Category: Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog

The topic today is The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf (Stand in front of your book collection, close your eyes, point to a title, and write it down. If you have shelves, point to your physical books.

This week’s topic is pretty easy. I used the bookcase that’s behind me as I write this post, filled mostly with hardback books, stood in front of it, closed my eyes and touched the books one by one from different shelves. So this is a mixed bunch of books, only some of which I’ve read.

I enjoyed doing this post, but now, of course I want to read those I haven’t read yet – immediately!

The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, historical fiction. I haven’t read this one yet. Set in the aftermath of World War II in Asia and Europe.

Tommy Walsh Outdoor DIY, how to make the most of the garden – fences, patios, planters, pergolas and water features galore!

Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling by Philip Pullman. A lovely book. I’ve read some of the stories and Pullman’s reflections in essays and talks on the subject of storytelling.

Cosmopolis by Don Delilo, a novel covering day in the life of Eric Packer, a multi-billionaire. I haven’t read this one yet.

Russia: A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People by Jonathan Dimbleby, nonfiction first published in 2008. I’ve not read this.

Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making by Jonathan Curran. It includes two unpublished Poirot Stories . A wonderful book exploring the contents of Agatha Christie’s 73 handwritten notebooks about her plots, titles and characters. I’ve dipped into this several times.

Force of Nature by Jane Harper. I loved this novel set in the fictional Giralang Ranges in Australia, where Aaron Falk is investigating the disappearance of Alice Russell, during a team building exercise in the outback.

Hardy Country by Gordon Beningfield, a book to dip into, not one to read straight through. Paintings and drawings of Wessex accompany a discussion of the portrayal of the region of England in the novels of Thomas Hardy.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, historical fiction, the first in her fantastic Wolf Hall trilogy. This is the story of Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith, and his political rise, set against the background of Henry VIII’s England. I loved it.

Completely Unexpected Tales by Roald Dahl. There are 25 short stories in total in this book, some of them are very short. I’ve only read some of these. They all end with an unexpected twist, some are more predictable than others, but others did take me by surprise with a sting in the tail.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Occupations in the Title

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog

The topic today is Books With Occupations in the Title  (Submitted by Hopewell’s Public Library of Life). Mine are all fiction.

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers – a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery

The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin by Georges Simenon – one of the early Maigret books

The Librarian by Salley Vickers – set in the 1950s about a Children’s Librarian

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris – the Dreyfus affair, 1890s

The Accordionist by Fred Vargas – quirky crime fiction, set in Paris

The Craftsman by Sharon Bolton – creepy crime fiction about a coffin-maker

The Sea Detective by Mark Douglas-Home  – oceanographer, Cal McGill, more of an investigative story than crime fiction

The Hangman’s Song by James Oswald – the third Inspector McLean series set in Edinburgh, crime fiction with elements of the supernatural  and parapsychology thrown in

The Dressmaker by Beryl Bainbridge – a wartime tale of life in Liverpool in 1944, with an under current of psychological suspense.

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton – historical fiction set in the summer of 1862, a story of murder, mystery and thievery, of art, love and loss

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with a High Page Count

Published on by Margaret40 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog

The topic today is Books with a High Page Count (Share those doorstop books!) Today I’m sharing ten of the longest books I’ve ever read.

  1. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo 1,463 pages
  2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 1,276 pages
  3. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 1,095 pages
  4. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett 1,076 pages.
  5. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 1,008 pages
  6. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 965 pages
  7. The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman 886 pages
  8. Tombland by C J Sansom 866 pages
  9. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton 834 pages
  10. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens 777 pages

Top Ten Tuesday: Genre freebie

Published on by Margaret18 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog

The topic today is a Genre freebie (Pick any genre you’d like and build a list around it. You can even narrow the topic if you’d like, such as: thrillers with unreliable narrators, fantasy romance with fae characters, or historical romance with suspense elements.)

