This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is all about books you can’t believe you’ve never read… and I’m going to steer away from the classics and 1,001 books to read before you die type choices, and look more at my TBR.

1. Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch.
   I loved the first books in this series! I was very eager for Republic of Thieves! But somehow I never got round to it, and then I got sulky about being nagged to get on and read it… and of course, there’s no saying when there will be more in the series. I still technically want to read this, but it is sitting in limbo more than a little.
2. Red Right Hand, by Chris Holm.
   I’ve enjoyed Chris Holm’s work since the Angry Robot days with the Collector trilogy, and enjoyed the book that Red Right Hand follows up, The Killing Kind. Unfortunately, by the time Red Right Hand came out, I’d forgotten too many of the details, meant to reread that one first, and somehow… never got back to it.
3. Malice Aforethought, by Francis Iles.
   This is one of the classic mystery stories, but somehow I’ve never got round to it (in part because I’m not a huge lover of Francis Iles AKA Anthony Berkeley Cox’s work). Still, it’s a really important one in the development of the classic mystery genre, and I do want to read it. Eventually.
4. The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey.
   I was put off by reading something else by Tey which was just hopelessly racist, but her work is very classic, and I want to get round to this at some point — particularly as people often cite it as a favourite. Plus I am kinda interested in Richard III and the mystery of the Princes in the Tower, which makes the concept interesting to me.
5. Cassandra, by Christa Wolf.
   A copy of this has been following me around for… quite a long time, so long that I’ve actually forgotten who recommended it and why — but they were definitely very enthusiastic. The story of Cassandra is one that interests me a lot, too; the tragic possibilities of knowing what’s going to happen, but being totally powerless to convince anyone else…
6. Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC, by Susan Fisher-Hoch & Joseph B. McCormick.
   I did actually start this at some point, so I’m also surprised I never finished it, but I think I may have got it quite early in my interest in infectious diseases and it was maybe a little too anxiety-provoking. I think I’d tolerate it better now, degree in infectious diseases behind me, and maybe appreciate some aspects of it more, too. That said, this will never be my job, even if I do switch into a career in infectious diseases. Yikes on bikes.
7. The Tower at Stony Wood, by Patricia McKillip.
   I’ve enjoyed a lot of McKillip’s work, but there are several I still need to get to that could all take a turn on this list. I find her writing a little opaque at times; beautiful, but sometimes requires a lot of attention to fully extract the meaning. Maybe that’s just me — either way, her style takes work, and so her books always await the exact right mood. I did pick up my copies from my parents’ house semi-recently (well, at least a year ago, possibly two), so they are at least on my shelves here…
8. The Outskirter’s Secret, by Rosemary Kirstein.
   I really like The Steerswoman, so I don’t know why I’ve never got on with it and read the remaining books. Maybe it’s knowing the story is unfinished. Maybe it’s because I know a little too much about the other books and how things work out, so one element of the tantalising mystery at least is a little bit spoiled (though spoilers don’t usually bother me, this is a bit of a special case, I’d say).
9. A Brother’s Price, by Wen Spencer.
   This is one of several books that I got at some point or another for The Alternative World book club on Goodreads, and never got round to. I remember people being so enthusiastic about it, though, and their recommendations were definitely pivotal to quite a few of the SF/F books I loved (including The Steerswoman, actually) at that time… so yeah.
10. Or What You Will, by Jo Walton.
    Somehow I missed when this came out, and only realised a bit later… and somehow still haven’t got round to it, which is just shocking given how much I’ve generally enjoyed Jo Walton’s work. Soon, I hope!

I keep thinking of other potential choices — I can’t believe I still haven’t managed to read anything of Sarah Pinsker’s, for example, given she was a part of The Alternative World group on Goodreads! But this is a reasonable survey, and covers a mostly-satisfying/representative spread of genres, so let’s leave it there…

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is a tricky one: listing not only your top ten favourite authors, but also choosing your favourite book of theirs! I can’t promise that mine’s a definitive list — I’m certain I’m missing out authors I would smack my forehead about if you reminded me. But it is a list of some of my favourite authors, and my favourites among their books.

