This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is books with ordinal numbers in the title, which took me some doing! But I got there in the end, by spelunking through past books read.

1. The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff.
   This was the first to jump to mind, as it’s a book I’ve loved for a long time. Sutcliff was great at writing historical fiction that was perfect for kids without being patronising and without skimping on detail. The germ of the story for this one is a Roman eagle that was found during an archaeological dig, along with the alleged disappearance of the Ninth Legion (though the status of the Hispana and how it ended are questioned more now, if I understand correctly). Despite that, it’s not meant as a history lesson, and I love Marcus, Esca and Cub, and the story of the Ninth Legion that Sutcliff imagined.
2. The Fourth Island, by Sarah Tolmie.
   Turns out I never posted my review of this book here, so I’ve added that to my list! I’ve loved several of Tolmie’s novellas, and remember enjoying this a lot — though it’s not a story that comes to many conclusions, but rather one that leaves you with all kinds of questions and things to ponder. As I recall, it’s beautifully written, too!
3. The Ninth Rain, by Jen Williams.
   This one’s stuck in my head for ages! I’ve been contemplating a reread of this as well, because this trilogy just felt so chewy. I don’t know if that makes sense to say, but there was a lot of worldbuilding, a lot of stuff going on, and I got really attached to some of the characters.
4. The Seventh Bride, by T. Kingfisher.
   And another one I’d really like to reread! It’s been quite a long time, but I remember finding this a really fun retelling, and there’s a hedgehog! I definitely remember the hedgehog.
5. The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin.
   I imagine this one is on a lot of fantasy and SF lovers’ lists, because there’s so much going on in this one. It’s hard not to spoiler, honestly, because so much of it should probably just be experienced without knowing, leaving you picking up the pieces… I need to finish the trilogy someday.
6. The First Ghosts, by Irving Finkel.
   This was a complete impulse read back when I picked it up, and I found it really fascinating. Finkel discusses the ancient sources that tell us what people in ancient Sumeria, Babylon and Assyria believed about ghosts, and digs into what he thinks that means. I felt somewhat differently about that part (which dinged the rating a touch), but I still found it really interesting.
7. The First Fossil Hunters, by Adrienne Mayor.
   I really enjoyed this one: Mayor digs into what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought about fossils, because obviously they did see fossils in the world and wonder about them and have stories about them. I think at times it goes beyond the evidence a bit, but it’s still really interesting.
8. The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert. 
   The sixth extinction is, of course, the one that’s happening now, with massive losses in biodiversity in pretty much every biome. Kolbert’s book is partly a discussion of that, and partly a celebration of biodiversity in hopes that people can be convinced to protect it. Definitely a worthy read.
9. Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, by Camilla Townsend.
   This book attempts to look past the Spanish sources that are frequently used to understand the Aztec world, looking for sources written by indigenous people wherever possible and trying to dispell certain myths (like the idea that Moctezuma believed Hernán Cortés was a god). And it finally taught me to pronounce certain Nahautl words, as well; the pronunciation guides were really good.
10. Third Time Lucky, by Tanya Huff.
    Confession: I don’t really remember this collection, but I thought highly of it at the time, and Huff is a fun writer in general. So I’d probably stand by past-me’s recommendation!

See? I did it in the end!

Very curious to see others’ choices, and whether everyone struggled as much as I did!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is a genre freebie, so I decided to go with a genre I enjoy a lot: microhistory! I’m technically going to use the term somewhat broadly, but the idea is to take a tiny slice of history and zoom in, using analysis of that small aspect to understand bigger themes and trends.

So here we go! Let’s see what I can pull off my shelves.

