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.
Someday, when I bust out of this reading slump, or conquer all these ARCS, I’m going to read whatever strikes my fancy for a month. So there’s likely no sticking to this list. Here’s what I’m excited about, ARCs or No.
11/22/63 by Stephen King – Planned buddy read with the fabulous Nicole @ Book-Wyrm-Knits! I’m holding you to it. End of May.
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi – This was gifted to me by the equally fabulous Tammy @ Books, Bones & Buffy! Thank you! I can’t wait to read it.
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway – Gnomon was a mind bender that made me work for it. While I think I’ll put this off until my reading slump is definitely over- I’m eager to get back to his work.
Full Throttle by Joe Hill – Now that I’m thinking about it, a Joe Hill anthology is probably exactly what I need to dump the slump. Short attention spans aren’t really an issue in a book of short stories.
Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee – I want to get this read before I forget what happened in Nine Fox Gambit! (For a review that explains the Machineries of the Empire better than I ever could, please check out Ola’s review at Re-enchantment of the World.)
Killing Gravity by Corey J. White – This was a Tor Freebie not too long ago. It’s a novella so perfect for the amount of attention I seem willing to give books lately, and one that’s been on my radar for awhile.
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel – This is one of the few ARCs I have that I am still super excited for! It also is neither fantasy or sci-fi, so it will give me a much needed break from the genre.
Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon – This is another that falls outside my usual genre, but I’m eager to get to it. I’ve heard great things about Lawhon and historical fiction usually makes me all happy inside.
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell – Keeping with the theme of Historical Fiction (and in my desperation to seek out comforting reads in turbulent times) I’m eager to reread this. Especially since the final book in the Saxon Stories was recently announced.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones – Because Horror. That’s it.
We all know I’m not likely to stick to this TBR… and there are probably 30 other books I could put here. What have you got planned for the spring?
I’m looking forward to your review of The Glass Hotel!
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I’m reading it now and loving it! I think if you liked Station Eleven this is good to pick up.
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I hope you like Raven Stratagem, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you think of The Only Good Indians – horror isn’t really my genre, but I’m intrigued and I want to read something by Stephen Graham Jones at some point. Good luck with your TBR!
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Thanks Acqua! I hope you are staying well and getting lots of reading done. I’ve seen at least one review of The Only Good Indians that seemed pretty positive so I have high hopes.
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The Glass Hotel is one I just never requested as an ARC (i think it might have been on NetGalley as a “wish” book?) but I’ve preordered a copy and will most likely throw aside my review books when it arrives. I cannot WAIT. Plus it’s getting lots of great reviews already.
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I think if you liked Station Eleven you will love this too! I don’t want to say it feels the same, because I feel like that’s not giving the author enough credit, but the formats are very similar. Sort of meandering, fantastic, flawed characters… just really loving it. It was just the break from SFF I needed.
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End of May! You got it! 😀
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lol! Sorry if it came off as obnoxious. Didn’t mean it that way. My head is in a weird space right now.
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Not at all! I’m excited to read it. 😀 And with the SF Bay Area all doing a shelter in place thing through April 7, I should have lots of time to read… (I mean, I’m working from home now, but I’m not commuting to work or doing ANYTHING afterwards, so I’m hoping to translate that into extra reading time.)
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I didn’t realize you were in the bay area! I have lots of friends that way. I hope you are all staying safe and well. It’s going to be a boring couple of weeks for the whole country I think, but I am optimistic it will stop the virus before it gets too bad.
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Thanks, I hope you’re staying safe also! I’m relieved about the shelter in place order, I was worried that I’d be out at work and catch the virus and then bring it home. This way we can hunker down and hopefully help stop the spread.
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We are! I’m also working from home, most non essential services have been shut down. The state seems to be on top of it so that is good. My daughter is super bored though, so I’m hopeful it ends sooner rather than later.
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That’s good, I’m glad you’re somewhere that is taking it seriously also. I hope your daughter doesn’t drive you too crazy with requests for things that you can’t let her do right now. 😉
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She’s a good kid – mostly good at entertaining herself. Poor thing- we even had to postpone her birthday party. Didn’t even complain. Health is number one!
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That’s awesome! We have 3 birthdays in March in our family… they all had to be postponed also. (All were for adults, though, so I wasn’t worried about complaints.)
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Yeah. She was disappointed for sure but she seems to understand. Promised her a summer party instead.
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Summer parties can be fun! And even more, having a party in the non-standard season means she can do different things than usual.
