This week’s theme from The Broke and The Bookish is “top ten things books made me want to do or learn”. Now I’m sure if I thought about it I could come up with some serious answers (like the way The Grey King by Susan Cooper always makes me want to learn to play the harp — or the way books on archaeology really make me reconsider my childhood dream of working with Time Team), but it’s waaaay too warm here, so you get the silly version.

1. Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. Magic! Obviously! I want to be able to dress myself or cook a meal with a word. That’d be really handy.
2. Magic Breaks, by Ilona Andrews. I want to be able to sword fight like Kate. I mean, okay, I am a total wuss about pain in reality, but I’d be badass anyway.
3. Hawkeye, from Marvel. Or countless other archers in my reading past, like Katniss. Because archery looks fun.
4. Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. I want to know when people are lying, like Lying Cat. Okay, that would probably actually really suck. Some lies really do smooth the way between people.
5. Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers. I want to rock a monocle like Lord Peter. And say things like “I’ll make a noise like a hoop and roll away.”
6. Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton. I want to be a dragon. That counts for this list, right? And I want to wear really cute hats. As a dragon.
7. The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North. Maybe not all the time, but I’d love Hope’s ability to be forgotten. Especially when I’ve just embarrassed myself.
8. A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan. Studying dragons would be really super easy if I was a dragon (see #6).
9. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. The title says it all.
10. Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie. I want to know how to make tea. No, really, I suck at it. Nobody likes my tea.

Anyone else done a silly version…?

This post is a little later in the day than usual, because apparently I suck at timekeeping. Sorry! This week’s theme is “books set outside the US”. Which does actually cover a fair old number of books I know, since I come from the UK, but I’ll see what I can do to make an interesting list!

1. Cocaine Blues, by Kerry Greenwood. This is the first book in the Phryne Fisher series, set in Australia. It’s a lot of fun, has LGBTQ characters, found families, and a proactive, capable female lead.
2. The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff. This is a solid historical fiction, based on real findings about Roman Britain, and suitable for just about all ages. The protagonist, Marcus, is injured seriously, early in the book, and throughout the book there are also excellent depictions of how he deals with the pain and disability.
3. Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch. Urban fantasy, but set in London and the surrounding environs, this is the start of a series which features Peter Grant, a police officer who turns out to be able to use magic and thus solve magical-related crimes.
4. Midnight Never Come, by Marie Brennan. This is historical fantasy set in Elizabethan England. I might not love it quite as much as the slightly-alternate-reality in Brennan’s Lady Trent books, but it’s awesome nonetheless.
5. The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North. This hops all over the place, but it starts in Dubai and spends a good portion of the time there and in other countries round the world.
6. Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds. Most of the action takes place in an alternate version of 1940s France; some takes place in the future, in floating habitats in Earth’s atmosphere. (Guess who managed to mess up the environment.)
7. The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope. Very fine historical fantasy, set in the reign of Mary Tudor. It’s partly based on the ‘Tam Lin’ story, but it also becomes something very much its own.
8. The Girl from Everywhere, by Heidi Heilig. Noticed how many of these are fantasy set in our world? It’s my thing, sorry. This one, too, set mostly in Hawaii and using mythical aspects of life in Honolulu.
9.  Glamour in Glass, by Mary Robinette Kowal. I’m not a huge fan of the first book of this series, but the second book took off for me. Alt-Regency, with an interesting form of magic…
10. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. This one is pretty popular, but I must put it in the list anyway because I love how very British it is (though it does feature other places in Europe). It’s a huge tome, but worth it, I promise.