1. A History of England in 25 Poems, by Catherine Clarke.
   I read this last month, so my review isn’t up yet, but I think it was my first 5-star read of the year. It does a really good job of staying aware of England’s colonial history (including toward Scotland, Wales and Ireland) and picking poems that aren’t the obvious poems everyone would always pick. I highly recommend it: poetry can tell us a lot about history, because it’s written by the people who lived it.
2. A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, by Emma Southon.
   This is a book I read quite a while ago, but I think of it very fondly. It digs into Roman society through the lens of what might count as murder — and what was just considered justified. I loved it.
3. The Notebook: A History of Thinking On Paper, by Roland Allen.
   I really loved the way this book rambled around the history of how people use notebooks, from ledgers to ICU diaries. The idea that something that we might take for granted as much as the idea of keeping a notebook has a whole history behind it is very fun to me.
4. The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry, by David Musgrove and Michael Lewis.
   Of course, it isn’t really just the history of the object itself, but the events it depicts, and how the events have been understood in the years since, in part because of the tapestry. I really loved this one, because it makes clear that we aren’t always certain about what happened and why.
5. The British Museum, by James Hamilton.
   The British Museum didn’t just spring into being, it’s a whole institution with a history of its own. I will caveat that this book isn’t a critique of the British Museum; it’s in awe and support of the endeavour, and barely discusses the issues with the British Museum’s practices of cultural theft. But it’s still fascinating to learn about how the building came to be what it is today.
6. Soda and Fizzy Drinks: A Global History, by Judith Levin.
   I’m letting this book stand in for the whole Edible Series, because I could’ve picked out a whole bunch of those. Food tells us a lot about history: how food traditions travel, whether they’re adopted, imposed or absorbed and changed, tells us a lot about contact between different cultures. (So yes, this particular book discusses “coca-colonisation”.) Sometimes with books in this series, I hadn’t really thought about the history and relevance of that particular food at all, so it’s always nice to dig in.
7. Chinese Dress in Detail, by Sau Fong Chan.
   This book isn’t exhaustive, because it’s based on the holdings of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which inherently biases collection of European items. Still, I found it a fascinating introduction, and the author makes sure to be clear that “Chinese” is a bit of an umbrella term, also discussing Uyghur clothing history as well. Like food traditions, fashion reflects the periods it comes from, with influence from other countries as well as industrialisation and the changing needs of the population. The other “Fashion in Detail” books from the V&A are similarly fascinating.
8. The Button Box, by Lynn Knight.
   This was one of the first books I read in this sort of genre: Knight focuses on the buttons she finds in a box of old buttons that has been used and added to by the women of her family, and thus tracks the history of not just fashion, but women’s place in society, technological advances, etc. I reread it semi-recently and didn’t love it as much as I had before, but I still remember it fondly.
9. Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs, by Paul Koudounaris.
   Prior to reading this, I knew little to nothing about the catacomb saints. It’s not a tradition that particularly speaks to me, but I was fascinated to learn how the practice of venerating and decorating the bones of (supposed) saints reflected people’s faith. The photography for this volume is absolutely stunning, too. Macabre, but riveting.
10. The Sarpedon Krater: The Life and Afterlife of a Greek Vase, by Nigel Spivey.
    If anything on this list is microhistory, this book’s the one. From a single vase, the scope expands to Renaissance art and modern museum collections (and looting). I didn’t know much about this specific vase before I read it, and I’m not really one for art history so I couldn’t evaluate if it was really as influential as the author says… but I loved the process of learning more about it, and the potential influence it’s had all this time.

I ended up with a “shortlist” of at least ten more books, but let’s stop there, before I get too obsessive about pruning the list. Hopefully it’s a nice spread of options for the way histories of objects or types of objects, or seemingly more transient things like fashion and food, can tell us all kinds of things about history!

I don’t actually save quotations from books very often, so for this we’re reaching for some snippets I remember (or at least half remember, enough to look them up) to see what’s made an impression on me… let’s see what I can rustle up. Some of these I’ve surely posted before (and am posting again because they remain as vital to me as ever), but some are definitely newer.

