Top Ten Tuesday | Readfresh My Memory

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Anything/Much About'. I decided to play around with the theme a little this week and talk about ten of my favourite/most loved books that I'd like to reread because it's been a while since I last read them!

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling: It's been a long time since I last read this series and every year I say I'm going to reread them only to forsake them for newer reads. This year I'd really like to try and get to them because it's been so long since I read them I think it'll be like reading them for the first time all over again.

Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman: This was the first book that made me bawl my eyes out. I'd like to reread it soon, especially as I believe there's finally going to be an adaptation on the BBC!

Sabriel by Garth Nix: I have a copy of Goldenhand that I still haven't read because it's been so long since I read The Old Kingdom series I've forgotten quite a lot about it. I'd love to reread these books because I adored them growing up and Sabriel was always one of my favourite heroines.

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya: Fun fact! Natsuka Takaya and I have the same birthday. I love the anime and read the manga when I was younger but only read up to around volume 11, so I'd love to reread the series from the beginning and finally finish it.

Witch Child by Celia Rees: Celia Rees was one of the most formative authors of my childhood and early teens, and it's thanks to her that I grew up so interested in historical fiction and books about witches and witchcraft in particular. I loved Witch Child the first time I read it, but I do worry that I might not love it as much if I read it again now.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: A film adaptation of this one is being released later this year starring Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson so I'd like to try and reread it before I see the film. It's an excellent book and one I highly recommend if you're in the mood for a ghost story!

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie: I had to read this one during my first year of university and I really, really enjoyed it. I'd love to read it again.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: Another one I had to read for university, although I grew up loving the 1993 adaptation, and another one I absolutely loved. This is probably my favourite children's classic, with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a very close second, and I think this would be a lovely one to reread in the spring.

Feed by Mira Grant: One of my favourite books of all time and yet it broke my heart so much that I haven't read it from beginning to end again since the first time I read it. I think I might try and reread this one this year!

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë: My favourite Brontë and one of my favourite Victorian novels. It's a short, quiet book, but I love its exploration of how class doesn't matter if you're a woman - either way you could potentially be treated badly by the men in your life, and that's why it's important to support each other. In my opinion Anne Brontë was the most feminist of the Brontë sisters and I want her to receive far more love than she does.

Which books did you talk about this week?

Top Ten Tuesday | They #$@&%*! you up, your mum and dad...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Ten Books That Feature Characters...' and I've decided to talk about books with protagonists who are parents, because so often parenthood is the end of someone's story and I've never been entirely satisfied with the idea that a person's life comes to an end as soon as they have a baby. You're still you, you just have an extra responsibility and that doesn't mean your life and your interests have to come to a stand still. Isn't it much more interesting for children to be raised by parents that actually have personalities?

Five of these books I've read and five are on my TBR!

The title is a line from This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin.

Books I've Read

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin: I think Essun is the most bad-ass mother I've come across in fiction. There's not much I can say about this book, and this series, without giving too much away, all I will say is that you should read it.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples: The main conflict of this series is that a child has been born to two people who should be on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. That the series is narrated by that child is a lovely touch, I think.

Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman: Noughts & Crosses is one of my favourite books and the series continues to get darker and darker. Again there's not much I can say about Knife Edge without spoiling the series, but its honest depiction of early motherhood has always stayed with me.

The Death Maze by Ariana Franklin: I don't love this series but, when I'm in the mood for an easy to read historical thriller, I do find myself turning to it. Set in the middle ages, protagonist Adelia is one of the earliest working single mothers I've come across in fiction!

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney: One of the driving forces behind this novel is protagonist Mrs. Ross's search for her teenage son who is suspected of murdering one of their neighbours. Really the book is about the town as a whole but it's an interesting read and one I'd recommend for the winter months!

Books on My TBR

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss: I've heard nothing but amazing things about this novel, told from the point of view of a stay-at-home dad which isn't a perspective you see often in fiction.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry: Cora, recently widowed and glad to be rid of a husband who wasn't particularly nice, decides to use her widowhood to pursue her love of science, with her lady's maid and young son in tow. I'm determined to get to this one soon.

