Top Ten Tuesday #417

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, I had so much fun getting to know you all through last week’s freebie and it was honestly a favourite post of mine this year, I loved getting to share my travels with you and it was so nice to see all the love you had for the photos and hearing about the places I’ve been. I’m hoping to do more travel-adjacent content with my bookshop tours so if you liked hearing about the places I’ve been last week, then keep your eyes peeled for more of those: obviously far more local than any of the places I mentioned in last week’s blog, but if you like travel + books content then that’s definitely something to keep your eye out for as I have a couple more planned for the next few months.

I finished up my month of theatre last week with Medea at Soho Place on Thursday and it was good, the actors were really great but the show was a little slow and a tad too dialogue heavy for me in places, I don’t know, maybe Greek tragedy is just not really my thing but I still had a really good time and Soho Place is a great new venue, I was really excited to see what it was like and I was not disappointed, the in-the-round staging is super cool and it meant I had a really great view even from the upper balcony! I also went to see the NT Live showing of Good at the Everyman Cinema in Kings Cross on Friday, and again I had kind of mixed feelings about that, the cast were all really great, especially David Tennant but the play itself is just a little strange and somewhat hard to follow. It was still a nice night out though, and I especially enjoyed the ice-cream sundae I bought! This week is thankfully a quieter one, which I do feel like I need after a couple of busy weeks and next week promising to be extremely busy, but I do have my Spanish evening class again tomorrow night, those started up again last week, I’m now Pre-Intermediate one, so making progress (if slowly!).

Anyway, today’s Top Ten Tuesday is as always courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic was meant to be Favourite Audiobook Narrators but I’ve already done that one a couple of years ago, and the list hasn’t really changed, so instead, I’m sharing Audiobooks I’m Hoping To Listen To This Year. Audiobooks is my main way of consuming books nowadays and I have 10 credits left on Audible for the rest of the year, so these are potential options for what I might use those credits on (though it’s all mood dependent and I may decide I want to listen to something else and there’s a very good chance that some of these might be swapped out for highly anticipated releases as not all of those have been put up on Audible yet). But anyway, these are some of the books that I may listen to in the rest of this year:

1. Killers of A Certain Age-Deanna Raybourn, Narrators: Christina Delaine and Jane Oppenheimer

This one has been on a couple of my seasonal TBR posts at this point, so it is one I would like to listen to before the end of the year as it sounds really fun! I’ve never listened to anything else the narrators have done before but they sounded pretty good from the short sample on Audible so I’m willing to give it a try. Has anyone listened to this book? Was it a good way to consume the story? Let me know!

2. City of Nightmares-Rebecca Schaeffer, Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld

I was already super hyped about this one because it sounds just so fun and weird and great: basically a spoof of the city from Batman (Gotham) but in a city where if you go to sleep and dream, you risk waking up as your worst nightmare, and the main character who is desperate to avoid this fate, joins a cult to keep herself safe only to end up embroiled in an assassination. So yeah, I was sold on the plot already, but then I saw Saskia Maarleveld who is my favourite audiobook narrator and has narrated five of my favourite audiobooks from the past couple of years was narrating this too and I just knew I had to listen to it! This may be my next listen as I’ve been on a bit of a fantasy kick again recently but we’ll see how I feel when I’m done with The Luminaries.

3. The Keeper of Hidden Books-Madeline Martin, Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld

This is one I know I will definitely be listening to before the end of the year as Madeline Martin has become a favourite author of mine over the last few years. This one sounds so good, it takes place in Poland in WWII which I have to admit, I’ve actually not read a huge amount about considering that Poland has quite a significant history from that period but it follows a girl called Zofia who is fighting to save her friend Janina from the Warsaw ghetto and salvaging books from the destroyed city, using her love of literature as a way to resist the Nazis. I’m really intrigued by this one as it covers a setting I’ve not seen utilized much in WWII books and I’ve yet to be disappointed by any of Madeline Martin’s WWII books, so it should be a great one. I’ve already mentioned above how much I love Saskia Maarleveld, but what I didn’t mention is that she has a real talent for accents, so I look forward to hearing how she does the Polish ones in this book!