1. From John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis, because TB remains a terrible and destructive disease that we must all take responsibility for:  
   We cannot address TB only with vaccines and medications. We cannot address it only with comprehensive STP programs. We must also address the root cause of tuberculosis, which is injustice. In a world where everyone can eat, and access healthcare, and be treated humanely, tuberculosis has no chance. Ultimately, we are the cause.
   We must also be the cure.
2. From Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, because Maia’s efforts to be better than what was done to him (without it being easy) make him a wonderful character:
   “In our inmost and secret heart, which you ask us to bare to you, we wish to banish them as we were banished, to a cold and lonely house, in the charge of a man who hated us. And we wish them trapped there as we were trapped.”
   “You consider that unjust, Serenity?”
   “We consider it cruel,” Maia said. “And we do not think that cruelty is ever just.”
3. From Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s Heaven Official’s Blessing, because Xie Lian’s strong determination to save whoever he can is something I aspire to:
   “If a day isn’t enough, let it take a month. If a month won’t do, then two months, three months! If I can’t save ten thousand, then I’ll save a thousand. If I can’t save a thousand, then I’ll save a hundred, or ten, or even just one!”
4. From Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s Heaven Official’s Blessing, because it struck a chord for me in emphasising choice:
   “I might not be able to decide whether the road is easy or not, but whether I walk it is entirely up to me.”
5. From Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, because this scene is actually really important, and we really do have to know when to say sorry:
   Wei Wuxian strode over with his hands clasped behind his back. “Young man, sometimes in life, there are a few sappy things one must say.”
   “What?” Jin Ling asked.
   “‘Thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’,” Wei Wuxian replied.
   Jin Ling clicked his tongue. “Well, I refuse. What’re you gonna do about it?”
   “There’ll come a day when you’ll say them through tears,” Wei Wuxian said.
   Jin Ling scoffed, and Wei Wuxian suddenly said it himself.
   “I’m sorry.”
6. From Susan Cooper’s Silver on the Tree, because it’s easy to wait for someone else to save us:
   “For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvelous joy.
   And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful, as we have tried to be for you, then in the long run the worse will never, ever, triumph over the better.”
7. From Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, because this is the turning-point of the story, and in a way taught me to be less anxious by facing my fears:
   “You must hunt the hunter.”
8. From Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, because it’s true but hard to learn:
   “Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.”
9. From Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, so that not all of these are serious (and because this, too, is true!):
   “Books are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with ’em, then we grow out of ’em and leave ’em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.”
10. From Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, because it’s a good one to end on, and a line I will never forget:
    Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.

With apologies to those who could’ve predicted the inclusion of those quotes from Cooper, Le Guin, Addison, Smith and Sayers…

This week’s theme for Top Ten Tuesday is books for armchair travellers, and my take on that is probably idiosyncratic… but here we go.