1. Ursula Le Guin: The Tombs of Atuan.
   The problem with picking a favourite among Le Guin’s stories is the sheer number and range of them, but for me it isn’t really in doubt — there’s a magic in The Tombs of Atuan that got under my skin from the start, right from the beginning with Arha’s beginnings as a priestess. I love A Wizard of Earthsea very much too, don’t get me wrong, and that book informs how I try to approach life and dealing with my anxiety… but I’d still say The Tombs of Atuan beats it out as a favourite.
2. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu: Heaven Official’s Blessing.
   This is a really tough pick, because The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System was my introduction to danmei as a whole, and I’ll probably look back at it as formative to my reading tastes. And there are aspects of Heaven Official’s Blessing that are frustrating (the flashbacks). Still, in terms of the depth of the characters, the different arcs and stories that wind through it, and of course the love between Hua Cheng and Xie Lian, I think it’s probably my favourite.
3. KJ Charles: Band Sinister.
   I love a lot of Charles’ work, and I’m not sure Band Sinister would always be my recommendation for a starting point (though it’s not a bad one, it’s more purely a romance than most of her work). But it’s one I have very fond memories of, including the first time I read it while I couldn’t sleep, giggling and curling my toes in glee at it while trying not to wake up my wife!
4. Marie Brennan: Tropic of Serpents.
   It’s hard to pick one book out of this series, really, because they all build up the story to a heck of an ending. Still, Tropic of Serpents is the one that changed my opinion from liking the series well enough to continue and see where it went to being eager for each new book, and deeply invested in Isabella and her adventures — and the different types of dragon she studies and discovers.
5. E.C.R. Lorac: Death of an Author.
   This is a bit atypical among Lorac’s novels and possibly wouldn’t be the one I’d recommend to others — but it’s the one I’ve rated the highest, and it probably counts as my favourite if I had to name a single one. Mostly what I love about her work is the way she sets up characters who feel like people you can root for (or dislike), rather than cyphers, and the sense of deep connection to places… neither of which are so present here, because this is just a really solid mystery that had me on the hop the whole time. Mostly, her Inspector Macdonald books would be where I’d turn for a satisfying mystery I can care about, but this one is pretty dang good.
6. Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison.
   This one has strong competition from several other books in the series, including Have His Carcase (which has a great opening paragraph)… but ultimately I think I love this one best, as Peter puzzles out the murder method, the motive, and the means while racing against the clock because of Harriet’s trial. The banter between the two of them is amazing, as are the moments when it breaks down and Harriet is just human and scared. For me, it finished the work that Clouds of Witness started in making me care deeply about Peter (who spends that book trying to save his brother from hanging), and introduced a heck of a love interest for him, a fascinating character in her own right.
7. Mary Stewart: Madam, Will You Talk?
   I remember reading The Gabriel Hounds while being in Italy, which was just after I finished my first degree (yeesh, so long ago now). She’s just so good at evoking the sense of a place: brightness, dust, old ruins both cared for and not, dark and smoky rooms, a busy market, a cool drink in the shade… Madam, Will You Talk? is probably my favourite, though I couldn’t tell you why, especially because the love interest starts things off very badly and frightens the main character for way too much of a book. Maybe it’s just that Charity is really cool, with her quick thinking and fast driving.
8. Ann Leckie: Ancillary Mercy.
   It’s hard to pick a favourite from this trilogy, because they are all part of the same story, and it’s the whole that I really love. Maybe this should really just be considered picking the whole trilogy. It’s so inventive, and I love the way that Leckie has thought through the world of the story — events outside Breq’s knowledge or interest are going on simultaneously, a whole sprawling empire is living, dying, struggling, and every so often we get little reminders of that. Still, Mercy might be a favourite, due to the way the cultures on Athoek Station are introduced and inform the plot, and the strategic annoying queueing which speaks to my oh-so-British heart.
9. Cat Sebastian: We Could Be So Good.
   It’s a little hard to choose between this and You Should Be So Lucky, both of which are really, really good. The characters and romances just feel so carefully built, until you can’t help but root for them in their messy glory, and hope that things will turn out well for them and that they can find a way to carve out happiness — which they realistically find, even given the period they live in, without it glossing over the dangers and worries they face as well.
10. Jo Walton: Farthing.
    This was the first book I read by Walton, and combines alternative history with a mystery story that nods to Sayers. Sadly, the rising fascism of the story has only become more relevant, even while the book has slipped out of view a bit. I highly recommend the trilogy, though Farthing is my favourite. Walton’s told a lot of different stories, and I could also be very tempted to give the nod to Among Others (which is a book that felt like it saw me) or My Real Children or the Tir Tanagiri books… and Lifelode is so rich and underappreciated too (and sees me as well, in a different way: my lifelode is learning, it’s pretty clear, and reading Lifelode made me think, y’know what, that’s okay). But ultimately, Farthing was where my experiences with Walton’s books started, and it’s terrifyingly and urgently relevant.

Oof, I’ve been super talkative again — I hope my musings have been of interest, and I would definitely love to hear others’ thoughts if you have the time to stop and chat!

This week’s theme from Top Ten Tuesday is all about secondary/minor characters, and I love it — secondary and minor characters can add so much to a world, help to flesh out the major characters, and bring in interesting themes and ideas that the main character alone can’t support.

Sooo let’s dig into some favourites.

