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. For the rules see her blog.

The topic this week is Unread Books on My Shelves I Want to Read Soon.I have done this topic so many times I thought I’d do something different, so here is a list of ten books with the word Road in the titles, seven of which I’ve read, and three that are in my TBRs.

First the books I’ve read:

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. Bryson writes in a chatty style and goes off at various tangents, talking about the history of places and telling anecdotes, which I found very interesting. Whilst he was disappointed by some towns and cities he didn’t hold back on praising the landscape – beautiful countryside, and coastal locations. Starting at Bognor Regis he decided to to try to follow the longest distance you can travel in a straight line, roughly from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath. But he realised it wouldn’t be practical to follow it precisely, so he just started and ended at its terminal points and then meandered from place to place as his fancy took him.

The Road Towards Home by Corinne Demas – about the friendship between Cassandra and Noah, two retired people who had first met in their youth. They were reacquainted when they moved to Clarion Court an ‘an independent living community’. Noah invites Cassandra to rough it with him at his Cape Cod cottage, and their relationship unexpectedly blossoms after several ups and downs.

I’ve read but not reviewed The Wild Road by Gabriel King. It’s a magical novel, about a runaway kitten named Tag meets a mysterious black cat named Majicou in his dreams. He learns he is destined for bigger things. Called by Majicou, Tag enters the Wild Road, a magical highway known only to the animals, and learns that he is needed to find the King and Queen of Cats and bring them safely to Tintagel.

The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid. Investigating the identity of the skeleton found, with a bullet hole in its skull, on the rooftop of a crumbling, gothic building in Edinburgh takes DCI Karen Pirie and her Historic Cases Unit into a dark world of intrigue and betrayal during the Balkan Wars in the 1990s.

Coffin Road by Peter May, a standalone novel, set on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. There are 3 strands to the story. A man is washed up during a storm on a deserted beach; he has no idea who he is or where he is. The only clue to why he is living on Harris is a folded map of a path named the Coffin Road and following the route marked on the map he finds some hidden beehives. In the second strand DS George Gunn investigates the murder of a bludgeoned corpse discovered on a remote rock twenty miles to west of the Outer Hebrides. And thirdly, a teenage girl in Edinburgh is desperate to discover the truth about her scientist father’s suicide.

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell – a searing account of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire in the 1930s. Orwell’s graphically unforgettable descriptions of social injustice, cramped slum housing, dangerous mining conditions, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment are written with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity. It crystallized the ideas that would be found in his later works and novels, and remains a powerful portrait of poverty, injustice and class divisions in Britain.

Where Three Roads Meet by Salley Vickers, one of the Canongate Myths series, modern versions of myths. It’s the Oedipus myth as told to Sigmund Freud during his last years when he was suffering from cancer of the mouth. Under the influence of morphine he is visited by Tiresias, a blind prophet of Thebes who tells him his version of the Oedipus story – the point where the three roads meet is the place Oedipus and his father had their tragic meeting, setting in motion the sequence of events that led to his downfall and to the fulfilment of the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

Second the books I’ve yet to read

The Road by Cormac McCarthy A post-apocalyptic classic set in a burned-out America, a father and his young son walk under a darkened sky, heading slowly for the coast. They have no idea what, if anything, awaits them there. 

The Winding Road by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles This is the 34th book in the Morland Dynasty series. The Jazz Age is in full swing in New York, the General Strike is underway in London, the shadows are gathering over Europe and the Wall Street Crash brings the decade to an end.

Road Ends by Mary Lawson. Twenty-one-year-old Megan Cartwright has never been outside the small town she was born in but one winter’s day in 1966 she leaves everything behind and sets out for London. Ahead of her is a glittering new life, just waiting for her to claim it. But left behind, her family begins to unravel. Disturbing letters from home begin to arrive and torn between her independence and family ties, Megan must make an impossible choice.

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.

This week is a Freebie week and I’m featuring books with Fire in the titles. eight of these are books I’ve read and two are TBRs.

Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves, the 8th and last book in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series. It’s set in Deltaness, an invented village in Northmavine where the Fleming family, Helen, a knitwear designer, her architect husband, Daniel, and their children, autistic Christopher, and Ellie,  have recently relocated from London. They are finding it hard to settle and matters are only made worse when the previous owner of their house is found hanging in their barn.

Fire in the Thatch by L C R Lorac. Colonel St Cyres, his daughter Anne and daughter-in-law June are living at Manor Thatch, and Norman Vaughan at Little Thatch. When Vaughan’s body is found in the burnt-out debris of Little Thatch Chief Inspector Macdonald of New Scotland Yard is asked to investigate the case.  

The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor. After the Great Fire of London, the Fire Court was set up in 1667 to settle disputes between landowners and tenants as the work of rebuilding and developing London gets underway. This book brings to life the complexities of Restoration England, drawing in all levels of society from Charles II, the aristocracy, politicians, the ordinary people and those living in poverty.

The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve. I don’t think this is one of her best books. It’s set in Hunts Beach (a fictional town) on the coast of Maine. The rain is followed by the long hot summer of 1947, then a drought sets in, followed by devastating fires. The Stars are Fire paints a convincing picture of life just after the Second World War. Grace’s daily life is difficult, constrained by the social conventions and attitudes of the late 1940s.