1. Monsterland: A Journey Around the World’s Dark Imagination, by Nicholas Jubber. I actually just finished reading this last night, so it jumped to mind. Each chapter starts with a short retelling of a monster story, and then Jubber explores various landscapes that have housed the monsters, participating in local festivities, peeping at the dark places in our imagination. Sometimes it feels a liiiittle bit… white tourist gawking at the locals, but it’s still interesting. This is probably the book on my list that best fits the theme, and I didn’t personally love it, but I can see why other people would.
2. The Gabriel Hounds, by Mary Stewart. I would’ve picked my favourite Stewart, Madam, Will You Talk? — and it’s definitely hard to choose with Stewart’s work, because she’s great at evoking a sense of place — but I think the landscape and setting of The Gabriel Hounds stuck with me most of all, perhaps because it was one of the first of her books I read. The heat, the dusty roads, the dilapidated rooms of the palace of Dar Ibrahim, it all feels very real.
3. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Partly prompted by yesterday’s discussion post, of course, but I think I might’ve come up with this one anyway! It’s such a journey, with terrible and wonderful sights. You can even undertake it yourself by doing a Walk to Mordor challenge, if you get tired of the armchair.
4. The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman. The whole series, really — want to travel through various fictional worlds, on quests for rare and unique books? An alternate fae-touched Venice, in book two? Irene travels through various different worlds, and I for one loved traveling with her.
5. Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Fancy some trekking around Scotland? It’s possible, or at least was, to retrace some of the journeys taken by the characters in this classic mystery, and follow the story through the landscape. I can’t imagine the train times are the same anymore, but still…
6. A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, by Misaki, Momochi & Sando. This manga series features a man from a fantasy world ending up somehow transported to another, different fantasy world — and deciding to make the most of it and have a bit of a holiday. Admittedly the main attraction of the story is his relationship with the friends he makes there, but we also get to see a bit of the world, learn a bit about magic, and see some cool monsters.
7. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers. Space travel more your thing? This first book of the series hops around a bit, visiting a few different planets, though the setting is generally a bit more restricted in later books.
8. The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff. How about a trip to the past? A bit of Roman Britain, a trek through Scotland of the same period, and you can practically feel the chilly mist in places.
9. Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need Them, by Dan Saladino. I’m not actually a foodie myself, but I’m interested in food science and food history, so this was a much-enjoyed read of 2025. By necessity, the story of rare foods and local delicacies at risk of disappearing takes the author’s narrative all over the world.
10. A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan. The whole series is a trek around a slightly-askew version of our world, with many locations and customs clearly based on/inspired by real-world locations, but also with scope for Brennan to imagine alternate histories, alternate mythologies, and, you know, the inclusion of dragons. The first book barely dips a toe in, but the whole series features perilous voyages, desert survival, tropical jungles, dangerous mountains, etc, etc. (And I will say that the author, if not always the narrator, stays aware of the issues of white people “exploring” and “discovering”.)

I’m not sure how other people are interpreting the theme, but I think maybe I cheated a little bit by offering travel to the past and to fictional planets… but hey, that’s where I like to “travel” in my books, so there!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post is a Valentine’s themed freebie, so let’s talk about the books I’ve dragged my wife (Lisa) into reading alongside me!

This is not going to be by any means an exhaustive list, because books are one of my love languages, and sharing excitement about books has been a thing we’ve done for over 20 years now — since I was 15. Nor is it a true chart of our relationship through books, because I wouldn’t recommend some of the books we’ve bonded over through the years (like the Rurouni Kenshin manga, the author of which is a paedophile). It’s just ten of the (many) possible books I could choose!

