This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is books recently added to the TBR. Which is easy enough to do, since I love my lists and keep very careful track…

1. Dark Sky, by Mike Brooks. Read the first book, picked this one up as soon as I could. Just the right level of light fun for me.
2. How to Clone a Mammoth, by Beth Shapiro. Picked up somewhat on impulse, this looks at the science of de-extinction. Points for a sci-fi mention on the first page, even if it was Piers Anthony.
3. The City of Dreaming Books, by Walter Moers. Technically, this isn’t new to my TBR, but it is new to my actual shelves. Even just the title does it for me…
4. Behind the Throne, by K.B. Wagers. My sister loved it and devoured it in under a day, so there’s a good chance I’ll find it enjoyable.
5. The Death of Caesar, by Barry Strauss. It’s been a while since I read anything by Strauss, but I remember enjoying his other books; I think I’ve read two or three now. This is on my Christmas list. Here’s hoping!
6. I Contain Multitudes, by Ed Yong. Another non-fiction book, fairly predictably fascinating to me given the topic of microbes and the human body!
7. The Wolf Road, by Beth Lewis. I don’t even remember what this one is about, but someone reviewed it and it sounded fascinating. So, onto the Christmas list it went.
8. A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers. I haven’t read the first book yet, but I hear such good things about it, I’m sure I’ll want to pick this one up. …When I’m in the UK, as Fnac do not stock it.
9. Proust and the Squid, by Maryanne Wolf. I think the title makes it sound more generally exciting than it might otherwise be — it’s actually a book about the science of reading. I enjoyed Reading in the Brain, so I’m very hopeful about this one.
10. The Book of Kells, by R.A. MacAvoy. Technically, this is not new to my list, but it’s another one which is relatively new to my shelves. It was a suggested read for a time travel theme at one of my bookclubs, I think!

So yeah, that’s a sampling of things that might (or might not, knowing me) be coming up to review sometime soon!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is about recommendations — to be more precise, books you’ve read because of recommendations. Here goes!

1. The Summer Tree, by Guy Gavriel Kay. I am no longer in touch with the person who sent me this, which is saddening because I love this series and everything I’ve read by Kay, and the same person also fostered my love of Ursula Le Guin and introduced me to the tv series Firefly. Friendship aside, it’s a loss in terms of not getting awesome book recommendations alone.
2. Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire. This has been recommended to me by a lot of people, but I think my friend Tria was the first. I know she definitely loves McGuire’s work and has read some of the books several times!
3. Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers. My mother gave me this one, and I think I’ve posted on numerous occasions about its importance to me.
4. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. I think the first time I saw this recommended was by my friend Rachel; it is now one of my favourite books in the world, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.
5. Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey. I actually don’t know who bought this for me; they never admitted to it. But it arrived in the post one day and I proceeded to devour everything by Carey. Feel free to reveal yourself, anonymous benefactor.
6. Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch. First recommended by a friend I met while I was at university, Marc. I’m rereading the series now and it’s better than I remembered — and I’m about to get to the one that really pulls the heartstrings.
7. The Vintner’s Luck, by Elizabeth Knox. Recommended by my second-year flatmate, this is just a gorgeous book.
8. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. A long-time favourite, this was recommended by my friend Sev. And I need to reread it soon. And oh look, my wife has a copy right there.
9. The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. I feel like this counts because I read it via a book club. I almost don’t dare revisit it, because it tore my heart into bits.
10. Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner. Way back when I was on Livejournal I was recommended this one. I still reread it occasionally, and I really should get round to reading Tremontaine…

And, you know, I’m always looking for more recommendations…

This week’s theme is villains! Instead of picking out favourite specific villains, I’m going for lists of things that make good villains (you know what I mean)! Or, if not good villains, then villains that I find interesting.

