Top Ten Tuesday: Unread Books on My Shelves I Want to Read Soon

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.

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They – whoever they may be – say that buying books and actually reading them are two very different hobbies! They must say it, it is a google-able image!

And as I am in the process of moving house and trying to pack in advance. What were the first things I packed? Obviously my physical books! And … there have been quite a number of boxes filled already. Old favourites and a few that I have been intending to read and never quite got around to it. Nor will I be able to for a little while as they are all still sealed in boxes. As is my crockery (save for one plate, one bowl, one cup each) and my baking equipment. Clothes? I’ll do that whenever!

So, these are a selection of the unread books still waiting to be read.

Ithaca (and House of Odysseus), Claire North

This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca’s shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women – and their goddesses – that will change the course of the world.

‘The greatest power we women can own is that which we take in secret.’

Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the isle of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom.

Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door.

No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus’s empty throne – not yet. But as everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war . . .

At Night, All Blood is Black (and Beyond the Door of No Return), David Diop

Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France’s German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open.

Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the conflict. He devotes himself to the war, to violence and death, but soon begins to frighten even his own comrades in arms. How far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?

At Night All Blood is Black is a hypnotic, heartbreaking rendering of a mind hurtling towards madness.

The Running Grave, Robert Galbraith

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organisation that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike’s business partner Robin Ellacott decides to infiltrate the cult and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito amongst them. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her . . .

The Fraud, Zadie Smith

Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? Zadie Smith returns with her first historical novel.

Kilburn, 1873. The ‘Tichborne Trial’ has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be – or an imposter.

Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.

Antarctica, Claire Keegan

The stunning debut story collection from the author of Foster and the Booker Prize shortlised Small Things Like These

‘A beautiful, tender work of great clarity.’ Sebastian Barry
‘Simply put, Claire Keegan is one of the greatest fiction writers in the world.’ George Saunders
‘Among the finest contemporary stories written recently in English.’ Observer

A secret one-night tryst in the city. A sister’s revenge. A love-struck doctor. A missing girl. In Antarctica, an astonishing sequence of stories, one of our most gifted writers illuminates human longing and fallibility in all its variety.

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.

Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno Garcia

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, even though she’s been in love with him since childhood.

Then Tristán discovers his new neighbour is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he has a way to change their lives – even if his tales of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.

Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her.

As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán might just find out that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies . . .

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang

THIS IS ONE HELL OF A STORY.

IT’S JUST NOT HERS TO TELL.

When failed writer June Hayward witnesses her rival Athena Liu die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity… and takes it.

So what if it means stealing Athena’s final manuscript?

So what if it means ‘borrowing’ her identity?

And so what if the first lie is only the beginning…

Finally, June has the fame she always deserved. But someone is about to expose her…

What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, Maddie Mortimer

SMaps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life. Utterly heart-breaking yet darkly funny, Maddie Mortimer’s debut is a symphonic journey through one woman’s body: a celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all.

Lia has only one child, Iris; her magical, awkward, endlessly creative daughter who has just entered the battleground of her teenage years. Lia and Iris have always been close, but there is a war playing out inside Lia’s body, too, and everything is about to change.

As she confronts what might be the end, memories of her own childhood and a passionate love affair come rushing into her present, unearthing buried secrets and her family’s deepest fears. But Lia still has hope . . . for more time, for more love, for more Iris.

Blacklands, Belinda Bauer

Steven Lamb is 12 when he writes his first letter . . . to a serial killer

Every day after school, whilst his classmates swap football stickers, twelve-year-old Steven digs holes on Exmoor, hoping to find a body. His uncle disappeared aged eleven and is assumed to have fallen victim to the notorious serial killer Arnold Avery – but his body has never been found.

Steven’s Nan does not believe her son is dead. She still waits for him to come home, standing bitter guard at the front window while her family fragments around her. Steven is determined to heal the widening cracks between them before it’s too late – even if that means presenting his grandmother with the bones of her murdered son.

But when Steven realises this is an impossible task, he crafts a careful letter to Arnold Avery in prison. And there begins a dangerous cat-and-mouse game between a desperate child and a bored psychopath . . .

These are – trust me – only a small selection of the books I could have selected and they are still fairly current, The Belinda Bauer is perhaps the one that has been hanging around the longest… Which do you think deserve to be unboxed first? Please do let me know in the comments!

Upcoming Themes


April 30: Petty Reasons You’ve DNF’d a Book (Or reduced its rating. You don’t even have to say what the book was if you don’t want to!)
May 7: May Flowers — Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt (books with flowers on the cover, flower names in the title, characters whose names are flower names, stories involving flowers/gardeners)
May 14: Favorite Book Quotes (You can pick your favorite quotes from books, or about books! You can set a theme like quotes from books about love, friendship, hope, etc. or you can just share quotes you loved from your recent reads!)
May 21: Authors I’d Love a New Book From (These could be authors that have passed away, who have retired from writing, who have inexplicably gone quiet, or who might jut not be able to keep up with how quickly you read their books!)
May 28: Books I Was Super Excited to Get My Hands on but Still Haven’t Read
June 4: Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About (Any emotion! Did a book make you super happy or sad? Angry? Terrified? Surprised?)
June 11: Bookish Wishes (List the top 10 books you’d love to own and include a link to your wishlist so that people can grant your wishes. Make sure you link your wishlist to your mailing address or include the email address associated with your e-reader in the list description so people know how to get the book to you. After you post, jump around the Linky and grant a wish or two if you’d like. Please don’t feel obligated to send anything to anyone!)
June 18: Books on My Summer 2024 To-Read List
June 25: Most Anticipated Books Releasing During the Second Half of 2024

Published by The Book Lover's Sanctuary

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