Top Ten Tuesday #430

Hi everyone! As I mentioned in my post last week, I went to see a couple of theatre shows last week, both coincidentally themed around bikes, which was not at all planned but did make for a fun coincidence anyway (and honestly the two shows were wildly different, both in terms of content and tone, literally all they had in common were the bikes and the fact that both shows had Jewish characters). I saw Glory Ride at the Charing Cross Theatre on Thursday afternoon, a theatre I’d not been to before and it was a very cool space, it’s underneath Charing Cross Station which is a very unique venue for a theatre! As for the show, I enjoyed it, it’s a new musical and this is its first major run I think, so it could definitely still use some polishing, it was little long in places and though the songs were nice enough, I couldn’t say they were massively memorable. Still the performances were phenomenal, the whole cast was amazing and the story was brilliant, a piece of history that I didn’t really know about before so I really hope the show goes on to get a future life somewhere because I think it’s on that cusp between being really good and being great.

The other show I went to see was Ride at the new Southwark Playhouse Elephant venue. This was another theatre I hadn’t been to before, and I really loved the space, they had both an upstairs and downstairs bar space which looked very sleek and modern, and the auditorium was lovely and intimate as you always get at the Southwark Playhouse. The show was INCREDIBLE, I am going to become just as annoying about this show as I am about Operation Mincemeat and I make no apologies for it. Liv Andrusier and Katy Ellis were absolutely phenomenal in their roles, the songs are so wonderful and catchy (I downloaded the cast album as soon as I got home, that’s how good I thought they were), the set was deceptively clever (there’s a lot more to it than first meets the eye and it’s utilised so well), I had a really fantastic night out and I’m so grateful that Mickey Jo Theatre kept going on about it on his YouTube channel because I’m not sure I’d have heard of the show otherwise. It’s going to be at Southwark Playhouse until 12th August, so if you’re in London before then, you really must go and see it, it’s so so good! I hope that it comes back to London at some point after this run because this is definitely not a show I can only see once.

Anyway, whilst I could go on about theatre all day, this is still a book blog I promise and it is Tuesday, so it’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl. This week we were meant to be The Ten Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish but I don’t tend to DNF books that often, so instead I’m twisting it slightly and doing Ten Most Recent Books I’ve Added To My Shelves as between my various indie bookshop tour days, I’ve acquired quite a lot of books recently. Still haven’t read any of them, but that’s a totally different matter…..

1. Bodies Under Siege: How The Far-Right Attack On Reproductive Rights Went Global-Added last month

This was one of the books I bought on my indie bookshop tour last month, from Housmans which is a radical bookshop that basically sells books on a wide variety of social justice issues. This one seemed like a particularly important read given everything that’s been happening in the US over the last year, and whilst we like to think that abortion rights in the UK are safe, cases like the one of the woman who was jailed last month (who has thankfully now been released) for taking abortion pills outside of the limits of the 1967 Act show that our rights are not as stable as we like to think either. It seems like this could be a really interesting read and I’m excited to dive in and further my knowledge in this area.

2. The Ghost Theatre-Mat Osman-Added last month

Another one I bought on my indie bookshop tour last month, this one from London Review Bookshop, which is a fab bookshop and cafe in Bloomsbury which you should definitely check out if you are in the area. This is set in a reimagined Elizabethan London where magic exists and a group of outcasts create an underground magical theatre troupe that perform fantastical plays and ignite rebellion within the city’s outcasts. It sounds like a really fun read, I’m a big fan of Tudor history and I’ve not really read any books set in a reimagined Elizabethan London, so I’m super excited for this one.

3. Girl Trouble-Carol Dyhouse-Added last month

Yet another one I bought on my indie bookshop tour last month (yes, half of these will be from last month, I bought a lot of books on that day!), this one was from Any Amount of Books, a brilliant second hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road that you all absolutely have to go to if you’re in London, it’s like a book lover’s dream, just stacks of books everywhere! This is a non-fiction, and it’s basically about the history of changing attitudes towards woman and the social change of growing up as a girl and young woman throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries so it sounds like it could be a very interesting read.

