Top Ten Tuesday #374

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, the Queen + Adam Lambert concert was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, I’ve been to a lot of great concerts before but I have to say, they definitely took it to the next level. It was well worth all the travel hell that we went through to get there, because of the rail strikes, it took us about 3 hours to get to the O2 via bus and then boat and then another 2 hours or so to get home, including an hour waiting in line after the concert for the boat back! It’s not the absolutely worst travel nightmare I’ve ever had, but it was getting pretty darn close. We finally have our move date set for next week, so this week is going to be a lot of finishing packing and making sure everything is ready to go. We’ve been planning this move for so long, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually almost time to go!

Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so that means another Top Ten Tuesday for you all, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is our annual Summer TBR. I did do slightly better on my Winter TBR than I was expecting, I finished 5 of my list (7 if we’re counting the two comics I read separately as I combined them into one entry on the list), so half of the books on there, though obviously I read more books than that, I just deviated a lot from my TBR, a common theme recently. I’m hoping I will do better on my Summer TBR, but this is really just for guidance of some of the books I think I might like to read in the next few months, if I’m not feeling them, I fully plan to deviate and I’m not going to feel bad about it! Life is too short to read books you aren’t feeling in the mood for. So here we go, my Summer TBR:

1. Fix The System, Not The Women-Laura Bates

Okay, this is a slight cheat because I’m almost done with this book, I’m currently reading the last chapter! But hey, I like having low hanging fruit to check off my TBR. I have enjoyed this one, although not as much as her last book, Men Who Hate Women, it did feel like it got a little repetitive at times as she reinforces her points. Still a very powerful and insightful read and I loved that she actually offers solutions to the systemic problems that women face.

2. Good Girl, Bad Blood-Holly Jackson

I will admit, I’ve been kind of dipping in and out of this one as I’ve been very busy over the past couple of weeks and just haven’t really been sitting down to read. I’m really excited for this one though as I loved the first book, and would also love to finally get it ticked off my TBR as it’s appeared on I think every single one of my TBR lists for months!

3. Life After Life-Kate Atkinson

I just watched the BBC adaptation of this, having never even heard of the book before and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve decided to give the book a try (if you haven’t seen the show and you are based in the UK, I highly recommend it, it’s on BBC iPlayer and Thomasin McKenzie is brilliant). The audiobook is also narrated by Fenella Woolgar who plays Sister Hilda on Call The Midwife, so that’s exciting, I’m interested to see what she’s like as a narrator.

4. Once Upon A Broken Heart-Stephanie Garber

I’d really like to try and get to this book before the second book, The Ballad of Never After is released in September. I’ve heard such good things about it, so I’m super excited. I don’t know if I will get to it because I’ve been so slow with physical books recently, but once I’ve finished Good Girl, Bad Blood, this is definitely next on my list.

5. The Mad Girls of New York-Maya Rodale

This is one of my most anticipated reads of the year, I’m so excited for it! Ever since I first listened to a podcast episode about Nellie Bly a few years back, I’ve been super interested in her and her life so when I saw this book was coming out, it was an automatic TBR add for me. For anyone who is not aware of who Nellie was, she was an investigative reporter who went undercover in an infamous New York asylum for ten days to expose the reality of the cruel conditions there, a real trailblazer for women in journalism. I also love that this sounds like it’s going to be a series covering Nellie’s adventures, as she had a really fascinating life, she also travelled around the world in 72 days, in an attempt to recreate the fictional journey attempted by Phileas Fogg in the book Around The World In Eighty Days.

6. Bloomsbury Girls-Natalie Jenner

You know when you read a synopsis for a book and you just feel like that book was created for you? That’s how Bloomsbury Girls feels for me! Historical fiction following women working in a London bookshop in the 1950s and fighting back against the inequality they face in their workplace? Count me in!

7. The Librarian Spy-Madeline Martin

I really enjoyed The Last Bookshop In London when I read it last year, so naturally Martin’s second historical fiction went straight onto my TBR, especially when I saw that it would once again be narrated by my favourite audiobook narrator Saskia Maarleveld. I love books centred around female spies, so when you add in the fact that the spy in this book is posing as a librarian to do her work, you definitely have a winner for me! It comes out at the end of July, so I’ll definitely be getting the audiobook in August/September.

8. Ten Steps To Nanette-Hannah Gadsby

I love a good memoir, and listening to Hannah Gadsby talk to Deborah Frances-White about her memoir on The Guilty Feminist had me in such stitches that I just had to add the book to my TBR. I really enjoyed Nanette, it’s such a brilliant show so I’m excited to get some more insight into Hannah Gadsby’s life and the creation of that show here.

9. Looking For Jane-Heather Marshall

This seems like an unfortunately timely book to be adding to my TBR with the news that has come out of the US recently of the rolling back of abortion rights in many states after the overturning of Roe V Wade. This book follows an underground abortion network in Canada in the 1970s & 80s, based on the real Jane Collective who would help women access abortions before the procedure was legalised. This book has basically everything for me, historical, centred on women and reproductive rights, so I really hope it lives up to my excitement!

10. The Society For Soulless Girls-Laura Steven

I’ll admit, I didn’t have much luck with The Love Hypothesis when I tried reading it earlier this year, but Laura Steven’s upcoming release sounds far more up my street. It’s a sapphic dark academia retelling of Jekyll and Hyde, following two students as they attempt to uncover the truth behind a series of supernatural murders. Sounds great right?

So there we have it, my planned Summer TBR reads! I probably won’t read all of these, but as I’m planning on reading about 7 of them on audiobook, I should at least have a good chance of finishing those! How about you? What’s on your Summer TBR this year? Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, it’s another annual topic for us, our Most Anticipated Books Releasing In The Second Half of 2022 (how rude for this topic to come around so quickly when I haven’t even read most of my anticipated from the first half of 2022 yet!) which is always a fun one to do.