Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection

Posted on by The Book Lover's Sanctuary

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

Merry Christmas to you all!

I do hope everyone had a lovely Christmas this week, with plenty of time with families, plenty of peace and goodwill, and not too much over indulgence. In the Book Lovers’ home Christmases are quiet and wonderful times: with an autistic daughter, the changes in routines and the pressure of The Big Day is a little overwhelming – and increasingly so as she grows up – but the gentle and spontaneous hug that she gave me at the end of the day makes every effort we made worth it… and the excessive catering in mince pies, gingerbread men, chocolate cookies, cupcakes, Christmas Pud and cake!

I remember Christmases at home when I was child and my parents always hosted our family, varying between 10 – 16 grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and family friends every year – a feat I endured as briefly as possible before retreating to my room and hiding with lego or books – our traditions of seeing Santa, boiling a gammon, going to Christingle and a meal out on Christmas Eve, and a Christmas Day spent at home in pyjamas is wonderful.

As to books, my daughter decided that she wanted to prank me this year and – as well as buying me a book I genuinely wanted – tried to buy me the ‘wrong’ book to make me think I hadn’t got anything decent… Alas, I do read a lot of young adult and middle grade books, and she and I have similar tastes, so I would have been quite happy to have just received this…

The Amazing Maurice, Terry Pratchett

Even wizards produce leftovers.

But a wizard’s rubbish is laced with magic, and for the rats that forage this rubbish, the magic has changed them – they can speak and read, and have rather grand ambitions for a comfortable retirement.

Which is perfect for a con-cat like Maurice. He has his own magical talents, and wants to get rich quick. Together with the rats, and young Keith, the ‘piper’, they work the towns to create their very own plague of rats – then lure them away for cash.

But in the run-down town Bad Blintz, this little con goes wrong, and suddenly these educated rodents aren’t playing to the piper’s tune . . .

And yes, I have seen the film version on Sky / NOW TV… brilliant!

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, Akwaeke Emezi

It’s the opportunity of a lifetime:

Feyi is about to be given the chance to escape the City’s blistering heat for a dream island holiday: poolside cocktails, beach sunsets, and elaborate meals. And as the sun goes down on her old life our heroine also might just be ready to open her heart to someone new.

The only problem is, she’s falling for the one man she absolutely can’t have.

And this one was right at the top of my list last week – definitely a book I wanted!

And of course, Christmas is about giving as well as receiving – more about giving than receiving – and books are something which are an ideal gift. So Santa brought for my daughter

Encyclopedia of Animals, Jules Howard

From the tiniest sponge to the largest elephant, all entries are gloriously illustrated in this spectacular celebration of life on Earth. Entries cover habitat, size and behaviour, with zoologist and environmental scientist Jules Howard’s expertise brought to life by Jarom Vogel’s eye-opening artwork.
 
The book is subdivided into classes of the animal kingdom, including mammals, reptiles, birds, invertebrates and fish. Start at the beginning or dip in and out – whatever page you land on, you’re sure to find your new favourite creature!
 
Encyclopedia of Animals is an essential addition to the bookshelf of any amateur zoologist, young or old, guaranteed to broaden horizons and deepen your appreciation of life on our amazing planet.

She had come across this in Waterstones a week or so before Christmas and came up, terribly excited, with big puppy dog eyes saying “It’s a book of facts about animals. And you know how I love animals and I love books…” Thankfully, I didn’t give in as Santa brought it for Christmas Morning!

Tonight, an hour after bedtime, I find her still awake and somehow managing to read it in the dimness of her room…

Dragon Rider, Cornelia Funke

A dragon. A boy. A journey.

Firedrake, a brave young dragon, embarks on a magical journey to find the legendary place where silver dragons can live in peace for ever.

Along the way, he discovers extraordinary new friends and a courage he never knew he had. But the greatest enemy of all is never far behind – a heartless monster intent on destroying the last dragons on earth …

Dragon Mountain, Katie and Kevin Tsang

Deep within the mountain, a great creature stirred in its sleep. Its eyes rolled back in its head, and its wings jerked wide open…

When 12-year-old Billy Chan finds out his parents are sending him to a summer camp in middle-of-nowhere China he doesn’t know what to expect. There he meets fellow campers Dylan, Charlotte and Ling-Fei and together they stumble upon an age-old secret: four powerful warrior dragons, hidden deep within the mountain behind the camp. They have been trapped since an epic battle with the Dragon of Death and need the children’s help to set them free before terrible evil is unleashed on the earth. Billy and his friends must set off on a dangerous adventure that will take them to the heart of the Dragon Realm. But can they save the dragon and human worlds from destruction?

