Top Ten Tuesday: Books With One-Word Titles

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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

As a teacher, this is the final push before the Summer break… and as a father this is, again, the final push before the Summer break! And it feels like a long time coming, ending on a seven-week term is a trial and knowing that other schools are already on vacation is particularly galling!

However, it does offer us six weeks in which to read, to catch up on reviews and to spend time with my daughter… I am also glad to see that she has developed an interest in murder mysteries – thanks in part to our playing Cluedo tournaments – which may be my chance to read the Murder Most Unladylike series with her!

Many thanks to Angela from Reading Frenzy Book Blog for this theme it is a list of books with one-word titles, which should bring together a range of books from different genres which is always fun! And the rules I set myself are that I will share the most recently added one-word titles in my library, excluding books whose title is the protagonist’s name… although I am stretching that a little with the last book on the list!

Cogheart, Peter Bunzl

Lily’s life is in mortal peril. Her father is missing and now silver-eyed men stalk her through the shadows. What could they want from her?

With her friends – Robert, the clockmaker’s son, and Malkin, her mechanical fox – Lily is plunged into a murky and menacing world. Too soon Lily realizes that those she holds dear may be the very ones to break her heart…

Murder, mayhem and mystery meet in this gripping Victorian adventure.

This first title in the list is one that I have had my eye on for a while now for my daughter – which has been given an extra impetus because the teacher at her new school read the opening to her on her transition day! I love the idea of what sounds like a great adventure through a steampunkish Victorian world … and who wouldn’t love a mecahnical fox companion?

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang

Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.

White lies
When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.

Dark humour
But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

Deadly consequences…
What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.

The first of two R. F. Kuang books on the list and possibly the one that piqued my interest less… but that is not to say that it has not been piqued!

Babel, R. F. Kuang

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

Oxford, 1836.

The city of dreaming spires.

It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.

And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.

Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift.

Until it became a prison…

But can a student stand against an empire?

This is the Kuang book that really excited me, though: the exploration of language and colonialism and magic and learning ticks every box for me and I have been waiting for that six week summer break in order to indulge in it!

Fyneshade, Kate Griffin

Many would find much to fear in Fyneshade’s dark and crumbling corridors, its unseen master and silent servants. But not I. For they have far more to fear from me…

On the day of her beloved grandmother’s funeral, Marta discovers that she is to become governess to the young daughter of Sir William Pritchard. Separated from her lover and discarded by her family, Marta has no choice but to journey to Pritchard’s ancient and crumbling house, Fyneshade, in the wilds of Derbyshire.

All is not well at Fyneshade. Marta’s pupil, little Grace, can be taught nothing, and Marta takes no comfort from the silent servants who will not meet her eye. More intriguing is that Sir William is mysteriously absent, and his son and heir Vaughan is forbidden to enter the house. Marta finds herself drawn to Vaughan, despite the warnings of the housekeeper that he is a danger to all around him. But Marta is no innocent to be preyed upon. Guided by the dark gift taught to her by her grandmother, she has made her own plans. And it will take more than a family riven by murderous secrets to stop her…

I am hoping that this will be a chilling and dark Gothic novel – I do love a great gothic novel, but find anything less that great can be somewhat… underwhelming.

Shy, Max Porter

This is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy.

You mustn’t do that to yourself Shy. You mustn’t hurt yourself like that.

He is wandering into the night listening to the voices in his head: his teachers, his parents, the people he has hurt and the people who are trying to love him.

Got your special meds, nutcase?

He is escaping Last Chance, a home for ‘very disturbed young men’, and walking into the haunted space between his night terrors, his past and the heavy question of his future.

I have adored everything that Max Porter has written! He is extraordinary in the way he creates music with his language and weaves folklore and otherness into the ‘real’ world, whilst exploring genuinely profound themes…

Trespasses, Louise Kennedy

One by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice.
If Davy had remembered to put on a coat.
If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street.
If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his white shirt.

There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.

As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like ‘petrol bomb’ and ‘rubber bullets’. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.

A chilling exploration of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and a tender romance – if not without some problematic characterisation.

Exiles, Jane Harper

A mother disappears from a busy festival on a warm spring night.

Her baby lies alone in the pram, her mother’s possessions surrounding her, waiting for a return which never comes.

A year later, Kim Gillespie’s absence still casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations on a rare break from work is federal investigator Aaron Falk, who begins to suspect that all is not as it seems.