1. Csevet Aisava, from The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison).
   He appears early in the story and from that point on, he’s constantly in support of Maia, helping him find his feet in the court and enacting his will in the most efficient way possible. We don’t see a lot of his inner life, but we see enough tantalising glimpses to know that he has one, and his competence and loyalty are very enticing. I’d love to know more about Csevet.
2. Tom Wilker, from The Memoirs of Lady Trent (Marie Brennan).
   Wilker’s start in A Natural History of Dragons isn’t a terribly promising one: he comes across as trying to gatekeep Isabella’s part in her husband’s expedition, and disrespectful of her suggestions and the expertise she can offer. Over time, though, it becomes clear that he’s afraid of losing his own chance: as a lower-class scientist, he’s (at the start of the series) not taken seriously by other naturalists. As the series goes on, he and Isabella begin to support one another and work together to overcome their disadvantages, and watching his character grow is one of the satisfactions of the series for me. He and Isabella are perfect work partners, and complement one another’s strengths.
3. Mu Qing and Feng Xin, from Heaven Official’s Blessing (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu).
   I’m discussing these two together because I don’t want to pick just one: they’re pretty inseparable, even as they seem to hate each other, and their relationship (and their relationship with Xie Lian) adds a lot of spice and complexity to the story, giving us another emotional arc beyond the testing of Xie Lian’s principles or his love story with Hua Cheng. The two generals are both loyal to Xie Lian, but in different ways, with Mu Qing’s practicality offending Feng Xin’s idealism, and Feng Xin’s privilege and lack of subtlety annoying Feng Xin at every turn. Half the time, they just need to communicate, but they’re both completely stubborn. They are complete idiots, Your Honour: I love them.
4. Liu Qingge, from The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu).
   I am incredibly fond of Liu Qingge’s character, and I think it’s all in the way he will defend Shen Qingqiu no matter what (loyalty is my catnip; you might have noticed). To Liu Qingge, it doesn’t matter what Shen Qingqiu is accused of, or who exactly he is now that he is very clearly not the original flavour: Shen Qingqiu saved him, they are martial brothers, and so he will defend Shen Qingqiu against all comers. He doesn’t pretend that this isn’t a potential burden or beat around the bush about it: he straight-up tells Shen Qingqiu that yeah, I know, you’re afraid of being a burden to us, but we’re not afraid of that. The fact that he considers Shen Qingqiu worth it no matter what is such a big moment, such a beautiful thing to say, and I haven’t seen enough talk about that moment. He doesn’t lie and tell Shen Qingqiu he’s not a burden, he says so what if you are? I will support you anyway.
5. Jiang Cheng, from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu).
   Jiang Cheng is a bit of an exception on this list because he isn’t loyal to Wei Wuxian, but turns against him, but I enjoy the character a lot (even if I don’t always like him) because he’s very understandable. He grows up being second fiddle to Wei Wuxian, and resentment builds up — assuaged when Wei Wuxian promises that it will always be the two of them against the world, a promise which Wei Wuxian ultimately breaks to save the Jiang clan from being associated with his actions. His resentment turns into hatred when Wei Wuxian’s actions ultimately lead to the death of their sister and her husband. Throughout the story, he is brash, irrational, and nothing like as clever as Wei Wuxian, but he loves his family deeply and in the end he comes through for Wei Wuxian in a critical moment as well, even after everything that comes between them. It’s kind of a sad thing for him that in a world where Wei Wuxian didn’t exist, Jiang Cheng would absolutely be a hero himself.
6. Faramir, from The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien).
   I have to bring up Faramir here because I think reading LotR was one of the first times I latched onto a side-character so firmly. I have such opinions about the movies because of how they presented Faramir! He represents the best of his family’s line, the bravery coupled with the cleverness, the willingness to serve Gondor without the need for self-aggrandisement, and all of that made me love the character immediately. I know why it was changed for the movie, it makes loads of sense, especially for that medium — but I love the Faramir of the books, and the fact that he never sways from his path and his loyalty to Gondor, Gandalf and (ultimately) Aragorn, even as he unquestionably loves his brother and his father and does his best by them.
7. Mervyn Bunter, from the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries (Dorothy L. Sayers).
   To be honest, I don’t actually want more information about Bunter, and I think the character would actually agree with me that it’s not his place! Hideously classist, of course, but Bunter seems to enjoy serving Lord Peter, and putting Peter (and the world) in their proper places, and that provides some moments of comedy amidst it all. He is always loyal to Peter, though the bond between them is forged off-the-page and the reasons for it just briefly referenced, and he acts as the perfect support through the mysteries that Peter tries to unravel (and his courting of Harriet Vane as well). Somehow Bunter always has the right thing at the right moment. He’s a caricature of the perfect servant, but written in a way that I think is aware of that and sometimes gently, quietly poking fun at it: Bunter knows what he’s doing (and Sayers did too).
8. Lord Ruthven, from the Dr Greta Helsing series (Vivian Shaw).
   I was torn between Ruthven and Fastitocalon here, but I think Ruthven’s my favourite, in part because we see a bit more of him and he’s active all throughout the first three books. (I haven’t read the newest yet, and I don’t think he plays a part in Bitter Waters that I can remember, but he’s still a major character in the trilogy.) I love the difficulty he clearly has with his long existence, and the way he’s put that to learning and helping people most of the time… but, very humanly (despite being a vampire), also sometimes just mopes. I love that he gives his unsuitable boyfriend a second chance at life and being a reasonable person, I love that he’s ready to support Greta no matter was, and I love that ultimately he’s happy to get his hands dirty (not to mention risk his unlife) helping people as well as just throwing large quantities of money at problems.
9. Beru, from Solo Leveling (Chugong).
   I never thought I would ever, could ever, find an undead shadow minion based on a giant warrior ant so cute, but his loyalty to Jinwoo (and Jinwoo’s family), his interest in traditional court dramas and his general behaviour (plus his appearance at times in the manhwa) is just adorable. He’s not an especially complex character, so I thought about picking Yoo Jinho or Woo Jinchul instead for their unforced loyalty and support of Jinwoo… but, yeah, sorry, Beru’s cuter.
10. Seivarden, from the Imperial Radch series (Ann Leckie).
    Seivarden is a hot mess. She isn’t a particularly good person, mired in privilege and — once that’s stripped away — self-pity. However, she learns to rely on Breq, and then comes the loyalty (you knew that word was coming, surely). She was never a favourite of Breq’s, she’s still fucking up a lot of things, but she begins to really, really try to drop her addiction, to treat people better, and to help Breq even while Breq is essentially dismantling a lot of the things that gave Seivarden her privilege and her place in the world. Ultimately, betraying Breq would be easier, but Seivarden grows and learns and tries. I love her journey, even though I do not think one would enjoy knowing Seivarden, unless Seivarden recognised one as being of equal or higher status and thus behaved appropriately within the bounds of acceptability. Once you step outside that, she’s more than a little careless.