1. The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper.
   The whole sequence, really, and especially The Grey King. The older BBC radioplay version of it (not the recent one) was pretty formative for me, and when I managed to rediscover MP3s of it online in my teens, I ended up rereading the original book, loving it completely, and demanding just about everyone read it too. My now-wife complied, of course, and many’s the conversation we had about the series, imagining what the ending might mean for the characters (does Bran ever remember who he really is?), etc.
2. Harpy’s Flight, by Megan Lindholm.
   We read quite a few of Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm’s books ultimately, but I particularly remember packing up the Ki and Vandien quartet to send it to my now-wife (then living in Belgium) when I was around sixteen. Those book parcels were really important in forming our friendship and early relationship, and in providing something fun to look forward to, to talk about, etc. I remember the start of Harpy’s Flight super vividly, as well. I might reread these books sometime soon!
3. A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin.
   And ultimately many of Le Guin’s other books… but it will have started with Earthsea (as it did for me when I was a young teen). Given how much I love Le Guin’s work, and how much this particular one came to mean to me personally (I regularly use Ged’s ultimate decision to turn and face the Shadow as a way to vividly demonstrate my own experience of dealing with anxiety), it’s a good thing we’ve shared this in common for a long time.
4. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin.
   I actually vividly recall sulkily climbing into bed to read this when I had a headache and Lisa wasn’t available online to chat to. I’m pretty sure it also went into one of the boxes of books I sent over to Belgium — the end result of all this was that when we finally moved in together, we had duplicate copies of quite a lot of books. We loved the whole trilogy, and have kept up with Jemisin’s work ever since (actually, Lisa’s probably ahead of me by quite some way).
5. Feed, by Mira Grant.
   This is, on its face, so much more Lisa’s kind of thing than mine that it seems kinda weird that I was the first to read it, but I’m the one who’s more plugged in to discovering books in general, so it isn’t that surprising, and it does plug in to a lot of things that it turns out I find fascinating. (Namely, global pandemics.) We both loved this whole series, and Lisa went on to read more of Grant’s books (and her work as Seanan McGuire). More of it than I have, at this stage!
6. Magic Bites, by Ilona Andrews.
   This was a series we read together more recently. Or rather, I started it, read a few books, went back and started over after accidentally taking a long break, and Lisa got interested enough to ask me for the first book… and swiftly overtook me. Ever since then, when we read the same series, if I’m ahead then Lisa will tell me “choo choo” every so often to indicate that they are steaming ahead and definitely due to overtake me.
7. Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee. This one was a fairly recent one as well, because I remember talking it over, reacting to it, theorising about it, and generally waving our hands around like lunatics about it while walking around a local park. We both keep meaning to reread it, possibly at the same time, because it blew our minds and we’d love to read it again with that insight rereading can give.
8. The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.
   When I first read the first volume of this series, I was sat in a hotel room in Bath making confused, amused, concerned and bemused noises at the plot. It was my first danmei, and my first cultivation novel, and in many ways it’s not the greatest place to start because it’s actually an affectionate critique of cultivation novels. Nonetheless, I liked it enough to get the next book, read the whole series, and emoted wildly at Lisa about it while staying with my parents (while they were visiting family in Belgium). I can’t remember if I’d persuaded them to read it by the time they got back, or whether I had to keep begging them with my newfound obsession in mind (I was even watching the donghua!) — but we got there in the end. We’ve read several danmei series together now, but I think we’ll always remember this first one with great fondness!
9. Paladin’s Grace, by T. Kingfisher.
   This isn’t the first Kingfisher book my wife read, actually, but it stands out because we started reading this series in parallel-ish while I was once again staying with my parents, this time while we were in the process of moving in 2025. We’d be meeting up after work or on weekends (as well as constantly chatting online — you mustn’t imagine we’re ever out of communication with each other for long; after 20 years of being together, I think we might stop functioning if we were) and talking about whatever I was reading, and this series was one of them. Clockwork Boys, too.
10. Solo Leveling, by Chugong.
    I’ll end this list with the most recent thing we share! I read the manhwa series last year, and only turned to the light novels when I was sure it was going to be my thing and I’d already finished the manhwa. My burbling about it eventually got Lisa curious, they watched the animation, and now they’re reading the series, just starting as I’m on book eight. Occasionally we’ll both stop to emote about Jinho being precious, and similar such reactions.

There are many honourable mentions that I didn’t have space for in the top ten — like Jo Walton’s Among Others, which felt in my early 20s like a portrait of me in some ways, and My Real Children, which Lisa has always loved especially — but I trust this has painted a picture of a joyously bookish relationship over the years!

I’ll leave you with this little tradition of ours to be jealous over: our Valentine’s agreement, renewed each year, is that Lisa will buy me one book of my choice each month, whenever my whim strikes. The reciprocal agreement (no complaints about daytime naps) hasn’t been activated in a long time, and probably needs to be replaced with the ability to send me to get fancy coffee twice a month or something like that — but aren’t I lucky?!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about interesting cover typography… which is a tricky topic for me, because I’m a very non-visual person! That said, it also sounds fun, so let’s see what I can do.

I make no promises about the quality of the books, because I’ve only read four of them and only loved two. All the same, these covers jumped out at me as doing interesting things with the typography (like following the layers of the cake, the echoed upside-down A, the letters of Tied to You being tied together, the broken crime-scene tape).

