This week’s topic from That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday is all about authors I discovered for the first time in 2023. I don’t keep very good track of this, but I’ll take a look at my 2023 books and see if anything jumps out… I’m not trying to pick authors whose books are perfect, just some that (in looking back over the year) stand out to me.

1. Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù. This one’s on my mind because I’m eager to read the last volume of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System. I haven’t read danmei before, and a lot of the stuff the story takes for granted is new to me… but I had fun getting into it, and the characters linger in my mind. I only seem to have one review up so far, but reviews of volumes two and three are coming soon!
2. Juneau Black. I discovered the Shady Hollow series in November or so, and tore right through them. They’re cosy crime stories, only the intrepid detectives are a fox and a bear — in fact, everyone in this town is an animal. It reminded me of the Redwall books, only a different genre.
3. Akane Tamura. I don’t think I reviewed any of the volumes of this manga on the blog, but I tore through A Side Character’s Love Story, and I’m very eager to read more. The romance is a slow burn, but they communicate with each other so well (most of the time, at least) and they’re really sweet. The whole series seems to be available on Kindle Unlimited, at least in the UK, by the way…
4. Ali Hazelwood. I’d been meaning to try her work for a while, but this was the year I started! I’ve only read the three novellas collected into the Loathe to Love You book, and I didn’t love all of them equally, but I had a good time.
5. Fonda Lee. Once more, I’d been meaning to read her books for a long time (I’ve owned a copy of Jade City since it came out), but I got started in 2023 by reading her new novella, Untethered Sky. It made the list of my favourite reads this year.
6. Travis Baldree. I loved Legends & Lattes instantly, and it made my top ten books from 2023! I enjoyed the prequel as well, though not quite as much.
7. Malka Older. A similar story to some of the others: I intended to read her work before, but finally got round to it this year, via the novellas The Mimicking of Known Successes and The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles. I loved them both.
8. Cassandra Khaw. Not all her books appeal to me, but I absolutely loved The Salt Grows Heavy, so I think I’ll give more of them a try!
9. Thor Hanson. Let’s get some non-fiction up in here! I enjoyed both his book about bees, Buzz, and his book about how animals and ecosystems are adapting to climate change, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid. He’s written a couple of other books, and I’ll probably pick them up at some point.
10. Tom Ireland. As far as I can tell, he’s only written one book, so I’ll have to keep an eye out in future. I really loved The Good Virus: absolutely right up my street in every way. Bacteriophages are fascinating, maybe a way forward for dealing with antimicrobial resistance, and his anecdotes, case studies and interviewees were all engaging.

That was pretty difficult, not because I don’t read books by new-to-me authors, but because it’s sometimes a bit of a gamble. Plus, for graphic novels, the creative team often don’t work together on any other titles, and you’re never quite sure if what you enjoyed about it was a particular storywriter or the work of the whole team or what.

What about you? Is this a difficult topic for you, or could you easily name ten new-to-you authors you loved in 2023?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is all about the books you meant to read in 2023, and didn’t get to. There are books I’ve been neglecting much longer than that, but let’s hope I get a round tuit this year…