I decided to list ten of my favourite historical fiction books:

  1. Nero by Conn Iggulden. Ancient Rome (beginning in AD37)
  2. The Abbess of Whitby: a Novel of Hild of Northumbria by Jill Dalladay (7th century Britain)
  3. The Raven’s Head by Karen Maitland  (13th century England)
  4. Turn of the Tide by Margaret Skea (16th century Scotland)
  5. Dacre’s War by Rosemary Goring (16th century Scotland and England)
  6. Catching the Eagle by Karen Charlton (1809 -1811 Northumberland)
  7. The Potter’s Hand by A N Wilson (the Wedgewood family 1785 – 1805)
  8. Silver Lies by Ann Parker (1880s USA)
  9. A Medal for Murder by Frances Brody (1922 England and 1899 South Africa – the Boer War)
  10. A Climate of Change by Hilary Mantel (1950s Africa and 1980s England)

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Summer 2025 to-Read List

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

The topic today is Books on My Summer 2025 to-Read List. I’m taking part in the 20 Books of Summer but didn’t make a list this year because In the past I don’t think I’ve ever managed to read the lists I’ve compiled because I just can’t stick to reading from a list – as soon as a book is on a list my desire to read it just dies. So, I decided to make it simple and read from my TBRs and the books on my Netgalley Shelf.

Anyway, here is a list of books I might read this summer, just picked at random from the e-books on my Kindle, without thinking too hard about which ones to list.:

  1. The Death of Shame by Ambrose Parry (A Raven and Fisher Mystery Book 5) Historical fiction set in Victorian Edinburgh, a mix of fact and fiction incorporating the social scene, historical and medical facts.
  2. The Elopement by Gill Hornby, historical fiction about the life of Jane Austen’s niece Fanny Knight and her stepdaughter.
  3. One Dark Night by Hannah Richell, a gothic thriller about the murder of a young girl at Halloween.
  4. The House of Seymour by Joanna Hickson, (The House of Seymour, Book 1) historical fiction set in the 15th century during King Henry VI’s reign.
  5. A Cold Wind from Moscow by Rory Clements, (Tom Wilde Book 8) historical fiction set at the start of the Cold War,
  6. All that Matters by Chris Hoy, a memoir cycling legend Sir Chris Hoy reveals the truth of his cancer diagnosis and how he is determined to find hope and happiness on the home straight.
  7. Meetings With Remarkable Animals by Martin Clunes, the Heartwarming Journey of Animals Who’ve Guided, Rescued, and Saved Us in Surprising Ways.
  8. The Neighbour’s Secret by Sharon Bolton, a psychological thriller.
  9. The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier, historical fiction set in Venice in 1486.
  10. Written in Bone by Sue Black, hidden stories in what we leave behind.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books that Feature Travel

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

The topic today is Books that Feature Travel and the books I’ve chosen feature different types of travelling in a variety of countries – on a bicycle, on boats and ocean liners, as well as on foot. I’ve read all of them except for Sea Change, which is still sat on my bookshelves.

  1. Full Tilt: Dunkirk to Delhi on a Bicycle, first published in 1965  by Dervla Murphy this is an account of her journey in 1963, which took her through Europe, Persia (Iran), Afghanistan, over the Himalayas to Pakistan and into India.
  2. Maiden Voyages by Siân Evans – transatlantic travel between the two World Wars on magnificent ocean liners undertaken by many women. Some travelled for leisure, some for work; others to find a new life, marriage, to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. 
  3. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She travelled to Italy (Eat), India (Pray) and Indonesia (Love) spending four months in each place, searching for pleasure in Italy, mainly through food, God in India at an ashram, and balance in Indonesia.
  4. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson about his hike along the Appalachian Trail, the longest continuous footpath in the world.
  5. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome, first published in 1889. He intended it to be a serious travel book about the Thames, its scenery and history, but, as he wrote it turned into a funny book. It’s a story of a journey, comparing their trip to Stanley’s expedition to Africa searching for Dr Livingstone. 
  6. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor in which he describes his travels on foot in 1933 from the Hook of Holland through Germany, to Austria, Slovakia and Hungary, on his way to Constantinople.
  7. The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane, with a map showing the places he visited from the cliffs of Cape Wrath, to the holloways of Dorset, the storm-beaches of Norfolk, the saltmarshes and estuaries of Essex, and the moors of Rannoch and the Pennines.
  8. Wildwood: a Journey Through Trees by Roger Deakin about his journeys through a wide variety of trees and woods in various parts of the world. It’s a memoir, a travelogue and also it’s about the interdependence of human beings and trees
  9. The Marches Border Walks With My Father by Rory Stewart walking in the borderlands between England and Scotland, along Hadrian’s Wall and his coast to coast walk from Cunbria Cumbria to Berwick-upon-Tweed.
  10. Sea Change: The Summer Voyage from East to West Scotland of the Anassa by Mairi Hedderwick, describing her journey in an antiquated 26-foot long yacht through the Caledonian Canal to the fjords of the west: Lochs Linnhe, Etive, Ailort, Moidart, Nevis and Leven.