Okaaaay, that’s enough of the mini-essays! I’m very curious to see the characters that other people choose.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday theme celebrates flowers, which is another opportunity for me to look at book covers a bit more closely! I’m not a very visual person and often don’t notice/remember covers, so I’ve been enjoying this kind of topic lately. Let’s see what I can do!

Flowers are such a common element of cover design that I had trouble picking favourites — especially when it came to danmei and baihe, where cherry blossoms abound!

I haven’t read all of these books yet (Thistlemarsh is still on my TBR, and I only just started Princeweaver), and some of the books I didn’t love… but the cover designs stood out for one reason or another for all of them. I was surprised by the relatively dark theme in the second row until I added in The Beauty’s Blade there to break it up a bit: you don’t always associate flowers with that kind of dark cover, but here we are.

Curious to see what others have picked today!

I wasn’t feeling inspired by this week’s topic, since the only answers that leaped to mind for deceased authors I wish were still writing were Tolkien and Le Guin, and non-deceased authors… well, you never know, they might be writing something as we speak! I live in hope. I poked around a bit online trying to jog my memory, but nothing felt really authentic, in the end.

So I went and looked at old topics, and picked #294: “Ten books I picked up on a whim.” I do a lot of whim-driven buying when I go to a physical bookshop: honestly, that’s the main reason I go to bookshops: not to buy the books I know I want, but to explore what else is out there.

Here are some that I picked up on a whim and loved! I’ll count library books as well as books I bought, and I’ll link the reviews when they’re already up on my blog. In some cases they

