph of a beautiful African woman who has short hair and is wearing an intricate necklace. Her head is overlaid with another image that shows lighting striking a lightning rod on a building.

5. Like Thunder by Nnedi Okorafor

Publication Date: November 28

Why I’m Interested: She’s on my shortlist of must-read authors. Ms. Okorafor is such a fantastic storyteller, although I do need to read Shadow Speaker before picking this tale up!

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Tagged as TBR, TBR List, Top Ten Tuesday

September 12, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Character Relationships

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Five little paper boats sitting on a light blue surface. The one out in front is red, the two behind that one are blue, and the last two are teal. I had a bit of an adventure trying to find a good stock photo for this week’s post.

So many of the pictures under tags like friendship and relationship presumed I was only talking about romance or that I wanted to see photos of people laughing together without any context as to what was so funny.

There’s nothing wrong with those answers, of course, they just quite weren’t what I was hoping for this time around. Luckily, I eventually found something that left a bit more scope for the imagination as Anne Shirley would say.

Book cover for Waswanipi by Jean-Yves Soucy. Image on cover is a photograph of a lake and a small range of mountains (or large range of hills) that are part of Cree territory. The sky above is blue and mostly clear. The scene is placid and there are no people around.

1. Waswanipi by Jean-Yves Soucy

This memoir was never finished, but the portion of it that could be published provided such an interesting glimpse into what Cree life was like before Europeans disrupted it. I enjoyed seeing how every member of the tribe relied on others to survive and how they came together to work on problems. That’s really all I can say without giving you too many spoilers, but the relationships between the folks mentioned in this book were beautiful.

Book cover for A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) by Becky Chambers. Image on cover is a drawing of a winding dirt road through a forest that the viewer sees from above. There are multiple trees and bushes next to the road that begins on the bottom left with a person pedaling a little metal home around. And, at the end of the path, a robot waits to greet them!

2. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Yes, I know I’ve mentioned this book on many other Top Ten Tuesday themes before. If you’re curious about this series but haven’t read it yet, maybe all of this repetition will convince you to give it a try. Hehe.

Sibling Dex (a human) and Mosscap (a robot) didn’t seem to have much in common at first glance, but I loved discovering all of their similarities and seeing how their friendship blossomed.

Book cover for Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black. Image on cover is a painting of the side of a black man’s face as he stands next to an empty yellow road and stares at something the viewer cannot see. The road disappears over the top of a hill, and you can see a setting sun in the distance.

3. Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black

This is sort of an unusual choice for this prompt because of how lonely and isolated Jacob was as he neared the end of his life. The relationship aspect comes in when he recalled his difficult childhood and how his older brother protected him from their sometimes violent grandfather. Those sorts of bonds can last forever.

Book cover for The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler. Image on cover shows an unsettling painting of a garden where strange, spindly blue and white flowers grow. In the distance, a reptile-like alien hides in the mist.

4. The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler

The protagonist of this novella was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. As she struggles to remember the present and sometimes mixes up the past with her current life, she also discovers aliens living in her backyard.

The friendship she strikes up with them was as unexpected as it was mesmerizing. If only this one had a sequel.

I look forward to reading all of your answers!

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Tagged as Character, Friendship, Top Ten Tuesday

September 5, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Defied My Expectations

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A shooting star zipping across a velvety purple and black night sky just after sunset. You can see the stars beginning to twinkle in the sky and the dim outline of a forest in the background where the last drops of sunlight are quickly fading out of view. This is going to be one of those tougher weeks when I do not have ten answers for the prompt, but I’ll do my best to come up with as many as possible.

Please note there are a few spoilers in this post, so reader beware if any of these books are on your TBR list.

It was interesting to me that all of the authors I picked this time around were women.

That was not done on purpose, and I didn’t even realize it until I was nearly finished writing this post.

Isn’t it interesting how our brains sometimes make patterns like that without us noticing it at the time?

Book cover for The Ghost and the Real Girl by Avery Carter. Image on cover shows a black and white drawing of the profile of a woman’s face. Her hair has been piled on top of her head in a Victorian-style puffy bun, and she has a scarf with a few sprigs of flowers tired around her neck. There is also an oval border around this drawing that has roses, vines, and leaves sprouting around it.

1. The Ghost and the Real Girl by Avery Carter (My Review)

My Assumption: It was going to be 90% romance and 10 % fantasy.

What It Was Actually Like: 90% fantasy and 10% romance. I ended up really liking this one.

