Top Ten Tuesday | 2017 Summer TBR

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!

Every year I find myself making seasonal TBRs, usually made up of books that suit the season (floral books for spring, ghost stories for autumn etc.), but this year my summer TBR consists of two kinds of books: books I'm just in the mood to read right now, and books that have been on my TBR for far too long.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: I'm ashamed to admit I still haven't read this and I definitely should have by now. I've been hearing amazing things about the new adaptation, but I want to read the book first and I'm determined to cross it off my TBR this year.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: Greece always makes me think of the summer, probably because I was lucky enough to go to Crete with my parents several times during my childhood early teens, and yet I don't think I've ever actually read any fiction set in Greece. I've been in an Ancient mood recently - the warmer weather makes me want to watch films like Troy and Pompeii - and I've heard so many brilliant things about this book that I think it's about time I read it.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón: This has been on my TBR for years. Years. Every year I say I'm going to read it and then I never get around to it, but I've been lucky enough to have several city breaks over the past couple of years so I'm definitely in the mood to read a book set in Barcelona now that the weather's warming up. One of my colleagues read this recently and loved it, so I'm hoping I love it too!

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng: This is another book that's been on my TBR for at least a year or so, and this past year I've been trying to make more of an effort to read books set in Asia written by Asian authors. I know so little about Asia thanks to my history lessons at school being so Britain-centric but there's nothing stopping me from doing my own research, and I learn as much from fiction as I do non-fiction. This book, in particular, sounds really interesting to me and I'm looking forward to getting to it.

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant: So I went to Florence last year and it's become my favourite European city. It's the first time I've come home and felt homesick for the place I've left, and now I want to revisit it as much as I can in fiction. I picked up my copy of The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi Gallery giftshop after having just seen the real Birth of Venus painting - how could I not? - and I'm looking forward to reading it soon.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: This book has been everywhere and I still haven't read it, but I want to get to it this year. I love the idea of exploring how a family's history, of being enslaved or of being involved in the slave trade, can impact a family throughout the generations, and I think this is going to be a very eye-opening and important book.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi: I read my first Oyeyemi last year, White is for Witching, and unfortunately I didn't like it, but I want to give her another chance because I think she writes beautifully. This book follows a male writer who keeps killing off his female characters, only for one such character to turn up at his door. I'm looking forward to it!

Florence in Ecstasy by Jessie Chaffee: More Florence! This is a very recent release and I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into it.

Stay With Me by Aọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀: I've heard brilliant things about this debut novel and it's another one I'm hoping to get to fairly soon, especially as I think there's a good chance it's going to be the winner of the Bailey's Prize this year.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: Like The Shadow of the Wind, this book has been on my TBR for far too long and I've had countless people recommending it to me, so it's about time I bloody read it. I've heard amazing things and I'm sure it's going to make me cry, but I'm looking forward to reading it.

What did you talk about this week?

#DiverseAThon 2.0 TBR

DiverseAThon is back!

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise, if you've been following my blog for a while, that I'm a huge, huge lover of diversity in the publishing industry, in the media and, most importantly, in our stories - in whatever format those stories happen to take. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination; I'm privileged and white and I'm sure there's a whole lot of crap I still perpetuate despite my constant work to improve myself and become a better human being. That's why I love to read diversely, particularly from diverse authors, because that's how I learn and get called out on the crappy stuff I may still be doing without even realising it. Ignorance is forgivable if I'm prepared to learn to do better, but that still doesn't excuse it.

Anyhoo, DiverseAThon was started over on BookTube last year as a response to a video that I'm not going to bother linking because it made me very angry, in which someone essentially tried to argue that we don't need diversity in our books anymore, that diversity isn't needed anymore.

Smell that? It's bullshit.

Sadly I was in a horrible slump when the last DiverseAThon came about, so I couldn't do anything more than recommend a few books/authors over on Twitter, but this year the DiverseAThon is back - from the 22nd-29th January - and I'm going to take part. So I've made myself a small TBR, and while I'm still not a big fan of TBRs these are a small selection of books that I'd like to read at least one or two of during the week, though I might pick up something else instead, but I thought I'd share them with you - not only to share these books with you, but also to share DiverseAThon with you just in case you weren't already aware of it. If you'd like to know more, here are some videos all about it!

The Other Half of Happiness by Ayisha Malik: I read and really enjoyed Sofia Khan is Not Obliged (reviewed here) last year, and I was contacted by the publisher who kindly sent me an ARC of the sequel which is due to be released in April. I've actually started this one already and it's so readable, just as the first one was, and I love reading about a Muslim protagonist written by a Muslim writer. Considering stories centred around Islam can often be so dark and racially stereotypical, it's super refreshing to read what is essentially Muslim Chick Lit. No, not even that - it's Chick Lit that just happens to have Muslims in it.

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin: I've been in the mood to get back into fantasy in 2017 and after Natalie @ A Sea Change recommended Jemisin to me I bought and read The Fifth Season, and I really enjoyed it. I'm a bad finisher, which is why one of my 2017 Resolutions is to finish a series this year, so I want to continue with this trilogy. Not only is Jemisin herself an author of colour, but this has to be the most diverse fantasy series I have ever read. Ever. I don't know if I'll get to this during DiverseAThon, but I'm planning to read it soon either way.

As I Descended by Robin Talley: This is another ARC I received last year and still haven't read because I'm secretly a terrible person. I loved Robin Talley's debut, Lies We Tell Ourselves (reviewed here), and As I Descended is a lesbian retelling of Macbeth written by an LGBT+ author. Why haven't I read this yet? All of Talley's novels focus on the LGBT+ community, particularly lesbian relationships, and I think she's a super important voice in the YA world.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: I've heard nothing but amazing things about this one and I love the sound of the way it's written. I'd really like to get to this one during DiverseAThon if I can, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't.

What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi: I've read the first story in this collection and I really enjoyed it, and then I put it down for a reason I can't remember. I really like the way Oyeyemi writes, though, so if I could return to and finish this collection during DiverseAThon that'd be great!

Love & Other Poisons by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: You all know how much I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia by now. Her debut novel, Signal to Noise (reviewed here), is one of my favourite books of all time, her second novel, Certain Dark Things (reviewed here), is fantastic, and I really enjoyed her short story collection, This Strange Way of Dying (reviewed here). Her third novel, The Beautiful Ones, is being released in October, so I've been saving her other short story collection, Love & Other Poisons, to fill the void in my Moreno-Garcialess life until October. She's such an original voice in the realm of speculative fiction and I can't recommend her enough.

Are you taking part in DiverseAThon? What are you planning to read?