1. System Collapse, by Martha Wells. I feel worst about the ARCs I neglect, and extra-bad about this one. I really want to read it! I love Murderbot! But here we are, and it’s well into January, and still…
2. Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon. This was an ARC as well, and I bought a hardback in November, but I still haven’t so much as opened it. I’m sorry… I’m in a non-fiction mood at the moment (more than usual, I mean), so I might yet pick it up in January!
3. Cassiel’s Servant, by Jacqueline Carey. Another ARC I neglected, in part because I meant to finish rereading Kushiel’s Avatar first, and I still haven’t managed that. I still love you, Joscelin.
4. Ink Blood Sister Scribe, by Emma Törzs. I had this in ARC and also bought a copy (I like to do that when I’m late with reviewing an eARC), and still haven’t done more than read the first couple of pages. Rare magic books, how could I not love the idea of this one?
5. Witch King, by Martha Wells. Look, I’m wincing as hard as you are. Yes, this was an eARC as well. And I bought a copy on release day. In my defence, it did come out during my exams! But I’m letting Martha Wells down hard, I know.
6. Lost in the Moment and Found, by Seanan McGuire. I didn’t get to this one because I needed to catch up on the series first, and hadn’t realised I was several books behind, but I can at least report I’m nearly there! I read Where the Drowned Girls Go over the weekend.
7. In The Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune. Once more, I own a copy as well as having received an eARC. I really enjoyed The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door (though I’m aware of some of the criticisms of Klune’s work), and I’m looking forward to giving this a shot.
8. Someone from the Past, by Margot Bennett. This one’s not an ARC! I had a tradition of reading the book I got from my British Library Crime Classics subscription right away, for the first part of the year… and then got a bit discombobulated when I got the Christmas anthology in October. I want to catch up and get back to it, so Someone from the Past is high on my list.
9. Big Ben Strikes Eleven, by David Magarshack. Same here — I think this was the November book, and the Bennett was the December book? So I’d like to get round to both of them soon and get back to reading the new one as soon as it arrives.
10. A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, by KJ Charles. I got this on the day it released, and fully intended to read it right away — KJ Charles almost never misses for me! But I wasn’t quite in the mood, and then I put it aside for a bit, and well… it’s still there now.

Broadly speaking, I try not to be too prescriptive about what I “should” be reading, and let it be flexible depending on what I feel like. Which does land me in messes when it comes to review copies… but it’s a fairly chill way to read, most of the time! So I’m not kicking myself too hard about not reading these books yet. Their time will come.

How about you? Do you have strict to-read lists and schedules?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is about goals for 2024. I always think a lot about goals, given I work for two goal-tracking apps (and it used to be three!), so I’ve already given this some thought. Here we go!

1. I’d like to push myself to read plenty this year. If it doesn’t work out, that’s fine — it’s the effort that matters. So provisionally I’m aiming to read 400 books this year, with fallbacks to 365, 300, and “anything you can” if things go wrong.
2. I’d like to slowly decrease my TBR pile this year. It’s huge, and I like it that way, but it’s perhaps a bit much. I’m just trying to steadily read more than I acquire, and I have a Beeminder goal for the purpose! (Short version: that means I pay a little fine if I overindulge and buy more books than I actually read. It’s not for everyone, I know, but it works for me!)
3. I’d like to read longer books this year. There are loads of really great short books, but sometimes I find myself turning to them because I know I’ll be done with them sooner. That’s the dark side of goals to read as many books as possible in a year, so I’ve paired my goals with the aim of averaging a few more pages per book. Just 230 pages per book, so it’s not a big increase, but many books I love (like the British Library Crime Classics) fall around that length. I can mix in shorter novellas, longer fantasy doorstoppers, non-fiction, etc… all that matters is stretching myself a little bit and not falling too prey to “I should finish books as quickly as possible, so I should choose short books”.
4. I’d like to read some of those books that I’ve been waiting to read “someday”. Maybe even [that book you personally want me to read], Mum/Lisa/Adam/etc. Maybe! Things like Gideon the Ninth and Republic of Thieves.
5. I want to thoughtfully review most of the books I read. I already do, but it can be tempting with short books or manga not to take the time to reflect too much. I want to keep those one-line reviews that I only post to StoryGraph or Litsy to a minimum. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do, of course, so I’m not going to say I’ll never do it.
6. I want to finish the series I start. Because I tend to wait until later books are out in a series, catching up sometimes feels really daunting. Plus, I worry that people will get bored if my blog just churns out the reviews of each book in a series (see how widely I split up the Shady Hollow reviews, even though I read the books practically all in the same weekend).
7. I want to spend more time talking about books! I want to participate a bit more on Litsy and especially on other people’s blogs. I had difficulty keeping up with everything in 2022-2023, but it feels like a good time to start fresh, meet new people, and spend more time on it.
8. I want to keep up with the books I receive to review via Netgalley. Once upon a time I’d reviewed 80% of the books I received, but I’ve slipped down to 67%. It’s time to get back to it!
9. I want to keep reading plenty of non-fiction. This one probably isn’t hard, since I’ve stocked up on a lot of exciting new non-fiction recently, but I don’t see a lot of reviews out there for non-fiction, so it’s not always easy to know about what’s coming up. Regular trips to the bookshop are what keeps me in the loop for non-fiction.
10. Follow more blogs. That’s related to the last one! I’d love to follow more people reviewing non-fiction. I know you must be out there, I’ve seen the non-fiction readers challenge etc. So it’s time to explore! I’d also love to find more classic crime aficionados and… well, everybody!