1. Ramesses the Great, by Toby Wilkinson.
   I wasn’t actually sure if I’d like it, since I remembered finding something else by Wilkinson a bit tedious… but I’m glad I gave it the chance, because I found it totally riveting. Despite a lifelong interest in ancient Eygpt, I hadn’t dug very deep into most specific pharoahs, not even Ramesses the Great, and I ended up telling several people aaaaall sorts of things based on this book.
2. Tied to You, by WHAT/Chelliace.
   This was a random borrow from the library via ComicsPlus, because it kept popping up when I was idly browsing for ideas for what to read, and I was curious about the concept (which is basically that every person has a “ring partner”, and if they touch them after they’re both of age, then a bond forms between them so they have to be physically together in order to sleep, and sleep wonderfully when they are together). It should not be mistaken for portraying a healthy romance because oh boy it does not, but I really enjoyed the twists and turns in getting Wooseo to eventually accept the fact that Jigeon is his ring partner for good.
3. Mr Collins in Love, by Lee Welch.
   I am not a huge Austen fan, and I’d seen someone whose taste I trust praise it highly, so I approached this with a pretty open mind, despite the fact that it’s Mr Collins. I found it was very well done, with sympathy for a could-have-been Collins.
4. The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans.
   I almost wasn’t expecting to like this one, because it was a random pick solely because I thought it’d be a good one to review for Postcrossing. I ended up really enjoying it, because it does a good job at giving us characterisation through letters, and drawing out some small mysteries to keep things intriguing while the main character slowly works things through. It’s not a book in which stuff happens, more of a character study.
5. A Boy Named Rose, by Gaëlle Geniller.
   This was another random find via ComicsPlus, and I loved the gentle exploration of Rose’s love of dancing and his slow branching out into the world outside where he grew up. The blurb of the book makes it sound more dramatic than it really is.
6. A History of England in 25 Poems, by Catherine Clarke.
   I keep banging on about this one since it’s a recent read, heh. But it really was an interesting history, selecting unexpected poems and digging into contexts I hadn’t thought of.
7. Moon Cop, by Tom Gauld.
   I love Gauld’s comic strips, but wasn’t sure what I’d make of something longer. I hadn’t expected the melancholy tone of this one, but it worked really well, actually.
8. Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism, by Bill Schutt.
   I know, it doesn’t sound a very appetising subject, but nonetheless I found it really interesting, especially being introduced to alternative ideas about prion diseases and how they might spread.
9. Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles, by Andrew Ziminski.
   Very much a whim for me here, because I’m not interested in churches or architecture per se — but I am always interested in someone enthusing about something, and that’s definitely what I got here. I did have a few critiques of the book, and honestly I don’t remember much of the actual detail, but it was soothingly fascinated in a subject that I didn’t have to agonise about at all, so I could let it wash over me, and that was at the time exactly what I wanted.
10. Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold On Us, by Anna Bogutskaya.
    This was a random choice from the library — especially random because I’m not that interested in horror! Especially not horror movies, which this was predominantly about. But it was pretty fascinating, all the same. I didn’t like the author’s other book nearly so much, sadly, but I’m still glad I read this one!

Hope everyone’s having a good week so far!

Late post, as I’m just back from my official University of London graduation! Those reading here regularly might remember I attended a ceremony last month; that was from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, for the same degree. This was the more formal occasion, complete with a bow to and nod of acknowledgement from the deputy vice chancellor of the university, so I have now properly officially fully received my MSc (to add to my BA, MA and BSc).

Please don’t ask me what’s next. The only thing that’s next right now is my TTT post, and after that, bed! I will probably study again, but not soon. I had a rough time last year and need recovery time.

So without further ado, this week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is a freebie, and I decided I’d focus on book covers again: I’d hoped to do that last week, because it was kinda fun when I recently spent time focusing on book covers (which spawned a post about them!)… so here we go!

Let’s take a look at some covers which beautifully showcase the main relationships of the books in question:

In order, these were: Xie Lian and Hua Cheng, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe, Li Yu and Mu Tianchi, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, Istvhan and Clara, Kate Daniels and Curran Lennart, Fu Wanqing and Yu Shengyan, Nicolas-Marc, Comte de Valois de La Motte and Titus Pilcrow, and Cassian, the Duke of Severn and Daizell Charnage. I wouldn’t cross any of these characters alone, and certainly not when they’re united!

I could’ve picked a lot more covers to show off, especially because there are a bunch of danmei covers that are just gorgeous (many more than just the five showcased here). Really, there’s an embarrassment of riches out there for covers which show off the strength of relationships — though for my money my favourites here are Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, for the intimacy and tenderness they convey between the characters.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “april showers”, with a generous range of how to interpret that: “Interpret this however you’d like: rainy day reads, books that make you cry, books that give you happy tears, books to wash away a bad reading experience, books set in rainy places, books with rain/raindrops/umbrellas on the cover, blue book covers, etc.”

I did start by looking for books with rain and umbrellas on the cover, but I ran out a bit too quickly… so let’s chat about the books I’ve been saving for a rainy day!