Book cover for The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Image on cover shows a painting of a young black girl who is wearing a red coat and a dark grey hat. She is sitting slumped over beside a window whose blinds are opened. You can see the brilliant oranges and yellows of a setting sun in the sky, but the girl’s body language is sad and defeated in contrast to that brilliant display of nature.

2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

My Assumption: The justice system would work in Pecola’s favour, and the person who abused her would be punished.

What It Was Actually Like: Beautifully written but sadly lacking in justice of any sort.

3. Skylark (#2 in the Sarah Plain and Tall Series series) by Patricia MacLachlan

My Assumption: The first book in this series was about a single woman named Sarah coming to visit Anna, Caleb, and Papa while she decided whether or not she was going to marry Papa and stay on the prairie. There was a lot of angst about her possibly leaving them in that tale, so I assumed the sequel would move on from that conflict now that Sarah and Papa are married.

What It Was Actually Like: I was wrong. Everyone still worried about Sarah leaving because of how homesick she was for Maine. It was cool to revisit characters I originally met as a kid, though.

Book cover for Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming of Age Story by Stacey Chomiak. Image on cover shows a drawing of a plump white girl with glasses and straight shoulder length brown hair sitting on a brick wall next to a lake. She’s wearing a white shirt and shorts and looking wistfully into the water as she dips one foot into it.

4. Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming of Age Story by Stacey Chomiak

My Assumption: This is an autobiography of the author’s evangelical childhood as a deeply closeted lesbian. I thought that Stacey’s parents were eventually going to accept that both of their kids were gay.

What It Was Actually Like: Based on the post-script, her parents are more accepting now but their relationship still sounds pretty strained. I wished she could have had a happier ending before she became a parent herself, but it was honestly pretty realistic for the time and place Stacey grew up in based on my own experiences with that denomination.

Well, that was a short list this time! There aren’t a lot of books that defy my expectations these days, but I hope the rest of you had better luck coming up with answers.

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August 29, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Sea Monster Stories

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photograph of a dark portion of the ocean. Something huge is stirring in the water and making waves. It’s too dark in the water to tell what might be churning around down there. I have previously blogged about mermaids, rubber ducks, and wetlands, so it took me a little while to come up with a good spin for this week’s water freebie theme.

Large bodies of water like lakes and the ocean can be beautiful on a calm summer day.

They‘re treacherous during a hurricane or other violent storm.

They can be a safe place to swim, boat, or play.

They’re often a good food source.

What else can they be? Well, depending on what sort of books you read, they might also contain sea monsters. Here are ten titles about that exact scenario.

1. Jaws (Jaws, #1) by Peter Benchley

2. Black Water Horror: A Tale of Terror for the 21st Century : Creature from the Black Lagoon
by Larry Mike Garmon

3. Slime by John Halkin

4. How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack by Andrew Shaffer

5. Goliath by Steve Alten

6. Creature from the Black Lagoon by Vargo Statten

7. Zomby Dick or, The Undead Whale by J.D. Livingstone

8. The Origin of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith

9. Orca by Arthur Herzog III

10. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters

11. The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

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August 22, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Memoirs Written by Women

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A pink dried flower that is lying on the blank white page of an opened book. Here’s a quick heads up before I jump into today’s post. Long and Short Reviews is hosting a virtual party on their site this week to celebrate their 16th anniversary. If you’d like to learn about new indie and small press books in a wide variety of genres or win one of the gift certificates or other great prizes, click on the second link in this paragraph and read some of their guests posts to find out how to enter the drawings.

Okay, onto Top Ten Tuesday stuff now.

The genre topic I picked for this week’s freebie post is memoirs written by women.

I enjoyed all of these books and would recommend them to anyone who likes memoirs or who wants to learn more about the lives of these incredible women and girls.

1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

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

3. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

4. I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

5. Educated by Tara Westover

6. Becoming by Michelle Obama

7. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

8. Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s by Jennifer Worth

9. Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

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

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Tagged as Memoir, Nonfiction, Top Ten Tuesday

August 15, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters from Different Books Who Should Team Up

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A humorous photo of two people who are each holding a pet. One is holding a chihuahua and the other is holding a siamese cat. The animals are positioned so that they can look at each other, but they are instead looking at the photographer with puzzled expressions on their little faces. I read books from so many different genres, styles, and eras that it’s often hard for me to imagine what various characters might think of each other.

It’s like grabbing two random pets and expecting them to be friends. Maybe it will work, or maybe they’ll fight like, well, cats and dogs.

Some books dive deeply into character development. Others barely skim the surface of it in favour of adding in extra action scenes. There are also cases where the characters are all well-rounded but so wildly dissimilar that I don’t know how much time they’d even be willing to spend in the same room.

