Tag Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

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These days I am generally not interested in:

• Poetry
• Long books
• Polemics
• Classic or traditional-style fantasy
• Nonfiction about disease, war, or suffering
• Gory horror
• Romance
• Classic novels
• Dark endings
• Fairy tales

(There are occasional exceptions, of course, but these aren’t categories that immediately spark my interest in most cases).

And I have a deep interest in:

• Short stories and novellas
• Cozy science fiction and fantasy
• Memoirs, biographies, or autobiographies of people who make the world a better place
• Nonfiction about scientific advancements in any branch of science, animals, food, and plants
• Ghost stories
• Psychological horror (e.g. no blood or gore, just apprehension)
• Humorous books
• Stories about emotionally healthy platonic relationships*
• Hopeful writing in general
• Historical fiction about the lives of ordinary people
• Justice being served to the antagonists

*they don’t have to be perfect by any means!  I simply prefer to read about characters who genuinely try to be good and treat each other kindly than about characters who are stuck in dysfunctional patterns of behaviour with their family and friends.

My tastes seem to shift every few years, so I’d have to make this a much longer post to document every little change I’ve experienced since childhood. Honestly, I don’t know that I’d even remember all of them anymore.

All I know is that I tend to dive deeply into a topic for a few months to a few years and then move on to other topics in most cases.

I look forward to seeing how everyone else’s tastes have evolved over time.

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I’m in a cheerful and confident mood and so will be sharing some bookish brags today.

1. I’m much better at saying no than I used to be. I wish I could read every speculative fiction book  out there and then review it, but that’s simply not possible until someone invents a longer day for all of us to enjoy! Hehe.

2. I (usually) know which books will be up my alley.

3. I (usually) know which books won’t appeal to me.

4.  Every week I comment on as many Top Ten Tuesday posts as I possibly can. Some comment systems don’t work for my tablet for some reason, but I send out friendly replies to as many blogs I can reply to until the list runs out or until my time runs out.  I want new participants and less well known bloggers to feel included and welcomed.

5. Jana has accepted a few of my topic suggestions…including today’s topic. It’s thrilling every time it happens.

6. I’m reading a much more diverse array of authors these days. Most of the authors I read are women. My goal is for at least half of the books I review to be written by people who are non-white, LGBTQ+, disabled, chronically ill, immigrants, a member of another minority group, or some combination of these categories.  I routinely surpass that goal and am thinking I should raise it for 2025.

7.  I’ve met so many kind and intelligent people in Top Ten Tuesday and other bookish circles.

8. I no longer feel guilty for giving some number other than 10 answers for Top Ten Tuesday prompts. Some weeks it is fewer than that and other weeks it is more.

9. Top Ten Tuesday has taught me to pay closer attention to new release lists, so I now often know which books to keep an eye out for at my local library.

10. I am delighted to see bookish people thriving on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. I’m too shy to make videos myself, but it’s wonderful to see how social media can be used to spread the love of books. This is my post, so I can brag about other people’s accomplishments if I wish to. 😉

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I used to be much more willing to read the hottest new books even if they weren’t from genres I typically enjoy.

What I’ve learned over time is that my tastes generally do not overlap very much with the latest hyped titles. While there are certainly exceptions to this rule, especially in the speculative fiction genre where I spend so much of my reading time,  there tends to be an inverse relationship between how much fanfare is being created over a new book and how much it will appeal to me personally.

This is in no way a criticism of wildly popular stories or the people who read them. I’m sure there are many incredible books being released right now that also happen to be hyped up. They’re simply not my cup of tea, and that’s perfectly okay.

Here are some of the titles in this category that did not work for me for a wide variety of reasons but might be the ideal read for someone else.

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

2.The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

3. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

4. Wilder Girls by Rory Power

5. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

6. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

7. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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

9. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

10.The Host by Stephenie Meyer

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Thank you to Deanna @ A Novel Glimpse for submitting the theme Ten Characters Authors Surprisingly Redeemed. I will be tweaking it a little as it trickier than I thought it would be!

I tend to DNF stories about characters who are really unpleasant, so I had to do a lot of brainstorming to come up with examples.

Redemption is probably  too strong of a word for some of these characters. They have a long way to go before they reach that point in most cases.  What I can say is that I enjoyed reading about them despite their terrible behaviour and I could see how each of them could be redeemed with some more introspection,  remorse over their actions, and attempts to make things right.

Is that close enough to the original theme? I hope so!

Here are my answers:

1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Holden Caulfield, the angsty protagonist

2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Heathcliff, the controlling and moody love interest

3. Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1) by Margaret Atwood

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Everybody. Or at least the main human characters.

4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Juniper Song, the deceptive protagonist.

5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: John, the confused protagonist

6. Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Logan-6, the brave but impressionable protagonist.

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Thank you to Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext and Hopewell’s Public Library of Life for submitting this topic. 

I’m narrowing this week’s topic down to nonfiction books involving food history.

There is something really cool learning about the history, science, sociology, and/or cultural meaning of various types of food.

I could read about that sort of stuff all day!

1. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

2.Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser

3. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

4. A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain

5. Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond

6. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink

7. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

8. Diet for a Small Planet: The Book That Started a Revolution in the Way Americans Eat by Frances Moore Lappé

9. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

10. Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner

11.The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson

12. The Book of Tea by Kakuzō Okakura