For my money, the coolest is An Unkindness of Magicians, though: it’s a pretty plain font, but somehow it’s making that pale-on-pale look work, and the branches are growing into the letters… a lot of the time bright colours draw the eye, but this cover draws the eye by eschewing colour, including in the title text.

I’m very curious to see what others have unearthed, and what other people feel looks cool!

ETA: See also my post today about the importance of book covers!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about bookish discoveries made in 2025! I don’t have any general things like bookshops or book clubs to share, so I’ll go with new-to-me authors in 2025, though it’s heavy on authors where I only know a single work/series (and sometimes they don’t have others).

1. Uketsu. I really enjoyed both Strange Pictures and Strange Houses, especially the latter, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming Strange Buildings. They’re such weird stories, and if you want to piece together the mysteries for yourself you have to really stare at the included images. (This is perhaps why I liked Strange Houses most: I found it easier to come up with my own theories and spot what I was meant to see, so I got to participate a bit more.)
2. Xue Shan Fei Hu. Me and my wife both got super into The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish at the same time, which was fun — reading the books at the same pace, chatting about plot developments, etc. It’s a silly story (though it does include some political intrigue) and very cute, and I’m sure I’ll reread it. I’d give other books by this author a shot too.
3. Mary Fitt. I didn’t know anything about this queer Wales-based classic mystery writer, but in 2025 I came across The Banquet Ceases and loved it. I later read Clues to Christabel as well, which I found compelling but somewhat less enjoyable. I’m definitely eager to read more of her work, and there’s a lot of it (if not all?) on Kobo Plus, which is convenient.
4. Sarah Caudwell. I started seeing people talk about Thus Was Adonis Murdered a lot and gave way to curiosity, ending up fully on the bandwagon despite not being sure whether the humour would suit me, or whether a crime novel based around a bunch of lawyers would be fun. I haven’t read the fourth book, which I’ve been warned isn’t as fun, but I really loved the first three. They’re witty and clever and full of character, and I’m sure I’ll reread them at some point.
5. Sally Smith. Another legal-based mystery, in the same year?! Shockingly, yes. I was initially put off by the main character, Gabriel Ward, who seems to be kind of stuffy — but it didn’t take long before I was won over. I loved both A Case of Mice and Murder and A Case of Life and Limb (which I requested to review because I’d unexpectedly loved the first book so much), and I’m so impatient for book three.
6. Yatsuki Wakatsu. This is the author of The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, which I read in both the original light novel format and (as far as it exists) the manga adaptation. I’d definitely give more books by this author a shot; the light novels kept me chirpy and fascinated during a high-stress, high-anxiety time as my final exams approached, we were moving house, etc, etc. I’ve actually been rereading the manga due to the new volume coming out, and it confirmed to me how much fun the series is.
7. Rinteku. I don’t know if Rinteku’s written any other manga, but I came across Love in the Palm of His Hand and really fell in love with how it tries to portray the multiple ways the deaf protagonist communicates. It was really interesting to see how Rinteku chose to represent sign language in a static medium (showing several hand positions in the same frame, for instance). It’s also a really sweet story, even if I don’t 100% love the art. I’d definitely try something else by them.
8. Itaru Kinoshita. I absolutely fell for Dinosaur Sanctuary last year, and though I haven’t got through my backlog of written-but-not-yet-posted reviews to start posting the reviews yet, I can’t wait to share them. It’s basically “what if we found living dinosaurs, put them in zoos, and really had to take care of them?” The dinosaurs are studied, given medical care, encouraged to breed, need enrichment — and the public needs to be engaged with too. I really loved how rooted it is in what we know about dinosaurs and some interesting but plausible extrapolations. The series has a research consultant so it can be as accurate as possible! It’s wholesome and fun, and I also learned new things.
9. Chugong. That’s the author of the original Solo Leveling light novels! I actually read the manhwa first, which I loved, but I’m knee-deep in the light novels now as well and really loving it. I find it weirdly relaxing that though the stakes are ultimately really high (the survival of all humans), the main character is so ridiculously overpowered (and so rarely at a loss) that you know somehow everything is going to be fine.
10. singNsong. This has really been a year of me reading a lot more media from Japan, China and Korea, as you can tell from the rest of this list! So it’s only fitting to end with Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, which filtered slowly into my awareness through an online friend loving it and a few mentions in the game Tiny Bookshop, where it’s one of the books you can recommend to the bookshop patrons. I’m enjoying both the light novels and the manhwa, and can’t wait for more.