(My theory is that those of you who tend to stick to one genre for most of your reading time are going to have an easier time coming up with matches. Let’s see if I’m right!)

With that being said, here are my picks:

1. Anne Shirley from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series and Ove from Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove.

The Ove we first met would probably be irritated by how talkative Anne could be when she was a child, but I think these two would eventually get along well if they’d met when Anne was older and a little quieter. She was almost always good at softening out the edges of grumpy people, and I think he’d be amused by some of her fanciful ideas about how life should work.

2. Yetu from Rivers Solomon’s The Deep and Ariel from The Little Mermaid

They’d be good friends, I think. Well, other than the fact that Ariel wanted to be human and Yetu most definitely did not.

3. Fatima from Nnedi Okorafor‘s Remote Control and Charlie from Stephen King’s Firestarter

They were both young girls who had been given powers far beyond their comprehension that they needed to learn how to use safely. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what they thought of each other?

4. Yetu from Rivers Solomon’s The Deep and Fatima from Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control

I hope it’s okay to pick the same characters more than once, because I also think it would be cool to see how Yetu and Fatima got along. They both had a strong desire for justice that I think would become even more noticeable if they teamed up.

Anyway, that’s my short list. I look forward to seeing what everyone else has to say.

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August 8, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Want to Read Because of Top Ten Tuesday

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Originally, I was planning to give credit to the people who introduced me to these books in previous Top Ten Tuesday posts.

The problem with that plan is that a) I usually can’t remember who talked about them first, and b) most of these books have been mentioned by multiple Top Ten Tuesday bloggers before, during, and after their release dates.

Therefore, I’m giving credit to everyone has who blogged about these books.

Thank you for bringing these titles to the attention of the rest of us. You’ve enriched my TBR list and no doubt the reading lists of lots of other folks, too.

Here are some of the many books that came to my attention thanks to you.

1. Starter Villain by John Scalzi

2. Babel by R.F. Kuang

3. Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen

4. Anna, A Child of the Poorhouse by Pat Mattaini Mestern

5. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

6. Godkiller (Godkiller, #1) by Hannah Kaner

7. Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg

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Tagged as Blogging, Blogging Community, Recommendations, TBR, TBR List, Top Ten Tuesday

August 1, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Forgotten Backlist Titles

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Two pretty black women are wearing sundresses and having a picnic on a blanket in the park. The one on the left is wearing a straw hat and reading a book to her companion while the other one sips a glass of wine and smiles. This is the time of year when Toronto is so hot and humid that I generally get a lot of reading done, from new releases to classics to backlist titles that I meant to read a year or two ago but never got around to it.

I don’t know about all of you, but I sure appreciate having books to fall back on as entertainment options while I wait for cooler days ahead.

Here are five backlist books I loved and five more I hope to maybe get started on over the next several weeks of summer.

The Backlist Books I Loved:

Book cover for A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Image on cover shows a saint standing on a hill behind dazzling yellow light. He is clutching something and looking up expectedly at the sky.

1. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller

Genre: Science Fiction, Post-apocalyptic

What It’s About: Cloistered monks who rebuilt society after a devastating nuclear war.

Book cover for The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. Image on cover shows a shadowy photo of a grand old house that is now decaying into ruin because the owners can no longer afford to maintain or repair it.

2. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Genre: Historical Fiction, Gothic

What It’s About: An English physician who befriends a formerly-wealthy family in the mid-to-late 1940s. The family lives in a crumbling mansion that may be haunted.

Book cover for The Annals of a Country Doctor by Carl Matlock, MD. Image on cover shows a drawing of a red house. There are a few large trees growing next to it and a flock of geese flying in the sky above in a v formation.

3. The Annals of a Country Doctor by Carl Matlock, MD

Genre: Memoir, Medicine

What It’s About: The funny, touching, and sometimes bittersweet memories of a rural medicine physician in the 1970s.

Book cover for The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Image on cover shows a painting of a young black girl sitting next to a window with her face half turned out to see the street. She is wearing an old-fashioned red sweater and a small hat.

4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Genre: Fiction

What It’s About: Race, loneliness, and a young girl coming of age.

Book cover for Dracula by Bram Stoker. Image on cover is mostly in shadow, but in the top third you can see the frightening red face of a vampiric monster leering at you from the shadows.

5. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Genre: Science Fiction, Horror

What It’s About: An arrogant man named Jonathan who ignored countless warnings and travelled deep into Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a house. What Jonathan didn’t know was that Dracula was a vampire.

