Top Five Tuesday – Page 2

Top Five Tuesday:Top 5 books I want to reread in 2025

Published on February 18, 2025 by Margaret11 Comments

Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. For details of all of the latest prompts for January to March, see Meeghan’s post here.

Today the topic is Top 5 books I want to reread in 2025. Are you planning to reread some favourites in 2025? Maybe that classic you read back in school. Or maybe there’s a new book coming out in a series, and you want to remind yourself what happened in the last book. Whatever it is, let’s share all of our reread plans!!

I don’t often reread books, with the exception of Pride and Prejudice and A Christmas Carol both of which have reread many times.

This year is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth and I’ve joined Brona at This Reading Life in her Austen 2025 project to reread her books, along with the Classics Club’s Sync Read (or readalong), so two of these books are by Austen.

The descriptions are from LibraryThing:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I first read this when I was about 11 or 12 and have reread it many times since. It never fails to delight me. This time I’ll be reading The Annotated Pride and Prejudice edited by David M Shapard. In this classic 19th century story of love battling pride, we meet Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth is a smart, well-rounded woman, and she is one of five unmarried daughters of the country gentleman, Mr. Bennet, a country gentleman. Marriage is at the forefront Mrs. Bennet’s mind, especially since her elderly husband’s estate will not pass down to any of their daughters. The Bennets’ small town is in an uproar when two highborn, eligible gentlemen, Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy, come to stay. Mr. Bingley takes and instant liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane. Elizabeth’s prideful self does not realize her life is about to change when she meets the intolerable Mr. Darcy, who will make her questions her sensibilities.

Emma by Jane Austen. I’ve only read this once. Emma is the story of a charmingly self-deluded heroine whose injudicious matchmaking schemes often lead to substantial mortification. Emma, “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” Her own great fortune has blinded Emma to the true feelings and motivations of others and leads her to some hilarious misjudgments. But it is through her mistakes that Emma finds humility, wisdom, and true love. Told with the shrewd wit and delicate irony which have made Jane Austen a master of the English novel, Emma is a comic masterpiece whose fanciful heroine has gained the affection of generations of readers.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I first read this after watching the 2005 BBC adaptation with Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock and Charles Dance as lawyer Mr Tulkinghorn. A enthralling story about the inequalities of the 19th-century English legal system Bleak House is one of Charles Dicken’s most multifaceted novels. Bleak House deals with a multiplicity of characters, plots and subplots that all weave in and around the true story of the famous case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a case of litigation in England’s Court of Chancery, which starts as a problem of legacy and wills, but soon raises the question of murder.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I can’t remember how old I was when I first read this, but I think I was about 10. It was a Christmas present. Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol under financial duress, but it became one of his most popular and enduring stories. The old miser Ebenezer Scrooge cares nothing for family, friends, love or Christmas. All he cares about is money. Then one Christmas Eve he is visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. These encounters leave Scrooge deeply moved and forever changed. Historians believe that A Christmas Carol contributed greatly to the modern sentimental Christmas.

Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson. I first read this many years ago, whilst I was recovering from flu (years before Covid). I loved this book, beautifully written and capturing a vanishing way of life as countryside farming turns to Victorian towns An autobiography of “Laura” – as the author calls herself – which describes in detail her delightful life in a country village. Her self-sufficient world of farm labourers and craftsmen working to the rhythms of the seasons and enjoying their traditional festivities is preserved for readers in this interesting and entertaining narrative.

Top Five Tuesday:Top 5 series I will finish in 2025

Published on February 11, 2025 by Margaret4 Comments

Today the topic is Top 5 series I will finish in 2025. Which series are you planning to finish (or finish to most recent publication) in 2025?

I have many series on the go. These five crime fiction novels are just the tip of the iceberg! I’m not saying I’ll finish these series this year, but I’m hoping I’ll make some progress with them this year.

Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series. There are 25 and I’ve read 24 – just one more to read, Midnight and Blue. This is the latest book in the series, so this is the only series that I will finish this year.

Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe novels. There are 24 books in the series and I’ve read 16.

Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series. There are 28 and I’ve read 20.

Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope books. There are 11 and I’ve read 9.

Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret books – there are 75 and I’ve read 16. It’ll take me ages to finish this series – if I ever do!

Top 5 Tuesday: 5 authors I want to try in 2025

Published on January 28, 2025 by Margaret3 Comments

Who are some new authors that you want to read from in 2025

Today the topic is 5 authors I want to try in 2025. Who are some new authors that you want to read from in 2025? These books are from my TBRs.

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

I was really excited to read Schindler’s List when I bought it as I’d recently watched the film, Schindler’s List for a second time and was very moved by it – it had me in tears. It was first published as Schindler’s Ark. It recreates the story of Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. He rescued more than a thousand Jews from the death camps.

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone is a book I’ve been longing to read for years. I’ve had it since 2007. It’s a biographical novel about Michelangelo. The copy I had was impossible to read as it was falling apart so I bought a new copy – but it’s still sitting waiting to be read. Why? Well because I have so many other books I really want to read.

Another book I’ve had since 2007, still waiting to be read for the same reason is 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro. 1599 was the year the Globe Theatre was built and that Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar, Henry V, As You Like It and Hamlet. it’s full of detail, not just about Shakespeare, his plays and the theatre, but also about the events of his life and times!

The Water Horse by Julia Gregson, a book I’ve had since 2009. It’s historical fiction based on the true story of a young Welsh woman, Jane Evans, a Welsh woman who in 1853 ran off with Welsh cattle drovers and volunteered as a nurse with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. Catherine Carreg has grown up a tomboy, spending her days racing her ponies with Deio, the drover’s son, in a small Welsh village. But Catherine is consumed by a longing to escape the monotony of village life and, with Deio’s help, runs away to London.

Alone in the unfamiliar bustle of the city, Catherine finds a position in a rest home for sick governesses in Harley Street, run by Miss Florence Nightingale. Then, as the nation is gripped by reports of the war in the Crimea, Catherine volunteers as a nurse – and her life changes beyond all recognition.

Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories by Thomas Grant – I bought this in February 2020 after watching the BBC series,The Trial of Christine Keeler, the story of the Profumo affair in 1962 as seen from her perspective. Hutchinson was Keeler’s defence barrister.

Born in 1915 into the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group, Jeremy Hutchinson went on to become the greatest criminal barrister of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. The cases of that period changed society for ever and Hutchinson’s role in them was second to none. In Case Histories, Jeremy Hutchinson’s most remarkable trials are examined, each one providing a fascinating look into Britain’s post-war social, political and cultural history.

Top 5 Tuesday: Top 5 books I will definitely* read in 2025

Published on January 21, 2025March 24, 2025 by Margaret9 Comments

Today the topic is Top 5 books I will definitely* read in 2025. What are 5 books you really want to tick off your TBR this year? * Same disclosure every year: you won’t be subjected to punishment (from Meeghan) if you don’t read these.

I have so many TBRs that it is difficult to choose just 5. These are 5 of the books that I’ve had for several years but I’m a mood reader so just like Meeghan when I say “definitely” I mean “maybe, you know, if I feel like it”.

Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch – Book 3 in the Rivers of London series, from Sunday Times Number One bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch.

I’ve read the first two of this series, and loved them, so why haven’t I read any more?

Peter Grant is learning magic fast. And it’s just as well – he’s already had run-ins with the deadly supernatural children of the Thames and a terrifying killer in Soho. Progression in the Police Force is less easy. Especially when you work in a department of two. A department that doesn’t even officially exist. A department that if you did describe it to most people would get you laughed at. And then there’s his love life. The last person he fell for ended up seriously dead. It wasn’t his fault, but still.

Now something horrible is happening in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up the tube system that honeycombs the ancient foundations of London. And delays on the Northern line is the very least of it. Time to call in the Met’s Economic and Specialist Crime Unit 9, aka ‘The Folly’. Time to call in PC Peter Grant, Britain’s Last Wizard.

This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas. The 9th book in her Commissaire Adamsberg series. I’ve read some of the earlier books.

After three elderly men are bitten by spiders, everyone assumes that their deaths are tragic accidents.