I was actually surprised by the dominance of Japanese, Chinese and Korean works here, but that’s a fairly accurate picture of my reading, to be fair. There are a few runners-up whose books I enjoyed, like Molly O’Neill’s Greenteeth, Rachel Harrison’s Cackle, Julie Leong’s The Teller of Small Fortunes, Chelliace’s Tied to You… so it wasn’t easy to choose just ten to discuss. It was a good year for reading!

Definitely eager to see everyone else’s picks.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about goals for 2026 — bookish or not. I’ll keep things mostly bookish (that’s what you’re all here for, after all, and I have so many bookish goals, always!)… so without further ado, let’s take a look.

1. Read (or not!) according to my whim. It’s easy to get caught up in reading for a reading challenge, or because I have a review copy, or because a book’s due back at the library. And sometimes that’s fine and fun, but whenever it’s not fun, I stop. Or try to: I can’t say I’m perfect yet at this!
2. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. It’s kinda sad when I see people talking about “guilty pleasures”, or deriding their reading as “trashy” (though sometimes I think people mean “trashy” in a fun, positive way, I think that’s often still caught up in popular disdain for certain genres or tropes). If it’s fun for me, then it’s worthwhile. It doesn’t need to be any deeper than that.
3. There’s no such thing as cheating. Reading novellas, reading manga, reading children’s books, rereading a favourite, all of it is valid toward stuff like reading goals, most challenges as long as it meets any prompts, etc.
4. I won’t do book-buying bans (or book-borrowing bans, or bans on requesting ARCs, etc). I have limits (discussed below) to help ensure that I’m not just stacking up books I don’t plan to read… but if I really want some new books, I’m not going to make that a guilty feeling. It’s a joy to support authors, to have good stuff to read, to get a nice stack of books and devour them. Provided I have the budget, I’ll make it work.
5. I won’t buy from Amazon if at all possible. In general, but especially books: that’s what indie bookshops and Bookshop.org are for. Sometimes they don’t have something in stock, and there can be relatively few places to turn in that case, but for the majority of what I read there are plentiful options to avoid supporting Amazon.
6. I want to have no more than 20 books at a time bought in 2026 that I haven’t started. This sometimes results in me having a few books on the go at once that I turn out not to be in the mood for, but broadly speaking it’s been really great at helping me read review books on time, start books when I feel like it instead of waiting for “the right time”, etc. I worried I would find it overly restrictive, but I did this last year and really liked the nudge to read books while they’re relevant/exciting/exactly what I’m interested in, because I just got them.
7. I want to start all the books I bought in 2025. As mentioned above, I had the same rule last year (a limit of 20 books not started), but at Christmas the total rocketed up, ahaha. So I currently have 32 books from 2025 that I haven’t started yet. I’m hoping to get them all started (at least) by June, always provided that’s the way my whim takes me.
8. I want to read at least 100 books from my backlog (counting 2025’s books). I did great last year at weeding out my backlog — sometimes by just recognising I didn’t want to read something after all, but also by reading 100 books that had been on my backlog since the end of 2024 or longer. I’d built up quite a backlog for a bunch of reasons, and it was great to explore my shelves more and push myself to poke around in the depths of my Kobo, get to books I meant to review when they came out, etc. I’d like to keep going!
9. I want to read 400 books again this year… or even more? I managed to read 400 books last year and the year before, while still studying on top of full-time work. I don’t have any new course or class lined up, so maybe I have more time for reading? Maybe not, if other priorities crop up, but I still figure that 400 books is a reasonable goal to start with.
10. Any goal can be changed if it’s doing more harm than good. I set reading goals as a way to remind myself that I want reading to be a priority, because reading makes me happy, because talking about books on my blog makes me happy, etc, but if it’s not making me happy then it needs to change. There was a point last year when I dropped my goal to 300, gradually increased it back to 350… and then I eventually ended on 400 exactly. Flexibility is important.