4. The Heroines-Laura Shepperson-Added last month

My other purchase from London Review Bookshop, I really do need to stop being drawn in by very pretty hardbacks that sound like very good reads, it’s annoyingly expensive! Anyway, this one is yet another in the reams of retellings of women from Greek mythology, this is about Theseus’ wife Phaedra who accuses her stepson of rape and the story follows her trial as she is put on trial for adultery rather than him being put on trial for rape? I’m guessing misogyny is the explanation there! Anyway, it sounds like a slightly different Greek mythology retelling and I’ve never read anything about Phaedra before so it should be quite interesting, I hope!

5. Seven Faceless Saints-M.K. Lobb-Added last month

Another one I got on my indie bookshop tour day, though not from an Indie bookshop…..when on Charing Cross Road, it would be rude not to visit Foyles! This one sounds quite cool, it’s basically a murder-mystery set in a fantasy world where the two main characters are rivals, one working for the corrupt military and one for the rebellion and they have to team up when murders start happening. It sounds like a lot of fun so although I’ve not really been reading YA fantasy all that much in the last few years, I’m hoping the murder mystery twist on this one might mean it offers me something different.

6. All Of Our Demise-Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman-Added In May

Okay, so I’ll admit, I haven’t actually read the first book in this duology yet and the main reason I bought this one was because I had the first book in hardcover and the sequel is going to go out of print in hardcover later this year when the paperback comes out, so I wanted to make sure I got the hardcover before that happened because if I waited till I read the first book, then likely only the paperback of the second book would be available and my books would not match! But anyway, this duology sounds great, it’s basically like a magical villainous Hunger Games, so I’m hoping I will enjoy the first book enough that the purchase of the second before reading it wasn’t a big mistake.

7. The Raven Boys-Maggie Stiefvater-Added in May

But Jo, you ask, haven’t you already read and got a copy of The Raven Boys? Well yes, but I leant it to one of my friends and I can neither remember which of my friends I lent it to, nor if they actually gave it back and it’s somewhere in Scotland or if they still have it. Anyway, it’s been a few years, I decided at this point it was better to just get a new copy so that my series became complete again.

8. Pandora’s Jar: Women In The Greek Myths-Natalie Haynes-Added in May

I bought this one at The White Horse Bookshop in Marlborough when we stayed there over the Coronation Bank Holiday weekend in May (I would have just said Bank Holiday weekend, but we had three Bank Holidays in May this year, so had to be more specific!), which is a lovely independent bookshop and I would highly advise going if you are ever in Marlborough or passing through. Anyway, this unlike the other Greek myth books on my list is a non-fiction, Haynes is a classicist and this book explores the representations of various women in Greek myths and the ways they have been presented over the years. It sounds like it will be a fascinating read!

9. Atalanta-Jennifer Saint-Added in May

I really need to get around to actually reading one of Saint’s books in full one of these days, Ariadne was a victim of my great reading slump of 2021 and I would like to get back to that one at some point because I was in such a weird mood reading wise at that time that I don’t think I gave it a fair shout. But anyway, Atalanta is her most recent release, and it’s a retelling of the woman of the same name, who became the only female Argonaut and beat many men in races whilst trying to avoid an arranged marriage. Aside from that, I don’t really know a huge amount about her, so I’m hoping this retelling might give me a little more insight.

10. Femina-Janina Ramirez-Added in April

One of the books I got on my first indie bookshop tour in April, from the bookshop in Battersea Power Station, Battersea Bookshop (which is really great, I definitely recommend going there if you are in the area). This is a look at the various women overlooked and written out of the history of the Middle Ages and it just sounds like a book that is so up my street: anything to do with underrepresented or ignored women from history and I am THERE.

So there we have it, ten books I have added to my bookshelves recently. Have you read any of these? Which should I read first (discounting The Raven Boys as that was a replacement copy for my collection and I have already read it!)? What new books have you got recently? Let me know in the comments!

Next week’s list is Forgotten Backlist Books so I’ll be sharing some of my favourite older books that I don’t think people talk enough about/I don’t really mention how much I love them as much as I should which should be a fun one.