Greetings all! This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme didn’t speak to me, as I don’t watch a lot of movies at all. Instead, I’m going to talk about ten bookish memories. I remember a lot of events by the books I was reading at the time, and it’s interesting to think about all the times books have left an impression on me.

1. Five On A Treasure Island, by Enid Blyton. When I was a kid, I loved Enid Blyton’s books, and the Famous Five were among my favourites. I had a habit when I was a kid of reading in weird places: stairways were a common choice, and I remember sitting on my parents’ stairs reading. For each chapter I finished, I’d move down a step. Once I reached the bottom, it was probably time for lunch or a snack or something. I remember curling up by the front door during one of those days, probably watching out for Mum coming home, while eating slices of apple and cheese on crackers. I used to be quite happy doing that for hours.
2. The Positronic Man, by Isaac Asimov. A lot of people have read the short story this was based on, ‘The Bicentennial Man’, but it was also made into a novel (I think with Robert Silverberg as a co-author, maybe). After I learned to read, I swiftly graduated to being able to read adult fiction, and this had my mum ferreting around the library looking for books she remembered that might be suitable. Asimov was a major component of that, in part because the library actually had a bunch of his books, and The Positronic Man was a huge hit with me. So much so that I read and reread it, and refused to return it to the library for ages. I have no idea how bad the fine was when I finally parted with it, but I’m still not sorry. My wife later bought me a copy (sometime before we were married, not sure exactly when), and I loved it again then… though I must admit I’ve no idea where my copy is now.
3. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. Another major habit of mine was finding small spaces to hide in and read. I had a bunk bed with a sofa underneath, which made it easy: if I hung a blanket down from the bed, I got a warm enclosed space underneath (with a reading light; thanks Dad!). I remember reading Jane Eyre for the first time there: I don’t think I finished it back then (I was probably a bit too young for it), but I felt quite the kinship with Jane hidden behind her curtains!
4. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I’m not sure exactly when my grandparents turned their airing cupboard into a little shower room, but when they did, they created a little haven of a hiding place for me. I have no idea why I loved jamming myself in there (including in the shower cubicle) to read, but probably it mostly kept me out of my sister’s sight and thus out of her mind, making it an excellent spot to hide and read. I had my own copy of The Lord of the Rings, but I remember borrowing my grandmother’s for a reread when I stayed with them. Also, I remember an epic argument between myself and my grandmother about the BBC radio adaptation, which she had on cassette tape, one of which I temporarily mislaid. She was furious with me. I was furious with her for being so cross about a mistake I’d apologised for (and which turned out to have an easy answer that we should both have thought of: the tape was in the player). She was probably more in the right, though. Sorry, Grandma!
5. The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula Le Guin. I don’t know whether my mum suggested my aunt buy me what was then a quartet (which is what I suspect is most likely), or if my aunt was unusually inspired in her choice of Christmas present for once. I read this one sitting on my grandparents’ stairs, which had gaps between each step, through which I would insert my legs and dangle them. The living room door was never closed, so I could hear the adults pretty close by, but their conversations didn’t interrupt my reading. Those first experiences of Earthsea were pretty magical.
6. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. I read this one during the trip me and my mother took to look around Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia, to decide where I’d apply for university. One thing I remember about American Gods particularly is that I have very strong sense-memories of food around this book, and of sitting in a hotel room reading it. Because I am synaesthetic, I suspect the taste-memories have nothing to do with anything we ate. Anyway, I didn’t like Cambridge (at all). Sorry, Mum. I assume I’ve made it up to you by now with my achievements various.
7. The Stand, by Stephen King. I was still living with my parents when I read this, and my then-girlfriend (now wife) nudged me to do so. I’d always felt a bit unsure about reading Stephen King — both because horror wasn’t my thing and because I was a terrible snob. The Stand enthralled me, though, and I kept putting off bedtime by half an hour, then another half an hour, then half an hour more… I later read a big chunk of his oeuvre, much of it sourced for me by my grandfather, whose idea of being supportive when I went to university was in large part helping me comb book sales and charity shops for plenty of reading material that fit my budget. Mysteriously, a lot of the time he paid for it anyway. Mostly, I think he was just thrilled that I’d chosen to go to university so nearby, and made any excuse to see a little more of me. I’m glad he did.
8. Troublemaker, by Joseph Hansen. All of the Brandstetter books are potent reminders of my time at university. One of my housemates read them for her dissertation, and I remember I read quite a few of them all during a single day, during one of the 24 hour readathons. I keep meaning to do a reread, in part for nostalgia’s sake, and in part because I remember the books being good!
9. Feed, by Mira Grant. When I had summers off from university, I often spent a chunk of time visiting my then-girlfriend (yes, the same one who is now my wife) in Belgium. One summer it was horribly hot, all the time, and I remember just lying on the (tiny, single) bed during the day being far too hot, with our rabbit jumping on me every so often, and wishing it would cool down. I remember giving Feed only two or three stars back then, but it stuck with me, and I’ve read it several times since. It’s one of those that grew on me, beyond all expectation.
10. I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. I never have written anything while sitting in a kitchen sink, but I Capture the Castle features in a bunch of memories. My last readthrough happened when my grandfather got ill, though, and after his cancer diagnosis (and his passing), it sat half-read on my bedside table for some months before I picked it up again, and found the familiar words comforting. I don’t know if I could read it again now, even though I can quote large sections from it still. Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Writing this I came up with a bunch of others — like reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body during a holiday, in what must’ve been my second or third year of university: I was doing a course on crime fiction, so Mum promptly loaded me up with the classics. She later used either the Peter Wimsey radioplays or an audiobook read by Ian Carmichael (who played Peter in the radioplays and one of the TV adaptations) to calm me down from an epic panic attack as I woke up from an operation. I have no idea which one she played to me, I just remember the tone of Ian Carmichael’s voice…