Now let’s hope I find some time to visit other people’s posts for more bookshelf inspiration!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a freebie week, so I mined the past topics for something interesting, and grabbed “Top Ten Books I Was ‘Forced’ To Read”. Which I shall interpret as meaning books read for class, rather than books people pressed upon me in a friendly manner…

1. The Decameron, Boccaccio. Technically I don’t think I had to read this, but doing so definitely helps to understand the context of stuff like Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. And it is, in fact, a darn good read; some of the stories get repetitive, but there’s a lot of fascinating stuff going on.
2. The Annotated Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien and Douglas A. Anderson. Normally I probably wouldn’t be interested in an annotated edition, but this has some really fascinating stuff.
3. Cwmardy, Lewis Jones. Or basically all the Welsh literature I read for class, because it was all pretty eye-opening for me.
4. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. My love affair with this poem didn’t really begin until I read it in the original, at a painstakingly slow speed, with a really intelligent tutor at the helm.
5. Njal’s Saga. I just love that you can sum it up as “John Grisham for ancient Iceland”.
6. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie. No, really! It was a class on crime fiction and it was awesome, and while Christie’s writing could get formulaic, reading this one alone was pretty awesome.
7. Country Dance, Margiad Evans. Or was it Turf or Stone? Either way, this deserves a special mention alongside Cwmardy because the introduction just hit me in the gut with oh, I recognise this… I forget who it was, but someone wrote about not knowing anything about Welsh literature as they grew up, and thinking there was none, and yeah, I’ve been there.
8. The Mabinogion. Else what kind of Welsh person would I be? But I didn’t really ‘get’ it or dig into it until I had to read it and relate it to other texts and dig into research and scholarship.
9. Postcolonialism Revisited, Kirsti Bohata. The birth of my understanding of Wales as a colony, and our literature as postcolonial. Not that non-Welsh classmates tended to appreciate this point of view.
10. Richard III, William Shakespeare. I honestly did not ‘get’ Shakespeare at first, so never bothered to read the history plays. Which turned out to be my favourites.

English Lit degree: useful for something, at least.

This week’s theme is “Top Ten 2016 Releases So Far”. And I’m not sure I’ve read ten yet… But let’s have a shot.

1. This Savage Song, by Victoria Schwab. I had this as an ARC and it’s finally out; it’s awesome, and possibly my favourite of her books so far.
2. The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North. Fascinating core idea and well-executed. I think I like it more than Touch or The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, and I did like those too.
3. The Raven and the Reindeer, by T. Kingfisher. Fun lesbian retelling of ‘The Snow Queen’. No, I’m not kidding.
4. In the Labyrinth of Drakes, by Marie Brennan. Enormously satisfying for fans of the series, and it keeps on bringing the awesome.
5. Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire. For a novella, this was very satisfying, and it’s definitely encouraged me to get on and read more of McGuire’s work.
6. The Winner’s Kiss, by Marie Rutkoski. Picked right back up again after I disliked some things about the second book, and gave us an excellent end.
7. The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home, by Catherynne M. Valente. A lovely end to the series, and avoided the trope I was really scared of.
8. City of Blades, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Give me mooooooore…
9. Kingfisher, by Patricia A. McKillip. I suspect I’ll appreciate this more if I ever come back and reread it. It has her usual magic all the same.
10. The Girl From Everywhere, by Heidi Heilig. Fascinating setting (Hawaii, 1884) and some awesome characters. By which I mostly mean Kash.

Well, that was surprisingly easy! I guess I’m keeping up better than I thought.

This week’s theme is “Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of the Year”, which is always a difficult topic for me as I have no real clue what’s upcoming. I know, I’m rubbish. So here’s a bunch of books that I don’t think are out yet, which I want to get.

1. Ghost Talkers, by Mary Robinette Kowal. I’ve been in love with the cover since it was announced, and I’ve enjoyed Kowal’s previous books.
2. This Savage Song, by Victoria Schwab. I’ve actually read this already, but I love it and I want more people to read it. You can check out my review here!
3. Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor. I might not have got round to reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters yet, but that’s definitely not Taylor’s fault. I’m excited for her next book!
4. The Reader, by Traci Chee. I can’t remember where I first saw this, but I know it’s been in my mind as something to check out for a while now.
5. Den of Wolves, by Juliet Marillier. I haven’t actually read the second book yet, but I enjoyed Dreamer’s Pool a lot, so I’m looking forward to this.
6. The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman. I found the second book really entertaining and better than I expected, so I’m actually quite impatient for this one!
7. Necessity, by Jo Walton. It’s Jo, ’nuff said.
8. The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin. Hopefully it’ll give me the kick in the butt to read The Fifth Season, ahaha…
9. City of Miracles, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Okay, technically I think it’s January of 2017, but shush, I want it noooow.
10. Ruined, by Amy Tintera. Because Cait @ Paper Fury made it sound awesome.

