Category: Top Ten Tuesday

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

The rules are simple:

Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to Jana in your own Top Ten Tuesday post. Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists. Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

The topic today is Books I Enjoyed that Were Outside My Comfort Zone. But because it is Remembrance Day marking the anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1918 I’m sharing books set in either World War One or World War Two, or about the wars.

1. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. This is Vera Brittain’s autobiography. She was 21 in 1914.
2. The Monocled Mutineer: The First World War’s Best Kept Secret: The Etaples Mutiny  by John Fairley & William Allison
3. Highlanders’ Revenge by Paul Tors
4. Our Longest Days: a People’s History of the Second World War by the Writers of Mass Observation.
5. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
6. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
7. White Rose, Black Forest by Eoin Dempsey
8. Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II by Ben Macintyre
9. The Spoilt City by Olivia Manning
10. Good Evening, Mrs Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes

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.