1. After Hours at Dooryard Books, by Cat Sebastian.
   Technically I’ve started this, but I haven’t really properly got into it yet. Sebastian’s books have been such a treat lately that part of me keeps leaving it for when I need a good distraction — though goodness knows with how fidgety I’ve been about my reading, maybe that’s now!
2. Death in Daylesford, by Kerry Greenwood.
   Partly it’s the fact that I want to reread the other books first, but also… there’s a limited amount of new-to-me Phryne Fisher in the world, and I’m saving it for a bit longer.
3. Mistakenly Saving the Villain, vol 1, by Feng Yu Nie.
   I really wanted this one, but now that I have it, I’ve hesitated to start! I’ve heard fun things about it and the amount of yearning it contains…
4. At the Feet of the Sun, by Victoria Goddard.
   I think I saved this one long enough that I’d have to reread The Hands of the Emperor first. Oh nooo, etc. I loved Cliopher and his growing friendship with his emperor.
5. The Green Man’s Heir, by Juliet McKenna.
   I hear such good things about this series, but somehow I never get round to it — imagining some future time where I’ll be able to mainline the whole series or something.
6. Ian Fleming’s Commandos, by Nicholas Rankin.
   This is a book my grandad bought me — I can’t remember why we were in WHSmiths in Caerphilly, but it was sometime in the last year before he died (so around 2011-2012), and when I showed interest in this and a book about trains, he got them for me. Since he loved James Bond and worked on the railway, it seems an appropriate pick… though I’m not sure I’d actually considered that in the moment, it was just one of those cases of my random interest landing on something. He’d probably have bought me anything I wanted; he doted on me and loved that I was going to university in Wales. He spent my first year scouring the land for book sales, and was actually a major instigator of me ending up with a backlog… which has spiralled out of control ever since. Anyway, this book’s waited on my TBR ever since, but someday I trust it’ll be the right day.
7. Sweet Poison, by Mary Fitt.
   Or basically any other book by Mary Fitt I haven’t read yet; there’s quite a few. I really enjoyed The Banquet Ceases and (in a different way) Clues to Christabel, they’re really solid classic mysteries, and I look forward to settling in. For this one specifically, I’m also intrigued by the archaeology thread…
8. Draakenwood, by Jordan L. Hawk.
   Hawk’s books are generally a lot of fun and quick reads, so I’d been saving this one for a time when I needed that. I’ve probably saved it so long I need to reread the other Widdershins books again. Once more I say unto you: oh noooo, how awful. 😉
9. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, by Toby Wilkinson.
   One day I’ll need a chunky non-fiction book on one of my pet topics, and this one will still be waiting for me on that day.
10. The Boy in the Red Dress, by Kristin Lambert.
    This one looks like a lot of fun, and every time I notice it on the shelves I think about adding it to the month’s TBR… but something tells me ‘not yet’.

Looking forward to seeing other people’s takes on this theme! Everyone’s always more inventive than me, it feels like, ahaha.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “book titles that describe me/my life”… and I’m not sure where to start, but it sounds like a fun one. Let’s see what I can come up with!

1. I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf, by Grant Snider.
   To be fair, I didn’t love this book and I don’t actually judge people for what they like to read… but I do like to get an idea of a person based on what they read, if anything!
2. Book Lovers, by Emily Henry.
   Not a favourite book, but it was fun… and the title is irresistible when trying to describe me. I’m a little worried about how much of my personality this list is implying revolves around books, but it’s not terribly wrong, and also it’s just easy to find titles of books about books.
3. The Constant Rabbit, by Jasper Fforde.
   Admittedly I haven’t read this one, but I couldn’t resist the title; my rabbits Eclair and Biscuit are never far away, particularly Biscuit.
4. A Palace Near the Wind, by Ai Jiang.
   One of my current reads, which I’ve been enjoying. I don’t quite live in a palace, admittedly, but I live in Yorkshire and it can be very windy here!
5. Everything is Tuberculosis, by John Green.
   Tuberculosis has been a major interest of mine ever since I read Catching Breath (Kathryn Lougheed), and John Green’s book is an excellent update to that. And friends can attest that I am far too good at dragging TB into conversations somehow…
   In my defence, write a dissertation about something and you’ll never stop seeing it everywhere.
6. The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, by Martin Edwards.
   By this point, you could possibly tell that story from my own shelves, ahaha. I studied the development of crime fiction as a genre in my undergrad, and maintained an interest, collecting almost all the British Library Crime Classic reissues and various others.
7. Solo Leveling, by Chugong.
   Okay, I’ll never be even a tenth the badass that Jinwoo Sung is, but I play video games a lot, and often solo! The only multiplayer games I usually play are co-ops like Split Fiction with my wife, or of course, the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV… otherwise it’s mostly solo leveling… 😉
   Yeah, okay, I know, I’m not that funny.
8. Paladin’s Hope, by T. Kingfisher.
   Speaking of Final Fantasy XIV! My main class is Paladin, which I play in high-end content, so it can hardly be left out of an autobiography of myself in book titles. I promise I don’t go berserk like Kingfisher’s paladins, though, and I don’t have the same degree of guilt complex. I try not to make playing Final Fantasy XIV my whole personality, but I spend a lot of time with my raid group and other friends from the game, so it’s a significant part of my life, all the same.
9. The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman.
   I said I wasn’t going to keep banging on about books, but I was getting stumped, and I have so many ebooks that the physical books you can see in my house are only the tip of the iceberg.
10. To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers.
    One of the most important themes of my life has been learning, and continuing to learn… nope, more than that. My family feel it’s pretty inevitable that I will return to formal education before long; the only question is when, and what. I have two degrees in English literature, a degree in biology, and a degree in infectious diseases, so it’s probably time to break off on another tangent — maybe classical studies, with Latin? But who knows. Either way, I believe I have been very fortunate to have the opportunities to learn that I have, and hope never to take it for granted.