But at police headquarters in Paris, Inspector Adamsberg begins to suspect that the case is far more complex than first appears.

It isn’t long before Adamsberg is investigating a series of rumours and allegations that take him to the south of France. Decades ago, at La Miséricorde orphanage, shocking events took place involving the same species of spider: the recluse.

For Adamsberg, these haunting crimes hold the key to proving that the three men were targeted by an ingenious serial killer. His team, however, is not convinced. He must put his reputation on the line to trace the murderer before the death toll rises…

Thomas Cromwell: The untold story of Henry VIII’s most faithful servant by Tracy Borman. After reading Hilary Mantell’s historical fiction trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, I want to read this biography about him – just haven’t got round to it yet.

I feel bad about not reading the next two books, both biographies as I’ve had them for so long, I’d love to read both of them this year …

The Brontes by Juliet Barker. I visited the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, way back in 2014, and have been meaning to read this book about the family ever since.

The story of the tragic Bronte family is familiar to everyone: we all know about the half-mad, repressive father, the drunken, drug-addicted wastrel of a brother, wild romantic Emily, unrequited Anne and ‘poor Charlotte’. Or do we? These stereotypes of the popular imagination are precisely that – imaginary – created by amateur biographers from Mrs Gaskell onwards who were primarily novelists, and were attracted by the tale of an apparently doomed family of genius.

Juliet Barker’s landmark book was the first definitive history of the Brontes. It demolishes myths, yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling – but true. Based on first-hand research among all the Bronte manuscripts, many so tiny they can only be read by magnifying glass, and among contemporary historical documents never before used by Bronte biographers, this book is both scholarly and compulsively readable. THE BRONTES is a revolutionary picture of the world’s favourite literary family.

And I’ve had Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man by Claire Tomalin, even longer – over 15 years.

Paradox ruled Thomas Hardy’s life. His birth was almost his death; he became one of the great Victorian novelists and reinvented himself as one of the twentieth-century’s greatest poets; he was an unhappy husband and a desolate widower; he wrote bitter attacks on the English class system yet prized the friendship of aristocrats.

In the hands of Whitbread Award-winning biographer Claire Tomalin, author of the bestselling Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman, Thomas Hardy comes vividly alive.

Top 5:Books:Book Covers

Published on December 3, 2024 by Margaret4 Comments

Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. For details of all of the latest prompts for October to December, see Meeghan’s post here.

Today the topic is Book Covers: What are some of your favourite covers that you have seen this year? Maybe these were reprints, redesigns or alternate covers that came out this year, or maybe they are brand new books!!

These are books I’ve read this year – one new and the rest books that were on my TBR shelves. I love them for their combination of colours, and the scenery.

Where Water Lies by Hilary Tailor – her second novel published in June this year.

Every morning is the same for Eliza: she swims in Hampstead Ponds, diving into her memories, reliving the heady days of her teenage friendship with Eric and Maggie. The obsession, the adoration, and the sense of belonging she always craved was perfect, until everything was destroyed in a single afternoon. With guilt never far from the surface, she still asks herself: what really happened that day?

Then one morning, on a street corner, the past collides with the present. Eliza is now a respected member of the community and the carefully constructed life she has built comes crashing down. Should she track down the one person who may be able to forgive her? Or should she keep the past where it belongs?

Soon Eliza begins to wonder: will learning the truth set her free – or will it only drag her down deeper?

The Children’s Book by A S Byatt

From the renowned author of Possession, The Children’s Book is the story of the close of what has been called the Edwardian summer: the deceptively languid, blissful period that ended with the cataclysmic destruction of World War I. In this compelling novel, A.S. Byatt summons up a whole era, revealing that beneath its golden surface lay tensions that would explode into war, revolution and unbelievable change — for the generation that came of age before 1914 and, most of all, for their children.

Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special private book, bound in different colours, for each of her children. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world – but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets.

They grow up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, but as the sons rebel against their parents and the girls dream of independent futures, they are unaware that in the darkness ahead they will be betrayed unintentionally by the adults who love them.