There is a bit of a theme here: dragons have seized hold of her imagination with something of a stranglehold! She can recite – create – whole natural histories for them from egg and hatchling to adult and old age, she has mythologies of wars between dragons and humans which was begun by humans until the dragons escaped to the dragon world; she will listen to and recall when asked to her science lessons at school and tell me about the water cycle and say “But of course, that’s not true. It’s actually the water dragon…”

And whilst these may be the books brought by Santa, there are others that I have continued to treat myself to because, well, why not? It’s not like Christmas comes every year, is it?

The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin

This is not a romance, but it is about love.

Two kids meet in a hospital gaming room in 1987. One is visiting her sister, the other is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there. Their love of video games becomes a shared world—of joy, escape and fierce competition. But all too soon that time is over, fades from view.

When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love—making games to delight, challenge and immerse players, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars.

This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in and of everything that comes after success: money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.

What Moves the Dead, T. J. Kingfisher

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

Silverweed Road, Simon Crook

Welcome to Silverweed Road – a once quiet suburban street where nothing is quite as it seems. In this macabre collection of twisted tales, were-foxes prowl, a swimming pool turns predatory, a haunted urn plots revenge, and a darts player makes a deal with the devil himself.

As the residents vanish one by one, a sinister mystery slowly unpeels, lurking in the Woods at the road’s dead-end.

Creepy, chilling, and witty by turn, Silverweed Road deals in love, loss, isolation, loneliness, obsession, greed,and revenge.

Come take a walk through suburban hell. The neighbours will be dying to meet you …

The Enigma of Room 622, Joël Dicker

It all starts with an innocuous curiosity: at the Hotel de Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps, there is no Room 622.
This anomaly piques the interest of Joël Dicker, Switzerland’s most famous literary star, who flees to the Verbier to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his publisher, and begin his next novel.

Before he knows it, he’s coaxed out of his slump by a fellow guest, who quickly uncovers the reason behind Room 622’s erasure: an unsolved murder. The attendant circumstances: a love triangle and a power struggle at the heart of Switzerland’s largest private bank, a mysterious counter-intelligence unit known only as P-30, and a shadowy émigré with more money than God.

A Russian doll of a mystery crafted with the precision of a Swiss watch, The Enigma of Room 622 is Joël Dicker’s most diabolically addictive thriller yet.

The Book Eaters, Sunyi Dean

Hidden across England and Scotland live six old Book Eater families.

The last of their lines, they exist on the fringes of society and subsist on a diet of stories and legends.

Children are rare and their numbers have dwindled, so when Devon Fairweather’s second child is born a dreaded Mind Eater – a perversion of her own kind, who consumes not stories but the minds and souls of humans – she flees before he can be turned into a weapon for the family… or worse.

Living among humans and finding prey for her son, Devon seeks a cure for his hunger. But time is running out – for her family want her back, and with every soul her son consumes he loses a little more of himself…

Upcoming Top Ten Tuesday Themes


January 3: Favorite Books of 2022
January 10: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2023
January 17: Bookish Goals for 2023
January 24: New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2022 (If you didn’t read books by 10 new authors, share new-to-you authors whose books you added to your TBR in 2022. Get creative, if needed!)
January 31: Freebie

Published by The Book Lover's Sanctuary

#bookblogger, teacher, father | he / him |

21 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection”

  2. I loved reading this. I feel like this will be my daughter and I when she is a little older. She’s a total bookworm now at 6 years old and tries her hardest to continue reading in the dimness. It makes me chuckle as that was me as a kid but it really winds my other half up. Hehe. Apparently, it’s Lego day today 😉.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Your Christmas sounds like a lovely one.

    Every kid needs at least one big book about animals. That one looks fantastic! I would have begged for it too, haha. And I love that she’s into dragons, they really do spark infinite imagination and creativity. And are quite fun to buy books about.
    –RS

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Your daughter sounds very much like me when I was a kid, I remember on long car journeys trying to read in the dark of the car! I would always get very excited when we passed under a streetlamp and I could actually see the words properly (things got much easier when I had a phone with a torch!). Sounds like you guys had a lovely Christmas and got some wonderful books too 🙂
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/27/top-ten-tuesday-400/

    Liked by 1 person

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