Oof, that took me forever to put together; I probably put waaaaay too much time into it. Very curious what other people will choose this week!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post is about places on your bucket list, but since I don’t have a bucket list and I read books heavy on the fantasy or that skip around the world a bunch… I thought I’d go rogue. I don’t rate a lot of books five-stars (“loved it”, in the scale I use) — but the books that make the cut deserve to be talked about more, I’d say!

So let’s dig in! Some of these don’t have reviews up yet, but those that do, I’ll link my review. I’ll go backwards through time, starting with the most recent. 2026 has started out pretty well, with five out of the ninety-seven books I’ve read this year so far gaining five whole stars!

1. Ramesses the Great, by Toby Wilkinson. (Finished 30th March 2026.)
   I tore through this one! It helps that Ramesses is a very compelling figure, but Wilkinson presents his evidence well and without speculating too much on stuff we can’t really know for sure about Ramesses II’s inner thoughts, he gives us a good idea of the man all the same. Not always likeable, inasfar as we can make that judgement from this distance of time and from a different culture, but certainly fascinating.
2. Blue Horses and Felicity, by Mary Oliver. (Finished 26th March 2026.)
   It’s cheating a little to bundle these together, but I did read them at the same time! These two poetry collections are both lovely: I find Oliver’s poetry really accessible to read, without being too simplistic.
3. The Library of Ancient Wisdom, by Selena Wisnom. (Finished 28th February 2026.)
   I liked this one a lot: I’ve read a couple of other books on ancient Mesopotamia, but don’t feel like I have the same grasp of it as I do ancient Egypt. This gave me some of that, through focus on the library of Ashurbanipal. It’s necessarily limited and doesn’t really touch on the lives of common people, but it was still pretty interesting.
4. A History of England in 25 Poems, by Catherine Clarke. (Finished 9th February 2026.)
   I thought this one was great: the choice of poems sometimes surprised me, but was always illuminating, and Clarke has a pretty good grasp of the problems between England and the other countries it shares an island with. There were things I’d have liked to see more of, but I was still really happy with this one.
5. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail — The Art of Succession -Relics of Heritage-. (Finished 25th December 2025.)
   I suppose I could skip this one as it sort of feels like it doesn’t count as a book read, but on the other hand I find the game’s artbooks really interesting, because they give you a glimpse at the original designs of familiar bosses, characters and in-world assets. It might be a quick read (since it’s almost all images), but a picture’s worth a thousand words and all that.
6. Strangers and Intimates, by Tiffany Jenkins. (Finished 13th November 2025.)
   This one actually stuck with me less than I’d expected given the high rating, but it did raise interesting questions for me about why the value people place on privacy changes, and the differences between generations. There were some fascinating reflections on the scandal with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and how that has changed politics.
7. You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian. (Finished 28th September 2025.)
   This is a lovely romance, with some grumpy/sunshine dynamics, but it’s more than just a list of tropes. There’s a lot of healing from grief, and a lot of hope (even in times that weren’t so great for queer people). Also, there’s a dog!
8. Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, by Nghi Vo. (Finished 2nd and 5th June 2025.)
   These were rereads, so perhaps it’s no surprise that they got such a high rating! They’re the first two books in the Singing Hills series, at least in publication order — I do think they’re also a good place to start in getting to learn about where Chih is from and what they do, and they have my favourite formats for the series too, being focused mostly on stories told to Chih. Some of the later books are more about Chih themself, which is also fun, but I like these best.
9. Hemlock & Silver, by T. Kingfisher. (Finished 25th May 2025.)
   2025 and 2026 have been the years of T. Kingfisher for me, it seems. This one just grabbed me at the right time, I think, and I thought the ideas and the way of retelling the Snow White and Rose Red story were just so fun. Also the mirror monsters were a work of horrible genius.
10. Cold Night Lullaby, by Colin Mackay. (Finished 22nd May 2025.)
    This was another reread. I’m not sure I ever expected to reread this one, because Mackay went through horrors and he certainly paints them vividly in his poetry, but… something made me feel like it was the right time to read it. It’s a poetic working-through of the things he witnessed in Bosnia when he went there as an aid worker — including the mutilation and murder of the woman he loved.

