Top Ten Tuesday: Oldest (aka Earliest Published) Books On My TBR


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Thank you to Nicole@BookWyrm Knits for submitting this theme. You’re a lovely person who came up with a fun idea for this week.

A photo of three hardcover books bound together tightly by a thick piece of twine and placed on their spines. There is an orange leaf tucked into the twine just below the knot in it as well as some other orange and brown autumn leaves scattered on the burlap cloth these books are sitting on. Honestly, I do not think my answers are going to be very impressive this week. When I was a teenager, I read dozens of classic novels and enjoyed many of them. The classics I have still not yet read are, for the most part, books that do not appeal to me for a variety of reasons and that I will probably never read.

Almost everything I read these days has been published within the last five or so years unless someone who shares my taste in book recommends something older or I happen to find an older title some other way that sounds amazing.

Most of what I read these days are ebooks from my local library and they typically buy new or new-ish titles for our community instead of older ones.

So let’s see how old the oldest books on my library TBR list might be. There are a couple of Young Adult titles I may or may not ever get around to as I don’t read much from that genre anymore, but I’m keeping them on this list to prevent any 2024 titles from sneaking up on us.
I’ll start with the most recently published of the ten and move backwards from there.
1. When It All Syncs Up by Maya Ameyaw
Publication Date: June 6, 2023
Genre: Young Adult
2. The Spite House: A Novel by Johnny Compton
Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Genre: Paranormal Horror (the best sort of horror if you ask me 😉 )
Publication Date: February 3, 2023
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Fairy Tales
Publication Date: January 21, 2023
Genre: Paranormal Horror (See also: #2 on this list. Hehe. )
5. All the Horses of Iceland by Sarah Tolmie, Ulf Bjorklund
Publication Date: October 18, 2022
Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Publication Date: September 14, 2021
Genre: Young Adult (This one would be a reread. I adored the premise but was really not a fan of certain choices the author made in her characterization and plot development. Maybe I’d enjoy it better a second time around?)
7. My Name Is Why by Lemn Sissay
Publication Date: August 29, 2019
Genre: Memoir
8. Pompeii by Robert Harris
Publication Date: November 20, 2014
Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction
Publication Date: October 19, 2011
Genre: History, Biography
Publication Date: January 1, 2007
Genre: Self-Help, Psychology
And, no, that last book has not been on my TBR list for (nearly) 18 years. It was only recently purchased by the library just like the rest of them. Ha!

60 Comments

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60 Responses to Top Ten Tuesday: Oldest (aka Earliest Published) Books On My TBR

  1. It’s awesome that you’ve read so many classics! My whole list this week is classics that I haven’t gotten around to … yet! I’ve added The King of Elfland’s Daughter to my TBR 🙂

  2. Mine are much older too, you do an amazing job keeping current 😂

  3. You’ve got some good ones here! Isaac’s Storm is a nice mix of history and science. I just asked AI to give me ten random numbers and shared those TBR titles instead.

  4. From what I remember, I enjoyed The Lost Girls. I hope it works better for you on reread 🙂

  5. I don’t read a lot of YA anymore either. I still buy a few here and there that either sound really cute (and sometimes I just want silly and cute) or are by an author I always like. But for the most part I’m looking more at adult now which is fine too since there’s plenty of amazing novels to enjoy there, too. 🙂 Hope you enjoy ALL of these titles. Thanks so much for visiting my list today!

  6. I think it’s great that you’ve already read so many classics that interest you! I still have way too many classic books that I want to read.

    However, it looks like The King of Elfland’s Daughter is a re-print? From what I’m seeing, the original of it was published in 1924, so you could count that as a much older book. 😉

  7. Steph@paigesofnovels

    When It All Syncs Up was fun. I want to read the second on soon. Here is my post https://paigesofnovels.com/2024/11/19/top-ten-eleven-tuesday-authors-im-thankful-for/.

  8. I’m really interested in Seek Ye Whore and Other Stories, sounds fascinating!

  9. I also have more recent titles on my list today, as I had to accept that some of the older titles on my TBR are books I’ll probably never read.

  10. Nothing from the past century? You must really stay up on your list. I’ve like to live that way so I can read only current-ish titles but I keep becoming aware of books I should have read, but didn’t, when I was younger. Wouldn’t want to die with “must read” books unread. 🙂

  11. I put older books on my list but I don’t know if I will ever get to them. We’ll see. Like you, most of what I read is new-ish. Have a great week!

  12. I’d like to try the King of Elfland’s Daughter one day.

  13. Very cool that you have read so many classics! I do not have many under my belt because the ones I was forced to read, I didn’t like much. lol

  14. I’m a horse lover, so now I’ve gone and added Horses of Iceland to my tbr list as well.

  15. Ah, the only one here I recognize is Isaac’s Storm — I think one of my kids had it on their high school reading list, and I”m pretty sure we still have a copy somewhere in the house!

  16. I haven’t read any of these. It sounds like you keep your TBR much more modern than mine is. I hope you enjoy these when you get to them.

  17. I’m not familiar with most of these, but just added Pompeii to my TBR after seeing it on another list. Hopefully these are all great reads for you.

  18. Oh, All The Horses of Iceland sounds RIGHT up my alley, and I am reasonably certain I wouldn’t have heard of it anywhere else. Bypassing the TBR and going right onto the pickup list for my next library visit. Thank you!

  19. It’s great that you’ve already read so many classics. There are definitely classics I have no interest in reading just as you’ve said. I haven’t read any of the books on this list either, but The King of Elfland’s Daughter sounds interesting 🙂

    If you’d like to visit, here’s my TTT: https://thebooklorefairy.blogspot.com/2024/11/top-ten-tuesday-oldest-books-on-my-tbr.html

  20. vidya

    I think I had added The horses of Iceland to one of my many TBR lists!! And I grew up reading the classics as well, but there are many I still have to read (and some re-read) so my TTT is all about that

  21. It’s interesting to me that you read many, many classics when you were young and now you like newer titles, but I am just the opposite, a person who read some classics when I was young, and lots of newer titles, who now hungers to read the old books.

  22. Great list, Lydia! I hope you enjoy them when you get the chance to read them! Have a good weekend!

  23. Isaac’s Storm is on my TBR. Great author!

  24. All the Horses of Iceland is one I want to read too and Pompeii sounds interesting! Thanks for visiting my blog earlier, Lydia 🙂

  25. Pompeii by Robert Harris, that sounds unusual…

  26. All the Horses of Iceland was great, very inspired by the sagas!

  27. I did not read nearly as many classics as a teenager as I intended to, which is why there were so many for my list this week. I hope you have a fabulous week.

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