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Yeah- we just found out the place that IS CURRENTLY GOING TO BE CLOSED ON HER BIRTHDAY will not refund our money. They’ll let us roll the credit forward but aren’t giving us an opportunity to change ideas. Kinda sucky on their part if you ask me. But I guess they don’t care (why is that surprising?)
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Oh that sucks. 😦 Best of luck with the rescheduling and getting them to, you know, be good and actually care.
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Eh- they don’t care- all it tells me is that this will be the last Launch party we hold! Lol
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Ugh, well that’s a good point! At least you won’t have to go back there after this.
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11/22/63 was great. Enjoy!
My TTT .
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I love a lot about Stephen Graham Jones’s work, but I always want someone brave enough to use a strong editorial hand on his manuscripts. Did I tell you I met him once, about 12 years ago, and he seemed surprised I wanted my book signed? I think he was quite new then.
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Oh that is too funny!! He seems like such a cool guy. My eye is not as trained or as professional as yours, but I feel like the first on I read by him: Mapping the Interior was very well edited. It was published by Tor so I’m not surprised. His other books look like they were released by smaller publishers so that makes sense that the editing suffered a little.
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Yeah, I met him at a publishing house reading in Chicago for Fiction Collective 2. Some of the presses he’s published with, like Chiasmus and Lazy Fascist, aren’t even in business anymore.
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Yeah- try the Tor one and maybe this new one. (I’ll let you know how the editing is.) both are more mainstream publishing. I’ll keep that in mind about his older books.
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Thanks for the shout-out! 😀
Great list, I’m very interested in The Only Good Indians and Raven Stratagem as well – not to mention The Last Kingdom! (my second approach, I’m a bit ashamed to confess ;))
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Did you DNF The Last Kingdom before? Or just never start? Hey- maybe it’s not your thing- I feel like it would be, but it’s okay if it’s not. And you’re welcome- I was pretty blown away by your review!
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I didn’t DNF, actually – I started reading it but then I had to return my copy to library before I finished as for some reason there was a huge demand for it – maybe because of the TV series 😉 So I’ve been waiting to get back to reading it for a while! 😀 It starts slow, but promising, so I’m looking forward to coming back to it soon!
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Yes- there is a huge demand for Cornwell’s Saxon Stories. I had a used book store owner ask if I had any of them, and then when I said I had the whole set her eyes got all big and she was like – I’ll pay you cash for the lot.
I felt bad telling her no, but I’m not likely to part with them ever. They aren’t even all the same editions 😂, it just took that long to get the whole set!
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LOL, I totally relate – I only get rid of the books I don’t like, the ones that I love I treat with reverence no matter what – good spot on wooden shelves is a must, and I wouldn’t dream of selling them! 😂
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I love finding other sci fi blogs!!! And The Glass Hotel made my list too! I’m hoping it lives up to Station Eleven! Riot Baby sounds super good too. I tend to really like Tor.com titles.
My TTT!
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Oh me too! I’m so glad you found me.
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Sorry- I hit send too soon. Yes I love the Tor.com titles too. And I’m reading The Glass Hotel now and loving it. Really fabulous.
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I’ve seen THE GLASS HOTEL on lots of lists today. I’m excited about it, too. I hope we all love it!
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
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It is seriously wonderful! It follows a lot of the same formatting as Station Eleven, but the characters are all their own. I’m hopeful everyone else will love it just as much!
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I also have Riot Baby in my near future. I hope your slump ends soon! I know what you mean about reading whatever you want. I wrote a discussion post about it but it won’t be posting for a while (I think..hard to say I have been losing track of when I preschedule stuff lol). But yeah, I also really want to get through my review books and read whatever. But I keep accepting more review copies! lol
Hope you enjoy these!
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You and me both on the review copies. Ugh. On the up side, I’m being very discriminatory and requesting only those I know I want to read. I hope we both get out of it soon!
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Yeah, same here. Except sometimes I do get mailed a book and it isn’t normally my thing and I think ‘maybe I’ll ignore this one’ and then the publicist will reach out and it’s like an instant guilt trip hahaha. Oh well, the book blog life LOL. 🙂
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I haven’t reached that level of blogging yet but I can imagine I’d be in the same boat. If it was an unrequested ARC I don’t think I’d feel as bad though. That’s on them!
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I never stick to TBRs either 😂 😂 I hope you like all the books you read this Spring, whether or not they come from this list 😉
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