As he looks into Kim’s case, long-held secrets and resentments begin to come to the fore, secrets that show that her community is not as close as it appears.

Falk will have to tread carefully if he is to expose the dark fractures at its heart, but sometimes it takes an outsider to get to the truth . . .

I’ve enjoyed all of Harper’s novels – especially the Aaron Falk ones – but felt that the first novel, The Dry, set a bar that had not been met yet. So I’m looking forward to returning to those characters and discovering more about Falk’s history.

Glory, Noviolet Bulawayo

A long time ago, in a bountiful land not so far away, the animal denizens lived quite happily . . .
And then the colonisers arrived, followed by a bloody War of Liberation. New hope came in the form of a charismatic horse who ruled and ruled and kept on ruling. For forty years he ruled, with the help of his elite band of Chosen Ones. Until one day, as he sat down to his Earl Grey tea and favourite radio programme, in came a new leader, a new regime. And once again the animals were full of hope.

Glory tells the story of a country seemingly trapped in a cycle as old as time. At the centre of the tumult is Destiny, a young goat who has returned to her homeland to bear witness to revolution. Her arrival sets off a chain of events that reminds the denizens, and us, that the glory of tyranny only lasts as long as its victims are willing to let it. And that history can be stopped in a moment.

If the write-ups for this made fewer comparisons to Animal Farm – which is a book I have never got on with in forty years – I might be more inclined to launch into this one…

Unraveller, Francis Hardinge

If you must travel to the country of Raddith, then be prepared. Bring a mosquito net for the lowlands, and a warm coat for the hills or mountains. If you mean to visit the misty marsh-woods known as the Wilds, you will need stout, waterproof boots. (You will also needs wits, courage and luck, but some things cannot be packed.)

You have of course heard that some people in Raddith are able to curse their enemies. It sounded so picturesque when you were reading about it at home, like a fairytale.

Perhaps you will decide that all the stories of the Wilds and the Raddith cursers were invented to entertain tourists. And at night, when you see a many-legged shape scuttle across the ceiling of your bedchamber, you will tell yourself that it is a spider, and only a spider . . .

. . . It is not.

In a world where anyone can create life-destroying curses, only one person has the power to unravel them. Kellen does not fully understand his talent, but uses it to help those who have been cursed, including his ally and closest friend, Nettle. But Kellen himself is cursed, and unless he and Nettle can release him, he is in danger of unravelling everything – and everyone – around him.

There are many must-read authors out there, and Hardinge is absolutely one of them! Marketed towards Young Adult, this is a gripping and gorgeously realised dark fairytale world – and a master class in world building! Her novels are both great fun and deeply honest about the human condition – a glorious writer!

Booth, Karen Jay Fowler

SIX BROTHERS AND SISTERS. ONE INJUSTICE THAT WILL SHATTER THEIR BOND FOREVER.

Junius is the patriarch, a celebrated Shakespearean actor who fled bigamy charges in England, both a mesmerising talent and a man of terrifying instability. As his children grow up in a remote farmstead in 1830s rural Baltimore, the country draws ever closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.

Of the six Booth siblings who survive to adulthood, each has their own dreams they must fight to realise – but it is Johnny who makes the terrible decision that will change the course of history – the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Booth is a riveting novel focused on the very things that bind, and break, a family.

I am taking the title as referencing the whole Booth family – the novel is as much about the father, brothers and sister – and the myth of John Wilkes Booth that I don’t think I’m breaking my own rules here… and it was also cracking good!

So these are the last ten books that I acquired which had these one word titles – and in chronological order. Booth was the farthest back in time: I acquired it as an ARC direct from the publishers in early 2022 I think so it took over a year’s worth of books to find ten with just a single word title! But we have prize-winning literary fiction, fantasy, adult and young adult, historical and contemporary settings all represented!

I can’t wait to see your lists!

Upcoming Top Ten Tuesday Themes

July 25: Ten Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish (Feel free to tell us why if you want, but if you do please be nice to the authors and don’t tag them when you mention your post on social media!)
August 1: Forgotten Backlist Titles (Spread love for books that people don’t talk about much anymore!)
August 8: Books I’ve Read/Want to Read Because of Top Ten Tuesday (books you discovered through Top Ten Tuesday, or they kept appearing in top tens and you got intrigued) (submitted by Ellie at Curiosity Killed the Bookworm)

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