But ten and a bonus are quite enough. Despite my departure from the theme, I hope folks find my effort this week interesting! Do you have any strong memories around books?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is all about reading plans for the spring, which is always fun. I don’t really theme my reading with the seasons, or with anything beyond my own whim, and my approach to having a reading plan is a bit like Douglas Adams’ approach to deadlines (“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”) — but I find it fun to set them up, all the same.

So what would a good spring reading list look like for me? I’d like to clear some of the partly-read books out of my list, so I’ll start with those.

1. The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett. I’ve made a start on this one! But then I got distracted and haven’t picked it up in a week. I’m really enthusiastic about the premise, though, so it’s time to dig in.
2. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon. I had this one as an ARC before it came out, so I really must get back to this one. I was finding it fascinating, just dense with information — and a bit overly blessed with footnotes, to be honest. It keeps fragmenting my attention and sending me bouncing around the page, and I didn’t have the focus for a bit. Soon I’ll hand my essays in, though, and then I hope to dig into it more.
3. Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe, by Emma Törzs. I’m at the point of being intrigued by this without being fully sucked in. Which is maybe worrying since I’m already 100 pages in. Still, I’m enthusiastic enough to finish it, and I’d like to prioritise that soon!
4. The Book of Perilous Dishes, by Doina Ruști. I started on this soon after getting it, but it didn’t suit my mood at the time. I might need to start over to find my way back in, since I wasn’t very far into it, but we’ll see! I’m very curious to read more translated works in general, and I don’t think I’ve read anything by a Romanian author before, so I want to give it a proper shot and not just dislike it because I’m in a weird mood.
5. The Cleaving, by Juliet E. McKenna. I’ve meant to read McKenna’s work for sooo long, and I did enjoy the first 50 pages of this… in fact, I’ve no idea why I got distracted from this one. Maybe just my bad habit of reading a gazillion books at once.

That’s not quite all the books I’m reading at once — for example, I’ve also been neglecting A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross for… too long. But let’s take a look at the new-to-me books I want to read and haven’t even dipped a toe into yet!

6. The Undetectables, by Courtney Smyth. With a tagline like this, who could resist? “Be gay. Solve crimes. Take naps.” It looks like fun, and it’s a recent acquisition, so I want to strike while the iron is hot.
7. The Three Dahlias, by Katy Watson. This book was chosen for my mum by Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, and is quite possibly up my street as well. It’s definitely worth a try.
8. The Book of Doors, by Gareth Brown. This was a bit of an impulse purchase, and I know very little about it. It involves books, though, so that gives it a bit of a headstart in my book!
9. Swordcrossed, by Freya Marske. I couldn’t resist requesting the eARC of this based on the description (and my previous enjoyment of Marske’s work, even if I haven’t read the whole trilogy yet). It sounds like such fun, and maybe I’ll even read it before it comes out this time if I start soon…
10. The Husky and his White Cat Shizun, by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. Having read and loved The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu), I want to try out some other danmei! MXTX’s Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is also on my list, but I’m curious to try other authors as well.

