Top Ten Tuesday #400

Hi everyone! Welcome to our final Top Ten Tuesday of 2022 and I’m rounding off the year with a very special one, as it’s my 400th TTT post. Can’t believe I’ve done one of these every week for the past seven and a bit years, it’s quite amazing! Anyway, I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, I’ve been continuing to have a fab time in Australia. I really enjoyed my trail ride last week, and I’ve had several lovely dinners with my sister and her friends this week, as well as a Christmas Eve barbecue with my sister’s partner’s family. Sadly Hamilton was cancelled the day we were meant to see it due to cast illness, which was a bit unfortunate, but I’ve seen it before in London and the rest of my family will be able to go another time so it’s not so bad. We had a family game night at our flat instead which was just as fun.

We had a very nice Christmas here, it was a lovely sunny day in Australia, and we had our Christmas dinner at my sister’s house, just the five of us which was great. It was so nice to be with my sister and her partner this year as we’ve not all spent Christmas together since she’s been out in Australia so even though having a warm Christmas felt a bit different, it was so lovely to all be together. It’s a very warm day today in Melbourne, so we’ve been to the beach and out for lunch which was very nice. I’m quite sad that I’m heading back to the UK on Thursday and wishing that I’d booked a later flight home, but I’m sure I’ll be back!

Anyway, today’s TTT (as usual courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl) is a Top Ten Tuesday staple: Most Recent Additions To My Book Collection. Now I didn’t get a huge number of books for Christmas, but I have acquired quite a few books in the last few months, so I’ve got plenty to share with you (it’s not like I’m ever lacking for new books!):

1. My Tidda, My Sister-Marlee Silva-Got for Christmas

This was my one book Christmas present this year, from my sister. It’s a series of stories about the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and sounds like it will be a very interesting and educational read.

2. Bold Types: How Australia’s First Women Journalist Blazed A Trail-Bought last week

The second of my educational Australian reads. I found this one last week in the Coventry Bookstore in South Melbourne and after watching The Newsreader over the summer (a show about Australian journalists in the 80s), I definitely want to learn more about the experiences of women journalists in Australia so I thought this book would be a good place to start to learn about some of that history.

3. Vicious (Hardback)-VE Schwab-Added in December

I have been wanting a hardback of Vicious to match my copy of Vengeful for years but I’ve never been able to find one. I sadly bought my original copy of Vicious just before the UK got the new edition back in 2017 I think, so the one I have is the paperback with the old, not as pretty cover. However when I saw that VE Schwab was signing books for her local indie The Portobello Bookshop this Christmas and that said bookshop had hardback copies of Vicious, I immediately jumped on the chance to get one. My copy should be waiting for me when I get home!

4. Five Survive-Holly Jackson-Added in December

My copy of Five Survive arrived just before I left for Australia a couple of weeks ago. It sounds like a very exciting read, a one location murder mystery thriller that takes place in real time? Sounds like just the sort of adventure that I would really enjoy. I’d ideally like to try and finish the A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder trilogy before I finish this one, but we’ll see how I’m feeling…after all this is a standalone, so there’s no reason why I have to wait till I’m done with her first series to read it, I’d just prefer to!

5. Demon In The Wood-Leigh Bardugo-Added in November

I got this one as part of Waterstones’ Black Friday Double Stamps offer. I’m not really a big fan of Black Friday here in the UK (where we don’t have Thanksgiving so it makes no sense!) but I do take advantage of Waterstones’ double stamp offers whenever they come around. I’m really excited for this one as I’ve been getting a lot more into comic/graphic novels over the last few years (mainly through VE Schwab’s Shades of Magic prequel comics) so I’m excited to see what Bardugo and her illustrator Dani Pendergast have done with this and I’m always intrigued to learn more about the Darkling.

6. Greywaren-Maggie Stiefvater-Added in November

I also got this, the final book of the Dreamer Trilogy as part of Waterstones’ Black Friday double stamps offer. I actually haven’t read the second book yet, it’s one of many series I need to catch up on/finish, so maybe that will be one of my reading goals for next year? We’ll see!

7. Mad Honey-Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan-Added in November

I’m so excited for Jodi and Jennifer’s book, it feels like the first Jodi book that I’ve actually felt excited for in a while. The Book of Two Ways wasn’t great for me and I skipped Wish You Were Here because I didn’t want to read about the pandemic (still don’t) so it definitely feels refreshing to be excited for one of her books again, and I’m very interested to see how she and Jennifer worked together. Going to the event for this made me even more excited to read it, so it may be high up on the TBR pile for 2023.

8. The Ballad of Never After-Stephanie Garber-Added in September

Have I read the first book yet? Still no (feels like that should be a priority for next year)! Did I still get this one? Yes, because I didn’t want to miss on the hidden covers and knew I would probably want to read this after reading the first book anyway. Fingers crossed I love both when I finally get to them!

9. I Must Betray You-Ruta Sepetys-Added in September

It’s been a long time since I last read a Ruta Sepetys book, I think the last one I read in full was Salt To The Sea (as I DNF’ed The Fountains of Silence). This one sounds really great, it’s about the Romanian Revolution and the overthrow of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu which is another bit of history that I really don’t know that much about. In addition, it’s a very short book, which will be massively helpful to me as I’ve been struggling with longer books over the past few years.

10. Threadneedle-Cari Thomas-Added in July

One of the books that I bought at YALC this summer off the recommendation of one the staff manning the HarperVoyager stand. It sounds really good, an adult fantasy set in contemporary London where magic is seen as a sin to be bound and not used. I don’t really know all that much more about it than that, so I’ll be going into it with fairly little knowledge, which is unusual for me, but might be nice not to have expectations for once!

And that’s it, my final Top Ten Tuesday of 2022 and my 400th one in total! Have you read any of these books? What new books have you added to your shelves recently? Did you get any new ones for Christmas? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week for my first Top Ten Tuesday of 2023 (AGH! HOW DID THIS YEAR GO SO FAST?), which will be my annual Favourite Books of The Year post, so Favourite Books of 2022. It’s always one I enjoy doing every year, so I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’ll definitely have a couple of posts up before the year’s end: my annual End of Year Check In post and End of Year Survey which should both come to you once I’m back in the UK. I may have a last book review up for you before the end of the year but we’ll see whether I have the time before I leave Australia on Thursday, I want to spend the time I have left here having fun with my family!