1. They don’t just hate everyone. There are people and causes they care about; there are reasons for why they do what they do. Especially good is if they have people that care about them, who might not deserve the pain of losing them. Tasty conflict for all!
2. They’re not just mentally ill. Half of the time it’s just a lazy way out anyway, and it’s also an excuse to stereotype mental illness, etc.
3. They have a sense of humour. I’m sorry, I’m a sucker for a snarky bad guy.
4. They have a cause, and it may even be a good one. Bring on the moral complexity! Someone going about something that’s worth doing, but doing it in the wrong way? Yeaaah, works for me.
5. You can understand them. If they have a stupid grudge from a minor accident they had as a child, you can’t sympathise with that. The most powerful villains — to my mind, anyway — are the ones you can understand.
6. You can’t understand them at all. On the flipside, a completely enigmatic villain can be amazing too. Especially in something with horror elements. It makes things more unpredictable.
7. They have a sense of honour. They won’t strike a man while he’s down, etc. This goes hand in hand with a lot of the other stuff; they’re on the wrong side of the conflict, but you can’t help but wish they weren’t.
8. They are redeemable. If they’re not, then you don’t have to worry if they’ll do the awful thing — you know they can and will. But if there’s hope of redemption, you can hope they won’t do the awful thing.
9. They don’t reveal their own plans. I mean, really. If it needs saying…
10. They do not have an evil laugh. That’d be a dead giveaway, right?

Okay, so tongue in cheek for some of those. I’m looking forward to seeing if anyone’s reccing some good villains!

I skipped last week’s Top Ten Tuesday because TV in general is not my thing (ask my wife how long I’ve been vaguely intending to watch all of NCIS…), and this week’s theme is so hard it makes me tempted to skip it too: “Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Books Of X Genre”.

I mean, what genre do I even pick? (Well, fantasy, obviously.) And then how do I narrow it down? But here’s a bash at it…

1. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. And absolutely no one is surprised. I just love the hopefulness in it, the mindfulness of the main character, the clever linguistic stuff, all the characters and their flaws… I saw someone describe a five star read as being the sort of book where you love it even for its flaws, and I think that’s a very apt description of how I feel about The Goblin Emperor.
2. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I like The Hobbit, but I don’t love it in the intellectual way I love unravelling LotR. I studied Tolkien’s work during my degree, I’ve read the source texts and inspirations, I’ve gone a full circle from loving to hating to accepting and appreciating Tolkien’s style… Again, a book I love with its flaws and all.
3. The Grey King, by Susan Cooper. It’s difficult to choose a single book of this sequence, but I think The Grey King is my favourite, for Bran. I love the atmosphere, the background lore and mystery, and I appreciate that we see a few more shades of grey in this book than in the others.
4. The Summer Tree, by Guy Gavriel Kay. The first book by GGK that I read, and one that has stuck with me more than the others, even when it isn’t stylistically, objectively the best. It’s a homage to previous fantasy, including Tolkien, and it includes characters whose loves and hates tear me apart. It’s another one I definitely love despite its flaws, and maybe even because of them.
5. The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula Le Guin. A Wizard of Earthsea probably means more to me, in that I connect with Ged’s self-discovery more than Tenar’s, but I’ve always loved the style of this one, the world it describes, the slow rituals of the Nameless ones, and the quiet moments of clarity Le Guin is so good at writing. I’m not sure I admit of any flaws possible in this book…
6. Chalice, by Robin McKinley. This one snuck up on me, and I never expected to love it as much as I do. But something about the world McKinley created, the domestic aspects, the homeishness of the way it feels… This is one I wouldn’t necessarily recommend to someone else, but it found a corner of my heart to live in.
7. Among Others, by Jo Walton. Needless to say, really. I connect so strongly with Mori, her love of reading and imagining, and with some of her difficulties of identity too.
8. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin. The first time I read this, I settled down to read a chapter — and promptly read the whole book. I love the world Jemisin created.
9. In the Labyrinth of Drakes, by Marie Brennan. Or this whole series, really — I just found the latest installment so satisfying that it went immediately on my favourites shelf. The books have grown on me since the first time I read the first one, and now I think I’d happily devour them over and over.
10. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. I hesitated about this one, because it’s not the same sort of love I have for the other books. Instead it’s a kind of appreciation of how it was put together, the cleverness and care of it — not a passionate caring about the characters or even the world. It was the experience of reading it that I loved, more than the book itself.

That was easier than I thought — whew. What would be on your list?