4. Homecoming-Kate Morton, Narrator: Claire Foy

This book is fairly chunky (and pricey, the hardback is £20!) so I would probably have listened to it anyway, but seeing that Claire Foy was doing the narration made me even more excited because I think she’s a great actress so I’m intrigued to see how she performs this one (since audiobook narration is just a different kind of performing). I’ve never read any Kate Morton before, but it sounds like a great book and I’ve been wanting to get into more Australian authors since visiting Australia, so hopefully this is a good one because apparently she has a big back catalogue to dive into if I like it.

5. A Day of Fallen Night-Samantha Shannon, Narrators: Ellie Kendrick, Sheila Atim, Thoren Ferguson and Hanako Footman

Once again, I did buy the pretty hardback for the gorgeousness (and it was included in the price of the ticket at the event I went to in February) but it’s just not practical to read on the go, so I will be listening to the audiobook. I’m excited because everything I’ve heard about this story makes it sound great, however I am a little nervous because Priory did take me a while to get into and it’s also a massive time commitment, almost 39 hours for the audiobook! I would like to read it before the end of the year because I do think I’m going to enjoy it, but we shall see when I feel up for that kind of time commitment. My natural audiobook reading tends to be between about 7-20 hours, with most of the books I read landing in the 9-16 hour zone so this is far, far outside that, but I know it will be worth it.

6. Beyond The Wand-Tom Felton, Narrator: Tom Felton

I’ve been really enjoying my non-fiction in recent years and I’ve heard such good things about Tom Felton’s memoir. I always love that celebrities narrate their own memoirs as well, it does feel like it adds something extra to hear their story coming from them. I’ve always been a huge Harry Potter fan, so I’m excited to hear his stories from the set and what it was like to grow up doing those films (even if I no longer like or support JK Rowling).

7. The Librarian of Burned Books-Brianna Labuskes, Narrators: Caroline Hewitt, Eleanor Caudill and Karissa Vacker

This book sounds so up my street, a historical fiction about women across different time periods who come together in their fight against censorship? Yes please! I’ve never listened to any books narrated by any of the three narrators, so I don’t know what they’ll be like, but the sample from Audible sounded good and of all the genres I’ve listened to audiobooks for, historical fiction has generally most often come out the best (aside from non-fiction) so I have high hopes!

8. You’re The Only One I’ve Told: The Stories Behind Abortion-Doctor Meera Shah, Narrators: Janina Edwards & Lisa Renee Pitts

With all of the discussions around reproductive rights that have been happening over the last year or so with the overturning of Roe Vs Wade, this feels like a really important book to read. I’ve never listened to anything by either of the narrators before, but I do find narration in general tends to enhance my experience of non-fiction so again I have high hopes that this will be a very interesting and informative listen.

9. Death of A Bookseller-Alice Slater, Narrators: Emma Noakes and Victoria Blunt

This just sounds like such a fun time and I’m so intrigued by it, as the whole idea of exploring the ethical issues behind true crime and the impact of people’s obsession with real life tragedies is such a cool idea and I just love anything that explores twisted female friendships, when they’re well done they can be so satisfying to read. Again, both the narrators are new to me and I actually haven’t had a chance to listen to the sample on Audible yet as this book only came out today, but I definitely will do soon!

10. The Last Tale of The Flower Bride-Roshani Chokshi, Narrators: Steve West and Sura Siu

A lot of multiple narrator books on this list, which I wasn’t expecting as I don’t usually listen to a whole lot of them, but I do like audiobooks with more than one narrator, particularly with multiple POV books as it makes it much easier to keep track of who is who! I feel like this one will be a really good listen because of the kind of story it is: dark, twisted fariytale, kind of ethereal, everything about it screams that listening to it will enhance my experience of the story (which is what a good audiobook does for me) so I hope my instinct about that is right. I’ve heard mixed things about this one so I’m a little uncertain but intrigued enough to give it a go, especially as I’ve liked other books by Chokshi and am aware of her penchant for over-description already!

So there we go, those are some of the audiobooks that I might potentially use my remaining ten credits on Audible on (and let’s be real, I will probably end up buying more credits before the year is out! I also do have Libby so I might get more audiobooks from there). Have you listened to any of these books (or read them in other formats)? Did you enjoy them? If you’ve had experiences with any of the narrators I said were new to me, how were they? Are any of these also on your TBR? Who are your favourite audiobook narrators? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week for another Top Ten Tuesday, next week we’re talking The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed From My Shelf and sharing our thoughts on those, so that should be a fun one!