Timeless by Gail Carriger: Another one I'm aiming to read by the end of this year so I can finally finish the series and move on to Carriger's other books set in this world. I'm just about to start Heartless, in which Alexia is heavily pregnant, so by Timeless she'll have a mini-Alexia to keep her eye on. It's a nice change to come across a series that doesn't leave the characters behind as soon as they 'settle down' - Alexia's married and pregnant, but she's certainly not ready to settle!

The Untold by Courtney Collins: I'm not 100% sure but I believe this one is based on a true story. I've realised this year just how little I read about Australia and it's something I want to rectify, starting with this book!

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë: I've read bits of this book but still need to sit down and read it from beginning to end. I really should get to it soon. Like Cora in The Essex Serpent, the heroine of this novel also has a young son to think of and, considering the time in which she lives, it's pretty damn admirable what she does to keep him safe.

What did you talk about this week?

#Victober TBR!

Ange @ Beyond the Pages, Katie @ Books and Things, Kate @ Kate Howe and Lucy @ Lucy the Reader are back for the second year in a row with #Victober - a read-a-thon focused on British and Irish literature written during the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837-1901.

Victorian literature was always my favourite era of literature to study when I was a student, I studied Victorian Popular Fiction and Victorian Gothic in the final year of my undergraduate degree and loved it, but I don't read much of it now that I'm no longer a student. There are so many more contemporary writers, particularly non-British, LGBT+ and poc writers, whom I'd rather devote my reading time to.

Having said that, I do still enjoy classics when I pick them up so I thought I'd join in and try to read a bit of Victorian literature this October alongside all of the other books I want to read this autumn!

There are five challenges:

• Read a Victorian book by a Irish, Scottish or Welsh author
• Read a Victorian book that was recommended to you 
• Read a supernatural Victorian book
• Read a lesser known Victorian book
• Read a Victorian book by a female author

I'm only going to attempt three of them, because I don't want Victorian literature to completely take over my reading month, so the challenges I've crossed through are the ones I won't be tackling.

Read a Victorian book by an Irish, Scottish or Welsh author // I'm going to re-read The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen, because I think I need to read it again to appreciate it. It's described as one of the best horror stories ever written but I remember being left a bit disappointed with it, so I'd like to give it another try. Arthur Machen was a Welsh author who focused on supernatural/horror stories, so he's worth checking out if you're into Victorian Gothic.

Read a supernatural Victorian book // Another re-read, this time of one of my favourite pieces of Victorian literature: Carmilla. Carmilla is a vampire story that pre-dates Dracula and I really, really enjoyed it when I had to study it for university. It'd be nice to read it again just for the pure enjoyment of it.

Read a Victorian book by a female author // I love Anne Brontë, but I've never read her masterpiece the whole way through. I've read bits of it here and there and I understand the social importance of it, but I want to read it properly so I can appreciate the often forgotten Brontë's genius. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the book I'd like to focus my attention on for this read-a-thon.

Are you taking part in #Victober? What are some of your favourite Victorian novels?

The Aussie Book Tag

G'day mates! And now it's time for me to apologise to literally everyone in Australia. Cass @ Words on Paper very kindly tagged me in the Aussie Book Tag and, as you know, I'm always up for  a tag. You can find Cass's answers here and the original, created by Ngoc @ Happy Comes First and Julia @ Picnic Reads, here!

I've never been to Australia but I'd love to go (the only thing that really puts me off are the spiders because I am severely arachnophobic) and the more I thought about it the more I realised I've read barely any Australian writers; Markus Zusak, Garth Nix, Geraldine Brooks and Hannah Kent are the only ones who immediately spring to mind. You don't have to talk about Australian books and authors for this tag, but doing this has definitely made me realise it's a country that I seem to neglect in my reading. That's something for me to rectify.