Into the Tangled BanK: Discover the Quirks, Habits and Foibles of How We Experience Nature by Lev Parikian

This is non fiction about nature. It’s easy reading, Parikian writes with humour, in a chatty style, but also richly descriptive. I loved it, it is compulsive reading. He is a storyteller, so there are lots of anecdotes and stories, plus his thoughts on nature and how we view it. Amongst many other topics he ponders about the ethics of zoos – something that puzzles me too – and wonders if the definition of a nature lover is becoming that of one who loves nature programmes. There’s a lot packed into this book.

Great Meadow by Dirk Bogarde, first published in 1992, Great Meadow is volume five of Bogarde’s best-selling memoirs.

A recollection of his childhood, from 1927 to 1934 when he was a 19 year old, living in a remote cottage in the Sussex Downs with his sister Elizabeth and their strict but loving nanny, Lally. For the children it was an idyllic time of joy and adventure: of gleaning at the end of summer, of oil lamps and wells, of harvests and harvest mice in the Great Meadow.

With great sensitivity and poignancy, this memoir captures the sounds and scents, the love and gentleness that surrounded the young boy as the outside world prepared to go to war.

The Hog’s Bank Mystery by Freeman Wills Croft

This is a British Library Crime Classic, first published in 1933, during the Golden Age of detective fiction between the two world wars. Dr James Earle and his wife live near the Hog’s Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside. When Dr Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. At first he suspects a simple domestic intrigue – and then begins to uncover a web of romantic entanglements beneath the couple’s peaceful rural life.

Top 5:Books:Books I meant to read in 2024

Published on November 26, 2024 by Margaret9 Comments

Today the topic is Books I meant to read in 2024. There are so many books I would have loved to read this year but haven’t – yet. These five are nonfiction, because I mainly read fiction and forget to look at my nonfiction TBRs.

Highland Journey: a Sketching Tour of Scotland by Mairi Hedderwick

In Highland Journey Mairi Hedderwick retraces the steps of an obscure Victorian artist, John T. Reid, who made a sketching tour around Scotland in 1876. Hedderwick, a witty and immensely readable author of children’s books, achieves so much more than simply following in Reid’s footsteps; wonderfully realised, her quest becomes obsessional at times as she struggles to understand her mentor and guide with whom she shares a passion to conserve Scotland’s wild places and record them faithfully with exquisite illustration and insightful comment. I love her paintings.

Square Hunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade

Mecklenburgh Square, on the radical fringes of interwar Bloomsbury, was home to activists, experimenters and revolutionaries; among them were the modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and writer and publisher Virginia Woolf. They each alighted there seeking a space where they could live, love and, above all, work independently.

Francesca Wade’s spellbinding group biography explores how these trailblazing women pushed the boundaries of literature, scholarship, and social norms, forging careers that would have been impossible without these rooms of their own.

Plenty: a memoir of food and family by Hannah Howard

Hannah shares difficult moments along her foodie journey, such as when her joy for food is dimmed by an eating disorder. She also opens up about her struggle to start a family in an industry that takes her around the world and into the lives of people worldwide who help bring food to our tables. Their personal stories of love, discovery, and passion for food as a means of nourishing and connecting us all is a reminder that we’re all on the same journey.

Plenty is a love letter to the enterprising farmers, vintners, cheesemakers, baristas, and food people everywhere who have felt a calling to this community. Bon appétit!

Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to Happiness: funny, personal and meditative essays about happiness from a national treasure

Comedian, musician & Strictly Come Dancing winner Bill Bailey brings a welcome breath of fresh air to our troubled times.
Bailey admits he doesn’t have the key to happiness, but in this book he does suggest plenty of ways to help you on the way. He covers topics as wide ranging as art, singing & playing crazy golf. The chapter in which he discusses a visit to an American zoo is hysterical, especially when he describes how difficult it is to refuse someone trying to give him something free when he buys his lunch.
Bill Bailey may not have the answer to happiness, but his book certainly made me laugh.

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Survive and Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine Aron

Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you “too shy” or “too sensitive” according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the HSP, it’s a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical psychologist, workshop leader, and an HSP herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.