Sorry for going off-piste, but I look forward to seeing everyone else’s TTT posts this week! Maybe you’ll inspire me to create a bucket list.

Today’s theme for Top Ten Tuesday iiiis “buzzwords or phrases that would make you read (or avoid) a book”. I immediately thought about tropes, especially since a lot of people seem to use trope style stuff for marketing, soooooo… let’s hit TV tropes and look for my catnip.

I’ve done that partly by looking at novels I already love, lest I end up with more on my TBR.

1. Intimate Hair Brushing. Just… just hear me out here. I am a complete sucker for non-sexual intimacy in general, and I think it’s often underused but a great way of showing genuine closeness between two characters. This one shows up in The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, in one of the extras: post-canon, Shen Qingqiu is trying to soothe Luo Binghe when he thinks he’s angry and upset, and one of the things he does (after cuddling to sleep) is brush his hair. It’s actually a version of Luo Binghe from another world, who actually starts considering trying to get Shen Qingqiu to come away with him afterwards… but the point is that it’s a sign of how intimate Shen Qingqiu has become with his former disciple, and a solid sign of the change from the master/disciple relationship into something romantic. It also shows up in Heaven Official’s Blessing, though it’s also a way there for Xie Lian to check whether Hua Cheng is a ghost/his power level as a ghost (as low-level ghosts can’t form details like hair and fingerprints).
2. Red String of Fate. This refers to the idea of people who are fated to be bound together, visualised as a red string. Mostly I love this when it’s played with a bit: fate in and of itself isn’t that interesting, but avoiding fate or forging your own fate… yep, catnip. In Heaven Official’s Blessing, there’s is an actual magic string that Hua Cheng gives to Xie Lian so they won’t be separated — and it works as a symbol of their bond, because Hua Cheng has repeatedly chosen to bind his fate to that of Xie Lian. It’s also played with in Tied to You: Jigeon is in love with Wooseo even before it’s revealed they’re joined together by what’s basically a red string of fate, but there’s no guarantee they’ll end up together, because bonds can be broken. Jigeon acts deeply manipulatively to try to ensure he gets Wooseo in the end… but ultimately he has to reveal what he’s been doing to Wooseo and be accepted by him in spite of it, or their bond will never be complete.
3. What You Are In the Dark. I found this on the page about Gawain, and yeees. The moments where a character will not be witnessed by anyone else, no one will ever know, and they will choose good over what’s convenient. Think Frodo refusing to kill Gollum, for example.
4. Addictive Magic. Or really many kinds of magic system that make magic complicated and have a cost; I ran across this one on the page for The Lord of the Rings, but I’m sure I’ve run into it elsewhere too!
5. Genre Savvy. I love a bit of meta, where a character seems to be aware of the genre they’re in… or misread the genre. We’re back on Scum Villain here, where Shen Qingqiu thinks he’s still in a harem novel, but Luo Binghe has fallen in love with him, changing the genre. It’s also played straight in a lot of ways, because Luo Binghe is “The Protagonist” and has plot armour that protects him from stuff going wrong, because he has to be supreme within his own story. Shen Qingqiu even uses that to get out of trouble, knowing that the story won’t allow any harm to come to Luo Binghe, and banking on it to save them both at one point by persuading someone to attack Luo Binghe (they get knocked out by a random falling beam!).
6. Rivalry as Courtship. The very first example of this I can think of in my life was Anne and Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables (and the later books, which develop it a lot more). All those charged feelings make things more explosive and give a real sense of chemistry. That said, I usually dislike it when it’s more enemies than rivals, if there are atrocities involved or something like that — it’s weird when people try to sweep that under the rug. In that case you also need a hefty dollop of atonement in order to get the whole thing to work.
7. Aw Look! They Really Do Love Each Other! This one came up on The Goblin Emperor’s page, and yeeees. The example given is when Maia’s guard Beshelar, who has been quite aloof and disapproving, gets angry on his behalf when he learns that Setheris abused him. I love that moment, because it shows how much he really cares!
8. Badass Bureaucrat. The example given is Cliopher Mdang in The Hands of the Emperor, and yes, absolutely! Also Csevet in The Goblin Emperor, in slightly different ways.
9. Family of Choice. Also known as the found family trope, or at least, I think these are pretty much the same. For people to choose each other… yep! Thank you, that’s lovely, let’s have some more! Think of the crew of Wayfarer in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, for instance.
10. Hidden Badass. They don’t look like a badass, they don’t seem like they can kick your ass, but oh boy howdy you’d better not cross them. Happens quite a lot in danmei, since characters don’t need to be physically ripped to be extremely strong.

This has taken me long enough, so I’m gonna hit post with just these — even though there are probably plenty of other tropes contending for my top ten!