Playing with Fire by Peter Robinson, the 14th book in the DCI Banks series. In the early hours of a cold January morning, two narrow boats catch fire on the dead-end stretch of the Eastvale canal. When signs of accelerant are found at the scene, DCI Banks and DI Annie Cabbot are summoned. But by the time they arrive, only the smouldering wreckage is left, and human remains have been found on both boats.

Daughters of Fire by Barbara Erskine, historical time-slip fiction switching between the present day and the first century CE Britannia. It’s a mix of historical fiction, fantasy and romance. It mixes two stories, one set in the present day with historian Viv and the other with Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes tribe in the first century.

Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky, is set in a small village based on Issy-l’Eveque between the two world wars. The narrator is Silvio looking back on his life and gradually secrets that have long been hidden rise to the surface, disrupting the lives of the small community. There is a brooding, silent and haunting atmosphere, almost menacing as the truth emerges. The writing is full of rich descriptive passages of the land and the people. It is indeed a gem of a book.

Dark Fire by C J Sansom. Set in 1540, this is the second in the Matthew Shardlake series, set in the 16th century during the reign of  King Henry VIII.  Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer, is assigned to find the formula for Greek Fire, whilst defending a young girl accused of brutal murder. I read this before I began blogging, so the link is to Amazon UK.

Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault, one of my TBRS so the link is also to Amazon UK. Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India. Fire From Heaven tells the story of the years that shaped him. 

Fire by L J Tyler, the 4th John Grey historical mystery, also one of my TBRs, this is another book about the Great Fire of London in 1666. A Frenchman admits to having started the fire together with an accomplice, whom he says he has subsequently killed.

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 this week is The topic this week is April Showers — Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt (books with rain on the cover/in the title, that have rainstorms in the story, or that have anything to do with rain).

I’ve read all of these, so the links go to my posts about them.

1. The Rain Before it Falls by Jonathan Coe
2. Rain by Melissa Harrison
3. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
4. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
5. Started Early Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
6. Exposure by Helen Dunmore
7. The Expats by Chris Pavone
8. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
9. Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves
10. The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley

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 this week is The topic this week is Books on My Spring 2024 To-Read List. These are all from my TBR lists. But this does not mean that I will actually read all these books or even some of them this Spring, as I’ve said before, I am a mood read and when the time comes to choose the next book to read it could be a newly published book that takes my fancy or another book from my TBRs.

I would like to read at least one of them though!

1. The Dark Quartet by Lynne Reid Banks (The Brontë Sisters Saga Book 1)
2. The Couple at No 9 by Claire Douglas – domestic noir
3. Beware the Past by Joy Ellis – crime thriller
4. Camino Winds by John Grisham – murder mystery
5. Weyward by Emilia Hart – historical fiction
6. Nero by Conn Iggulden (on my NetGalley Shelf – publication date 23 May 2024 )
7. Dead Man’s Time by Peter James (Roy Grace Book 9) – crime fiction
8. The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon Brunetti 25 (A Commissario Brunetti Mystery)
9. The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware – a murder mystery
10. The Lady of Sorrows by Anne Zouroudi (Mysteries of the Greek Detective Book 4)

I’ve listed them in A-Z author order. Would you recommend any of them and which one would you read first?

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 this week is Books I’m Worried I Might Not Love as Much the Second Time Around (I love re-reading, but there are some books that hit so perfectly and I loved so much that I worry reading them again wouldn’t be the same. Or maybe the books I read when I was younger wouldn’t be favorites anymore. Or maybe some books just don’t age well?)

But as I don’t re-read very often I’m focusing on Books with the Word ‘Death’ in the Titles.

1. Death at the President’s Lodging by Michael Innes – What struck me most about this Inspector Appleby mystery is that it is essentially a ‘locked room’ mystery. Dr Umpleby, the unpopular president of St Anthony’s College (a fictional college similar to an Oxford college) is found in his study, shot through the head.
2. Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie is set on the West bank of the Nile at Thebes in about 2000 BC. She based her characters and plot on some letters from a Ka priest in the 11th Dynasty.
3. Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn, the first book in her Daisy Dalrymple series. It’s a quick and easy read, a mix of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse, set in 1923 at the Earl of Wentwater’s country mansion, Wentwater Court.
4. Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds, a kind of locked room mystery, only this time the ‘locked room’ is a plane on a flight from Paris to Croydon.
5.  Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong, his first book featuring Chief Inspector Chen. It won the Anthony Award for Best First Crime Novel in 2001.
6. Death Has Deep Roots: a Second World War Mystery by Michael Gilbert. Set in 1950 this is a mix of a courtroom drama, a spy novel and an adventure thriller. 
7. Death in the Tunnel by Miles Burton, a British Library Crime Classic, first published in 1936, about the death of Sir Wilfred Saxonby who was found in a first class compartment of the 5 pm train from London to Stourford.
8.  The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz. Divorce lawyer Richard Pryce was found dead in his home, having been hit on the head by a wine bottle, a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, and then stabbed to death with the broken bottle.
9. A Death in the Dales is the 7th book in Frances Brody’s Kate Shackleton series of historical crime fiction books set in 1920s Yorkshire. 
10. Death Under Sail by C P Snow This is a classic mystery, a type of ‘country house’ mystery, but set on a wherry (a sailing boat) on the Norfolk Broads, where Roger Mills, a Harley Street specialist, is taking a group of six friends on a sailing holiday. When they find him at the tiller with a smile on his face and a gunshot through his heart, all six fall under suspicion.