Top Ten Tuesday: Books About Fresh Starts

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

An orange and yellow floral design. I prefer to tidy up my TBR and home at regular intervals rather than doing spring cleanings every year.  I tweaked this week’s prompt a little bit, but I am sticking to the spirit of it.

There’s something about the arrival of spring that feels like a fresh start to me. All of the snow melts in Toronto and we generally don’t get any more of it by the middle of April.

It’s so nice to reach the time of year when it’s warm enough to go outside and try something new or give old hobbies and interests another shot after maybe giving them up for the winter.

This list is filled with books about people who get fresh starts. Some are true stories while others are fictional. A few are set during the spring. What other titles would you add to it?

1. Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too by Jomny Sun

2. The Arrival by Shaun Tan

3.Recursion by Blake Crouch

4. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

5. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

6. Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo

7. The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso

8. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

9. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

10. Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam

100 Comments

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100 Responses to Top Ten Tuesday: Books About Fresh Starts

  1. Ah this is a great take on the spring cleaning topic!

  2. I really enjoyed Recursion and The secret garden sounds perfect for now!

  3. Great tweak of the prompt today. I’d add Miss Benson’s Beetle, A Girl of the Limberlost, Watership Down, Infinite Country, A Year in Provence…many of my favorite books include a fresh start.

  4. And Enchanted April. Love that one.

  5. I have read “The Secret Garden” a while ago, nice book, enjoy.

    My TTT.

  6. Oh, I like this take on the Spring topic.

  7. I love your twist on the prompt! I totally love a second chance or a fresh start in a book too, I will definitely have to check some of these out. (I mean, I loved Ninth House!)

  8. Great tweak on today’s topic! Bonus points for The Secret Garden having a very spring-appropriate setting.

    My TTT this week

  9. I miss the snow, we don’t get much of it in Denmark. I am loving this take on Spring cleaning!

    I adore The Secret Garden, and it is so fitting to the theme 🙂

  10. Books about fresh starts! That’s a great idea for this topic. You have me trying to think of ones I know.

  11. I’m so excited to read Ninth house!

  12. I have The Secret Garden on my tbr! I might do the audiobook and read it at the same time. I was going to do Anne of Green Gables in the spring and The Secret Gadren in July but I might switch it.

  13. Really liked your spin on this one. Spring does mean fresh starts, and hopefully spring will clear away my recent reading slump soon too! Keep up the great reading, and happy TTT~

  14. I love your take on this prompt. I think creating a fresh start for yourself definitely has the same energy as spring cleaning.

  15. I love what you did with this post! Such a great and inspiring idea. I re-read The Secret Garden last year and it is such a wonderful example! As is The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I never would have thought to include it under this topic, but it is actually a brilliant example! Love your list. ❤

    • Aww, thanks. I’m glad you understood where I was going with The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He truly did turn his life around!

      Oh, and I heard there may be a new Secret Garden film in the works, so keep an eye out for that if it interests you.

  16. Great list, Lydia! And I’m loving that we haven’t had snow for awhile here in Toronto 🙂

  17. The Secret Garden has been one of my favorite books for many years now, it’s such a wonderful story to read while the earth is waking up from winter! Spring showed up for a week last month, but we’re right back to snow in the forecast now, maybe next month…

    Great list, as always, happy reading!

    • Yes, it’s perfect for this time of year!

      And I see that February and March are very similar in your area and mine. So many up and down temperatures.

      Thanks for your kind words.

  18. Love this take on the prompt! Ninth House certainly fits the profile.

  19. A fun one brought to mind by the royal mess in the news: Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle–my review (no pressure) https://hopewellslibraryoflife.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/the-royal-family-in-fiction/

  20. Love your take on theme this week! I also really enjoyed Recursion, and have a few more of these on this list

  21. Great twist on this week’s topic! I need to read Ninth House.

  22. I love The Secret Garden and I keep hearing good things about Recursion. Great topic idea for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday!

  23. I recently read The Secret Garden for the first time and that is a perfect book for spring. We’ve had some beautiful days here recently in the Detroit area and I’m trying not to get too excited knowing there will be plenty more cold before the warm sticks around.

    • Isn’t it, though?

      And, yeah, Detroit has the same March problem Toronto does. We get a day or two of nice spring weather and then generally plunge back into cold and snow. LOL.

  24. Such a fun twist on this week’s prompt!! Great list!

  25. I love your take on this! And this idea of fresh starts and new beginnings was definitely front and center when seeing the topic this week.

  26. Spring is always a great time to read about fresh starts. Great list!

  27. I am so excited for warmer weather!! I’m tired of the cold and snow. You definitely get way more of that though. I am so torn on Ninth House! I’ve seen so many mixed reviews.

  28. Great list! I really need to read the Arrival!

  29. The Arrival is so good. And with no words it leaves a lot to the imagination.

  30. Such a good take on the topic! I haven’t read any of these, although The Secret Garden and Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too are both on my TBR.

  31. Louise @Foxes and Fairy Tales

    I like your twist! Ruth has been on my TBR for a while now.

  32. verushka

    Oh hello, some of these are new to me — and I love your theme for the list too!!

  33. Love your spin on this week’s topic. You have some great reads here too. I really enjoyed Ruth, Recursion, and Ninth House.

  34. Great list, Lydia! I’ve only read Jomny Sun’s book and I loved it–it was adorable 🥰 But I do have a few others on my TBR. I enjoyed your take on this week’s prompt!

  35. I haven’t read any of these books but I do like reading books about fresh starts and The Secret Garden has always sounded intriguing to me!

    • The Secret Garden is the perfect sort of book to read as spring begins. There are lots of scenes in it that feel very March-like and spring-like.

  36. I loved The Secret Garden. In a take on a fresh start, I’ve enjoyed books that explore characters later in life, after they’ve already been on an epic adventure (like Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man trilogy).

  37. I have Ninth House on my TBR… It seems very different than what Bardugo has previously written and I am excited to read it.

  38. Ah, I like the idea of books about people with fresh starts, and The Secret Garden seems like a perfect book for spring!

  39. I love the fresh start trope in fiction! It can lead to so many interesting stories. I loved RECURSION. It also makes me think of THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig, which offers a whole bunch of fresh starts, not all of which are all they’re cracked up to be.

    Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!

    Susan
    http://www.blogginboutbooks.com

  40. I loved Recursion and Ninth House! Thanks for sharing and visiting my blog earlier.

  41. Great take on the topic! I ADORE Ninth House.

  42. I love how you interpreted this prompt!

  43. Loved your twist on this topic. Recursion is on my TBR. 🙂

  44. Love your spin on the topic, Lydia! So fun. Never read Ruth (or anything by Gaskell), but do love the BBC adaptation’s of her other novels. 🙂 Thanks so much for visiting Finding Wonderland on this week.

  45. This is a really fun twist on the topic!

  46. I love your take on this! I haven’t heard of many books on your list, but I love the title of Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too. It sounds like a great read!

  47. What a great take on this topic.
    I am in the middle of reading Recursion at the moment and loving it. The secret garden is one I have read many times, both as a child and to my daughter when she was younger.

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