And that’s it! The main goal, of course, is to keep on having fun with it. If I’m not, then for me there’s no point.

How about you?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is about the books we’re looking forward to in the first half of 2026. I’m not always great at keeping an eye on this kind of thing, but it turns out I do have some books I really, really want.

1. Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, by Heather Fawcett. I actually have an ARC of this one, so I have to get round to it as soon as possible! I’ve enjoyed Fawcett’s other books, though this one basically had me at “mystical cat shelter”, to be fair.
2. Nightshade & Oak, by Molly O’Neill. I really liked Greenteeth, so I’m quite hopeful about this one too, especially since it sounds like it has similar roots. I just got a copy of this from Hachette yesterday morning, so I’m going to dig in soon!
3. Strange Buildings, by Uketsu. I enjoyed Strange Pictures and especially Strange Houses, so I expect to have fun with this one as well. Maybe I’d better see if I can wishlist it at the library, because Strange Houses was in high demand when it came out.
4. Charlotte Brontë’s Life Through Clothes, by Eleanor Houghton. I’m not interested in fashion or clothes per se, but more in what clothes and fashion can tell us about the people who wore them, the times when they were fashionable, etc. I like some of the Brontës’ work, and especially Jane Eyre, so I’m interested both as someone mildly interested in the Brontës and as someone interested in the history of clothes.
5. Star Shipped, by Cat Sebastian. I love Sebastian’s work (and feel it seems to keep on getting better), and I’m very amused by the setting of the two characters being stars in a sci-fi show. Looking forward to this!
6. Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, by Greer Stothers. I know comparatively little about this one, but it sounds like a fun romance.
7. The Lost Book of Lancelot, by John Glynn. It was high time someone played with ‘The Book of Galehaut’ (there was a retelling that was almost a translation, which I don’t count), because Lancelot and Galehaut’s relationship in the Vulgate Cycle is heckin’ intense, and it’s quite the addition to the Arthurian legends… but sadly ignored. I’m not sure how close a retelling this is going to be, but I look forward to seeing what the author does with it, all the same.
8. Solo Leveling (manhwa), vol 14, by Dubu etc. This contains side stories for Solo Leveling, so I’m verryyyyy curious. As people on my blog know, I’ve got very into both the manhwa and the novels, though I’m close to finished with the novels, so it’s nice to have something new to look forward to from the manhwa.
9. After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine, vol 1, by Li Gou Hua. This danmei isn’t from one of the authors I’ve read before, so I don’t know a lot about what to expect, but I like the idea of the premise (professor ends up transmigrating to the past and discovering that a weird thesis he read is true, and he’s living it). It’s a familiar sort of theme for light novels and I’m enjoying the many permutations of it immensely.
10. Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (novel), vol 3, by singNsong. I’m reading both the manhwa and the novel, and I am very excited to dig in and get to the next bit in the novel. By that time I think I’ll have read just past it in the manhwa, but it’s always interesting to see how manhwa adapts the stories and sometimes places slightly different emphases. And of course, sometimes there are slightly different translations or notes on translations too.

Quite a weird mix, I’m sure, and also no doubt I’ve missed loads of stuff I’d be interested in. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s lists!