So that’s me and my somewhat disorganised, no-priority-order list. How about everyone else?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is about the most anticipated books releasing in the first half of 2024. I’m bad at keeping tabs on this kind of thing, but let’s take a look at the review copies I have (the ones I’ve read and the ones that I’m eager to get to)… I’ll link my review where I’ve already had a chance to read the book, if it’s live already!

1. The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett. I just got an eARC for this, and I’m super excited: I’ve loved Bennett’s work in the past (even if I’m not all caught up), and the summary of this one sounds like it’s designed to dig into all my interests. A fantasy detective story? Sign me right up.
2. The Imposition of Impossible Obstacles, by Malka Older. I really loved the first novella, so I was excited to get to read this sequel, and I think others will enjoy it too. I think it’d technically stand alone, but I wouldn’t read it that way — now’s the perfect time to grab The Mimicking of Known Successes, before the new book is out. The main characters, Pleiti and Mossa, have a really sweet relationship: it’s a little bit Holmes and Watson, if one of the things Holmes is trying to figure out is exactly how to be romantic and intimate with Watson. (And the gender difference, of course.)
3. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, by Bettany Hughes. Time for some non-fiction! This is the kind of topic that I really enjoy — digging (heh) through archaeological discoveries and contextualising them. Trivia: Hughes became an honorary fellow of Cardiff University in the same year and ceremony that I graduated for the first time.
4. The Butcher of the Forest, by Premee Mohamed. I’ve yet to read any of Mohamed’s novels, but I’ve really enjoyed the novellas. The story has a haunting sense of unease, and features a fascinatining middle-aged female protagonist.
5. Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond, by Alice Roberts. I really loved Ancestors and especially Buried, so I’m definitely looking forward to this. Roberts usually chooses really fascinating digs to illustrate her points.
6. Cascade Failure, by L.M. Sargas. I loved Firefly, so comparing a book to that show is a great way to get my attention. I’ve been contemplating asking for the ARC, but I’m not sure I’d get to it before it releases anyway, so I’ve been holding back.
7. A Letter to the Luminous Deep, by Sylvie Cathrall. Anything based around letters and mails in any sense catches my eye, since I write reviews about books related to post over on Postcrossing. Letters can be surprisingly intimate, and a beautiful way to build up characters, and it looks like this fantasy novel is strongly based around the exchange of letters. I’m excited for it!
8. The Brides of High Hill, by Nghi Vo. I’m always excited when new Singing Hills books are available. I haven’t posted my review yet, since I just read it this weekend, but I can say that it definitely matched up for me. It felt like a genuinely dangerous situation for Chih — moral and physical peril, swirling around them, with such an atmosphere.
9. The Fireborne Blade, by Charlotte Bond. A look at the cover was enough to convince me I should give this a shot, and I really enjoyed the book itself as well. The ending was fascinatingly ambiguous, leaving me unsure in a good way about how I felt about the characters. I’ll be posting my review soon, I’m sure. Shame the book won’t be out in time for my sister’s birthday!
10. Moonstorm, by Yoon Ha Lee. Honestly, this had me at the “mecha robots” bit of the blurb: I was a huge fan of Gundam Wing when I was a teenager, and that was formative. Plus, this is by Yoon Ha Lee. I can’t wait to get round to reading my review copy!

Alright, that was easier than I feared, though it did take me a while to get organised. Any of these pique your interest? Anything you’re looking forward to that you think I’d pounce on, based on these?