The Backlist Books I Hope I Will Love:

1. Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson

Genre: Nonfiction

What It’s About: How multi-level marketing schemes deceive their customers.

Piñata (Hardcover) by Leopoldo Gout book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of a creature wearing a hood and a hat that is comprised of about a dozen spikes coming out of what appears to be a human skull.

2. Piñata by Leopoldo Gout

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

What It’s About: A modern-day retelling of a classic piece of traditional Mexican lore.

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of various Greek women sitting around a table reading, talking, and resting.

3. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Genre: Historical, LGBTQ+

What It’s About: The lives of queer women at various points in history.

4. This Is Not My Home by Vivienne Chang

Genre: Children’s (picture book)

What It’s About: The difficulties of moving to a new area and making new friends.

Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan book cover. Image on cover shows drawing of the heads of two Indian women facing away from each other as well as the ghostly face of a woman who is looking at neither of them.

5. Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan

Genre: Young Adult

What It’s About: The main character’s transracial adoption, queer family, and coming of age experiences.

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July 25, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: The Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photo of scrabble tiles against a salmon background. The tiles have been arranged to spell out the words “yes” and “no.” When Jana released the summer topics for Top Ten Tuesday, she suggested we include reasons why we didn’t finish the books in this week’s list if we can do so kindly.

I’m going to take her up on that idea, but please don’t let me stop you from checking these titles out for yourself if you’re interested in them.

My literary pet peeves and dislikes might be exactly what you look for in a story and vice versa. Everyone is different, after all, and all of these books had good bones so to speak. I wouldn’t have included them this week if I thought otherwise!

Book cover for Pageboy by Elliot Page. Image on cover is a photo of Mr. Page wearing a white tank top and a pair of blue jeans. He is sitting in a room with a red wall and staring ahead at the camera with a serious expression on his face.

Pageboy by Elliot Page

Why I Stopped Reading It: While I liked Mr. Page’s writing style and was quite interested in his story, I struggled to adjust to how non-linearly he wrote this memoir and how many details about his sex life were included. It is totally fine for people who enjoy that topic to discuss about it amongst themselves so long as all of their sexual partners have consented to it, by the way! I’m simply bored by such talk and would have much rather read something that was written chronologically and focused on the author’s many professional accomplishments instead.

The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

Why I Stopped Reading It: I enjoyed the science fiction elements of the first few chapters, but the literary fiction elements of it were too slow and meandering for my tastes. I generally prefer stronger plot and character development than what was featured here, but I can also see how this could be a great introduction to science fiction for people who love more ambiguous writing styles.

Wonder Drug: The Secret History of Thalidomide in America and Its Hidden Victims by Jennifer

Vanderbes

Why I Stopped Reading It: There wasn’t much here that I hadn’t already read elsewhere, although it could be a great read for people who aren’t already aware of the tragic, unintended consequences of thalidomide on embryos and fetuses.

Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III

Why I Stopped Reading It: The main character had been in constant, severe pain since a work accident a decade ago that destroyed his health, marriage, finances, ability to work, and more. One reviewer said the storyline remained dark and depressing for the first hundred pages before it improved. I read a little past that point but then could not take any more of his suffering. It was too much for me.

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Why I Stopped Reading It: It was too scary. My brain needs calmer stuff at the moment.

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Tagged as DNF, Top Ten Tuesday

July 18, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With One-Word Titles

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

An Asian woman smiling slightly as she holds a hardback book over the lower half of her face and peeks out above it at the viewer. The book has a white cover with no title or author printed on it, and the woman is standing in a similarly white and barren room. There’s nothing like a compelling title to grab my attention and make me yearn to see if the blurb is just as good.

While I tend to prefer longer titles to shorter ones, you definitely can come up with a catchy title that only has one word in it.

Here are ten books that caught my eye that have one-word titles.

1. Othello by William Shakespeare

2. Becoming by Michelle Obama

3. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

4. Internment by Samira Ahmed

5. Beloved by Toni Morrison

6. Redshirts by John Scalzi

7. Affinity by Sarah Waters

8. Sula by Toni Morrison

9. Pride by Ibi Zoboi

10. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

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Tag Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Fall 2023 To-Read List

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Character Relationships

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Defied My Expectations

Top Ten Tuesday: Sea Monster Stories

Top Ten Tuesday: Memoirs Written by Women

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters from Different Books Who Should Team Up

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Want to Read Because of Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Forgotten Backlist Titles

The Backlist Books I Loved:

The Backlist Books I Hope I Will Love:

Top Ten Tuesday: The Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With One-Word Titles

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