Top Ten Tuesday: Books From My Past Seasonal TBR Posts I STILL Haven’t Read

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics

It was with a sigh of relief that we reached the end of term last Friday. Six weeks to recuperate, to keep the little one entertained and off screens, to recharge the batteries before September 1st! These last few weeks with people off timetable, end of term exams and exam marking, meetings and meetings planning for next year have been rather hectic, and my reviews have backed up a little bit, so I thought I’d start this week’s topic with a little aide memoire to myself by just collating the books I have completed but not yet reviewed. This is, after all, a rather retrospective theme.

This week’s topic comes from the wonderful Dedra of the blog A Book Wanderer, a great blog and a key member of the reader community online. It is an invitation to look back at past Seasonal TBR lists and confess which ones are still to be read – or perhaps less a confession and more a reminder of the excitement and anticipation we felt then which time, family, other commitments and new books have superceded. Let’s take a glance at a whole year from Summer 2021 to Spring 2022 – considering that we are still very much in the grip of summer, my Summer 2022 TBR is still current!

Warning: there will be more than ten on this list!

Summer 2021

  • The Beautiful Ones, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • At Night All Blood is Black, David Diop
  • All Among the Barley, Melissa Harrison
  • The Chosen and the Beautiful, Ngho Vo
  • The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett

A whole year ago… I do still want to read the Diop having had a friend rave about how challenging and powerful it is – and perhaps leaving it until I have time to deal with the brutality of its themes. And both The Beautiful Ones and The Chosen and the Beautiful still really appeal: historical settings, gorgeously evoked, and rather similar covers!

I did make a start on The Vanishing Half, but found myself struggling with it, despite the rave reviews I have heard of it.

Autumn 2021

  • This Poison Heart, Kalynn Bayron
  • Exposure, Helen Dunmore
  • Empire of the Vampire, Jay Kristoff
  • The Secret Guests, B. W. Black
  • An Island, Karen Jennings
  • Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney
  • Oh William! Elizabeth Strout
  • April in Spain, John Banville

Beautiful World is the one form Autumn 2021 that I still really want to – need to – read having loved Normal People. Equally, Banville’s pathologist Quirke (from the novels written as Benjamin Black) works alongside his detective St John Strafford to solve the mystery of a missing woman. This Poison Heart just looks like a fun read which I am likely to want to recommend to students at school. And the Kristoff book just seems like a blast!

Winter 2021

  • How to Kill Your Family, Bella Mackie
  • Box 88, Charles Cumming
  • The Promise, Damon Galgut
  • Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead
  • Cackle, Rachel Harrison
  • The Dark, Emma Haughton
  • The Paris Apartment, Lucy Foley
  • The Hemlock Cure, Joanne Burn

I wanted to read The Promise on the basis of it having won the Booker Prize, and Great Circle because it was nominated. Cackle just seems like a lot of witchy feminist fun.

I am sure I will get around to Box 88 at some point but, currently, my appetite for espionage (which is never my strongest appetite) is being met by the Slough House series.

Spring 2022

  • The Library of the Dead, T. L. Huchu
  • A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers
  • This One Sky Day, Leone Ross
  • The Sentence, Louise Erdrich
  • Final Revival of Opal & Nev, Dawnie Walton
  • The Exhibitionist, Charlotte Mendelson
  • The Bread The Devil Knead, Lisa Allen-Agostini
  • Salt Lick, Lulu Allison
  • Remote Sympathy, Charlotte Chidgey
  • Flamingo, Rachel Elliott
  • Creatures of Passage, Morowa Yejide

Spring is usually dominated by the publication of the Women’s Prize longlist and I don’t think I’ve done too badly with that this year! I do still want to read Final Revival of Opal & Nev – the 1970s music industry, black feminist punk meeting rock seems a wonderfully vivid setting, albeit charged with high tensions.

The Becky Chambers as well is always going to be a treat and is likely to be this summer’s feel good hug in the form of a book!

As always, please do let me know whether you have read these, and champion your favourites to rise to the top of my mountainous TBR!

Have a great Top Ten Tuesday!

Upcoming Top Ten Tuesday Themes

August 2: Books Set In a Place I’d Love to Visit (real places or fictional)
August 9: Hilarious Book Titles
August 16: Books I Love That Were Written Over Ten Years Ago
August 23: Completed Series I Wish Had More Books
August 30: School Freebie (In honor of school starting up soon, come up with a topic that somehow ties to school/education. The book could be set at school/college, characters could be teachers, books with school supplies on the cover, nonfiction titles, books that taught you something or how to do something, your favorite required reading in school, books you think should be required reading, your favorite banned books, etc.)

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34 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: Books From My Past Seasonal TBR Posts I STILL Haven’t Read”

  4. I liked THE SENTENCE a lot. It was written and published since the pandemic so it seemed very relevant.

    I find that my desire to read particular books depends on a lot of timing issues. If I don’t read a book soon after I place it on my TBR it will likely get shoved to the side by something else. My TTT list

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Yes it is – it is a mix of Zimbabwean and Scottish magic and culture. If you enjoy Ben Aaronvitch’s Rivers of London novels, you’ll enjoy this book.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. I tried listening to Great Circle this weekend and stopped after about 2 hours. I just couldn’t care less about the characters and actions. This Poison Heart is a great YA fantasy read; I hope to get to the sequel soon. While I haven’t read Bread the Devil Knead, I have heard great things about it. And I truly enjoyed reading Opal & Nev last year! I think it was a sleeper hit.

    Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
    https://readbakecreate.com/books-i-still-need-to-read-from-previous-tbr/

    Liked by 1 person

  8. There are so many on here that I have on my TBR as well but I’m a mood reader so I hardly, if ever, actually complete any of these TBR/possibility pile lists. I hope you enjoy the books you get to 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

      1. It always seems like a long time, but it will be over in a flash. I have a 3 year old (4 in August so starting school this September) to keep amused.

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  13. I read and loved The Vanishing Half, This Poison Heart, and The Library of the Dead, so I’d definitely recommend pushing those up to the top of the list! I’ve got the ones from Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Nghi Vo on my TBR since I’ve read other books by those authors and enjoyed them so much. I hope you love them whenever you get to read them!

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  16. So many great books! I loved The Vanishing Half. I just bought Psalm and can’t wait to read it because I’ve seen so many people rave about it! I hope you can get to some of these, sometime. 🙂

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  17. Thank you so much for the kind words! I haven’t read any of these yet, so I’m no help there, but I also want to read The Vanishing Half, Beautiful World, and Opal & Nev. And I love how you said these are “less a confession and more a reminder”. That’s exactly why I like to look back at old TBRs. To remind myself of those books I desperately wanted to read. ❤

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