I’m surprised — quite a few of these actually leaped to mind! What’s everyone else looking forward to? Have I forgotten something obvious?

This week’s theme is “Ten Reasons I Love X”, and for a minute I couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to gush about — or I could, but nothing I thought I could come up with a whole list for, or which might be interesting to anyone else.

Then it struck me. So here are ten reasons I love fairytales (and fairytale retellings)!

1. Something about them has spoken to people for a long, long time. These are really old stories that have been told by consensus, basically — by people deciding on the bits they like and adding new parts and ditching things which don’t make sense anymore. They’re like a well-worn shirt.
2. They’re still variable. We can still change them. Every day, if we want to. We can tell the same story with different characters (and even read the same stories with different characters) and explore all the little ways we can tweak the meanings, the messages.
3. They contain all kinds of magic. It doesn’t matter what magic you need, you can probably find it in fairytales. Alchemy? Ask Rumpelstiltskin. Fairy Godmothers? True love’s kiss?
4. We can use them to ask questions. Like, why would you love a Beast? What’s going on with this story?
5. They’re suitable for any age. These stories are timeless, and it’s because they contain stuff that appeals to children and adults alike. The child wonders about what’s there to find in the wood, other than the Big Bad Wolf. The adult knows the anxiety of Red Riding Hood’s mother, or the patience of the grandmother, or the hunger of the Wolf…
6. They can be universal. We could go around collecting dozens of variations on a fairytale, or collect them together and call it an archetype. There’s versions of these stories in so many cultures — doesn’t that say something?
7. They can be specific. Robin Hood lives in Sherwood Forest, and you can go there and walk where he walked. Or walk past a lake where a fairy came out of the water to marry a human man. This or that glade or grotto, somewhere you know and can visit and touch, has a secret magic.
8. You always know what’s coming. Once upon a time. A wicked witch. True love’s kiss. Happily ever after.
9. But they can surprise you all the same. It doesn’t have to happen the same way every time. Sleeping Beauty can fall in love with the Wicked Witch or a stableboy or serving maid. The important part is the kiss, the happy ever after. Cinderella can be an android.
10. We can make new fairytales with the old formulae. We know how it goes: sets of three, a stepmother, a tiny house in the forest…

For two writers who do really good takes on fairytales, try T. Kingfisher and Robin McKinley… Sarah Pinborough’s retellings are also interesting. And there’s a lot more out there.

This week’s theme is “beach reads”. Now, I kind of… don’t do beach reads. I’ll read whatever books whether I’m on the beach or not, and I don’t really go with ‘themes’ for the time of year or anything… I know, I know, I’m boring.

And to top it off, I’m not likely to go to the beach. So I’m at a loss for how to handle this theme and will go for “books I am planning to read soon”, in that it is beach weather here.

1. Hex, Thomas Olde Heuvelt. I’ve heard conflicting stories on whether this is scary or not, but either way, I’m a wuss. So summer might be the best time to read it, when the days are long and bright…
2. A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas. Once I’ve reread A Court of Thorns and Roses, anyway. Just picked up my copy.
3. The King of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner. This is a reread, but it’s been aaaages. I just finished rereading Queen of Attolia, though. [And because I wrote this post a ways in advance, now I have read it!
4. A Local Habitation, Seanan McGuire. Before I end up forgetting details of Rosemary and Rue.
5. The Girl with All the Gifts, M.R. Carey. I really have to get round to reading this, don’t I?
6. Little, Big, John Crowley. Since I recently picked up a second copy…
7. Hammered, Elizabeth Bear. My partner’s been poking me to read these for, uh, a while.
8. Uprooted, Naomi Novik. It’s been waiting long enough for me to get round to it, and it sounds great. And it’s on the Hugo ballot.
9. The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers. I really really want to get round to this one, from all I’ve heard.
10. Midnight Never Come, Marie Brennan. I really love her Lady Trent books — it’s time I read this. [Read this one now, too!]

Somewhat random selection, I know…