It was hard to narrow it down… and knowing me, I won’t read any of them. But it’s always fun to dream! Does anybody else have such trouble sticking to their intended reading lists?!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about books that you’re scared might not stand up to a second reading — books you originally loved, but are scared to reread. I heard about the concept of the Suck Fairy from Jo Walton, and that’s exactly the problem here: maybe the book just isn’t as good as you remember. Times have changed, or you’ve changed, or the book isn’t really what you remember… that’s the Suck Fairy!

Anyway, let’s give this a shot. Note that I’m not saying these books necessarily do or will suck now (in fact for some I’m sure they’re really good but maybe not for me). I’m just afraid that if I reread them, I won’t love them the way I did before.

1. Among Others, by Jo Walton. I don’t really think the Suck Fairy can have visited this book, surely. It meant so much to me. On the other hand, I read it in my early twenties, fresh out of being a teenager, and it meant an enormous amount to me then. Can it stand up to that weight? I think it probably can, but it’ll be a very different experience now.
2. The Magic Faraway Tree, by Enid Blyton. I have very fond memories of so many Enid Blyton books: so much so that I get tempted to revisit for the nostalgia hit. That said, everything’s coloured by what I know about Blyton now, and by having seen some of the sexism and racism lurking in her stories the last time I read them (which was in university, for a children’s literature course). I’m not sure that can be unseen.
3. Idylls of the Queen, by Phylis Ann Karr. I did this to myself: I wrote my MA dissertation about this book, in part. Mostly I was looking at character, and the use the author made of the sources. That said, I did semi-recently reread Exiled from Camelot (Cherith Baldry), which I also wrote about in that dissertation — and Idylls of the Queen was the better book. I think this’ll probably be OK to revisit.
4. Camelot’s Shadow, by Sarah Zettel. This is quite possibly where my interest in romance fiction in general really began, a little foot in the door. And again, I wrote about it in my dissertation. I keep thinking about revisiting, but are Gawain and his brothers as enchanting as I remember?
5. A Sorcerer’s Treason, by Sarah Zettel. I remember really liking the Isavalta books, and I keep wondering about a reread. I don’t remember much about them, though? Only the fact that I liked it at the time. Seems a bit worrying.
6. Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay. There was a time when I’d have dived on a new Guy Gavriel Kay book instantly, but I’ve been really lax in keeping up of late. Around about when Under Heaven came out, I think I started… going off his work? Which is a shame, because there’s much I loved about The Summer Tree, Tigana, etc. I did read Under Heaven, and I liked it, but it didn’t stick in my head in quite the same way. Maybe I’ll have to just give it another shot, though, and see.
7. Assassin’s Apprentice, by Robin Hobb. Mum and I were pretty obsessed with these books, and a lot of it is probably packed into my reading self on a DNA level. But… could I stand rereading Fitz’s teenage whinging? Presumably one doesn’t need to be an adolescent to put up with it, since Mum could, but maybe also she was just in practice due to me and my sister!
8. Sabriel, by Garth Nix. I loved Sabriel and Lirael, and found so much of the world-building fascinating, and then… didn’t really like Abhorsen for a few reasons, and have barely kept up since. Something went pear-shaped for me at some point in all this. I kinda want to give it a second chance — but what if it was pear-shaped all along, and I just didn’t see it yet back then?
9. Waking Gods, by Sylvain Neuvel. The first book of the trilogy blew me away several times, and I remember liking this as well — and yet somehow I never went on to the third book. Maybe the answer to why is found in Waking Gods, and will spoil everything?
10. Spillover, by David Quammen. I give this book a lot of credit for my current path (my MSc in infectious diseases), but it’s probably getting a bit long in the tooth now. Science doesn’t stand still. Still, I have an enormous affection for it, because it’s also the book that made me a bit less scared of infectious diseases by helping me be curious about them.

Funnily enough, there are a few books that grew for me on rereads, and stuck in my head in astounding ways. Maybe someday there’ll be a topic about that, but for now, shoutout to Mary Robinette Kowal’s Shades of Milk and Honey, Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons, Robin McKinley’s Chalice, Mira Grant’s Feed, and probably many others…