If anyone has any recommendations, particularly about/written by Australia's indigenous population, please let me know!

That has to be Maia from Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor, not only is it one of my favourite novels of all time, but Maia is one of my favourite fictional characters, too. He's such a good egg and I adore him. You can check out my review of The Goblin Emperor here!

This is a tricky one because I'm usually the grumpy one who hates what everyone else loves, but for this I'm going to go with Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë. I don't think everyone hates it by any means, but I do think Anne is forgotten next to her sisters and she shouldn't be. Of her two novels Agnes Grey is probably the lesser known, but I really enjoyed it when I read it and I'd love to see more people reading Anne's work.

I can't possible talk about a fictional squad without talking about Harry Potter. If I wanted to be part of any gang, it'd definitely be Dumbledore's Army because I am all for students standing up to bad teachers.

Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, which I reviewed here. I can't wait to read whatever Adébáyọ̀ brings out next and I highly, highly recommend this debut!

It'd be pretty easy to mention Harry Potter again here but I think Harry Potter gets enough love as it is, so instead I'm going to go with Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman which is one of my favourite books from my early teens. It's the first book I can remember crying over and it's still very special to me and so worth reading if you haven't already.

Isabel Greenberg's The One Hundred Nights of Hero (reviewed here) is a gorgeous graphic novel but it's so huge which means it can be quite difficult to read comfortably - it's worth it, though!

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is super depressing but it's such an iconic work of dystopian fiction and it's definitely worth checking out if it's on your radar. Is it the best piece of dystopian fiction out there? No, not necessarily, but it's a really interesting novel and I think it's worth a bit of your time.

I know I keep saying it, but no novel has surprised me more than Sarah Waters' Fingersmith (reviewed here). It's one of the twistiest, turniest novels I've ever read and it's so much fun - if you haven't read any of Waters' work, Fingersmith is a great place to start!

I adored Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (reviewed here), especially because I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did, and Becky Albertalli has quickly become my favourite YA author following her equally excellent sophomore novel, The Upside of Unrequited (reviewed here). Yet again, I recommend reading her if you haven't already!

I'm a big mood reader so the books I reach out for when I'm feeling slumpy usually change depending what I'm in the mood to read - sometimes it's YA, sometimes it's a thriller, but it's usually something I don't tend to read a lot of - but this year I find myself turning more and more towards Fantasy of Manners books when I'm feeling slumpy, particularly Gail Carriger's work. It's so fun!

Thanks so much for tagging me, Cass! I'm going to go ahead and tag some people below, so:

Natalie @ Orchestrating a Sea Change

Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight

Mallory @ The Local Muse

Micheline @ Lunar Rainbows Reviews

Deanna @ Deanna Reads Books

Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Lynn @ Lynn's Film & Book Review

Catherine @ We'll Meet it When it Does

Vena @ Vena Isabella

consider yourselves tagged!

This Week in Books | 18/01/2017

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

Now: I received an eARC of Mark Lawrence's latest novel, Red Sister, from NetGalley and I'm starting it today - I want to get to it in plenty of time ahead of its release in April because I can be quite bad at reading the books I get on NetGalley. I haven't read any Mark Lawrence yet but I'm all for a story about assassin nuns, so I'm hoping to enjoy this one.

Then: I read The Fifth Season and I don't think I've recovered yet. What an adventure! I got myself  a copy of The Obelisk Gate after I finished this, but I'm going to give myself a little break before I dive into that one. Look out for my review of The Fifth Season in the next couple of weeks!

Next: After two fantasy books in a row I think I'm going to be in the mood to read something completely different, so I think I'm going to pick up some non-fiction and read Samantha Ellis's new book, Take Courage.. I loved her memoir, How to Be a Heroine (reviewed here), and I love Anne Brontë, so I've been looking forward to this one. I'll see what I'm in the mood to pick up, though, because I still need to read A Closed and Common Orbit and I'd like to read Homegoing soon, too.

What are you reading?