Top Ten Tuesday: Hidden Gems

It's been an age since I did a Top Ten Tuesday with The Broke and the Bookish, and this week's prompt is near and dear to my heart, since I never seem to be reading the same much-loved books as everyone else, but I still think I read a lot of great books. 

Here are ten of what I think are the most underrated books I've read in the past few years.  I hope you'll give some of these gems a chance!

1. The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory by Stacy Wakefield - This book was my first experience with indie publisher Akashic, and I love it.  I haven't been a crusader/evangelist for any particular book in a while but for this one.  It's about a girl coming to NYC to be apart of the thriving squatting scene.  It's not action packed or anything, but I loved Sid, the un-stereotypical punk rock girl who's a little on the chubby side and looking for a place where she fits.  The book is a totally organic, vivid snippet of her life, and I was so taken with it!    (My Review)

2. Paperboy by Tony Macaulay - It is decidedly rare to find a book that I find both laugh out loud funny and marginally educational.  Macaulay's memoir of growing up in Belfast, Ireland during the Troubles of the 1970s wouldn't at first strike you as a belly laughing sort of book, but somehow Macaulay blends his life as a typical kid with the darker moments of the Troubles in a way that is (at times darkly) hilarious.  (My Review)

3. 104 Horses by Mandy Retzlaff - I'm always going on about this memoir of the Retzlaff family's terrifying time in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.  Their idyllic African life is shattered when the movement to restore land and property to Zimbabwe's black population from the white descendants of the former colonizers turns violent.  As Mandy, her husband, and children flee the country, they find they can't do so without their beloved horses and, as it happens, many others' horses that were in danger from the violence.  A heartwarming, heartbreaking memoir that reads like a letter from a friend.  (My Review)

4. The Mapmaker's War by Ronlyn Domingue - I have so many regrets of not reviewing The Mapmaker's War when it was fresh in my mind, such that I feel like I need to re-read it.  What I do know is this is high fantasy written entirely in the second person and it made me long for all the high fantasy that I'd been missing in my life. 

5. In a World Just Right by Jen Brooks - I'm so sad that this book didn't get more attention.  It's got all the good YA stuff that makes for good YA.  Jonathan Aubrey was the only survivor in his family of a horrific plane crash that left him alone with his uncle with only the magical worlds he can conjure to protect him from cruel realities, that is, until his fantasy world where's he's got the girl of his dreams collides with the real world in a kiss.  Then, strange occurrences and questions start piling up in Jonathan's life until the truth comes out - packing an impressive emotional wallop.  (My Review)

6. Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden - This may be the slowest paced book I have ever loved with a passion. An unnamed female playwright narrates her lazy, introspective day at her friend Molly's house in Dublin.  It's the Summer Solstice (also Molly's birthday, of course), and the narrator has a long, beautiful summer's day to herself and spends it reflecting on her past, on art, and on friends and lovers who might have been.  I thought it was profound and also a glowing portrait of a perfect, languorous summer day to boot.  (My Review)

7. Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones - Here's a book that definitely should have gotten more attention.  First of all, it's a perfect amalgamation of horror story with a more literary coming of age bent.  Second of all, the narrator who's coming of age might be a werewolf....or not.  Finally, his aunt and uncle who are raising him are werewolves, but not the werewolves of fantasy, more the werewolves of gritty reality who are normal folks trying to eke out a living that end up perpetually on the run to avoid the suspicion of their true natures.  Jones' imagining of real, modern life with werewolves is perfectly explained and achingly realistic. (My Review)

8. The Marauders by Tom Cooper - This is a book that got disturbingly little attention in the book blogosphere, and honestly it was a book I didn't expect to like much less love.  I did love it, though.  The Marauders is populated with would-be unlikeable down on their luck misfits and miscreants that call the Louisiana bayou town of Jeannette home in the wake of hurricanes and oil spills and various misfortunes.  Usually a crop of deeply unlikeable characters can sour a book, but somehow Cooper manages to tell a rollicking good story with wild twists and humorous wrong place wrong time encounters that also reaches beneath the surface to illuminate a whole way of life and engender our sympathies and appreciation for a community that keeps pulling itself up by its bootstraps, whatever life throws their way.  (My Review)

9. Dreamland by Kevin Baker - Kevin Baker doesn't get much blogger attention either, but I fell in love with this epic tale of the immigrants, gangsters, factory workers, crooked politicians, and well-meaning socialites who populated early twentieth century New York.  New York, even when riddled with crime and poverty always seems to have a unique glow of possibility.  I love this era of history, and Brown captures it wonderfully, capturing the contrasts of a city when both overcrowded tenements and Coney Island amusement parks were in their heyday.  (My Review)

10. Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert - I never got around to reviewing this one, but I was enthralled and touched by Rotert's debut which features a 1960s jazz club singer who escaped her small town seeking both the acceptance and the adoration she could never hope for at home.  Her childhood and journey are set alongside her ten-year-old daughter's perspective on life and her larger than life mother.   The pair's relationship is fraught with all the many things each needs and the other can't provide.  The family they create for themselves is full of unique and lovable characters, and when the flashback backstory meets up with the present, this story attains a startling clarity that leaves you caring for these characters more than ever. 

What are some of your favorite underrated books?

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated

I love these Top Ten Tuesdays that are all about getting excited about the books slated for release this year.  I don't think I did one for the first six months of the year, but after reading a lot of BEA recap posts and realizing how many authors I like who have new books coming out in the latter part of this year, this list practically wrote itself.  So in conjunction with The Broke and the Bookish, I give you my top ten most anticipated releases for the rest of 2016.

1. Darktown by Thomas Mullen (Atria 9/13/2016) - You may have heard me go on (and on and on) about Mullen's book The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, so there's no doubt that I'll need to track down his next round of historical fiction which features Atlanta's first black police officers.

2. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Viking 9/6/2016) - Speaking of historical fiction, I can't wait to get my paws on the sophomore work by the author of Rules of Civility, which I loved.  Gentleman is about an unrepentant aristocrat sentenced by Bolshevik tribunal to live out his life under house arrest in a Moscow hotel.  Sounds very different but equally enticing!

3. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (Harper 9/13/2016) - Ann Patchett is another author I've been loving for a while between Bel Canto and The Magician's Assistant and Truth & Beauty.  Her latest sounds like a true family saga that follows the reverberations from one misplaced kiss.

4. This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell (Knopf 7/19/2016) - I loved O'Farrell's style in The Hand That First Held Mine and After You'd Gone (the book that contributed my header quote!), so a new book by her is always cause for celebration. I don't have too awful long to wait for this one about an American professor who falls in love with a world famous actress while on holiday in Ireland. 

5. The Motion of Puppets by Keith Donohue (Picador 10/4/2016) - Donohue's The Stolen Child is another book I rave about, and this one sounds like it has a bit in common with it, except creepier and with puppets.

6. Nobody's Son by Mark Slouka (W.W. Norton 10/18/2016) - I was totally captivated by Slouka's writing in his last novel, Brewster, so I'm hoping the same magic carries over to this memoir that centers on his parents, Czechoslovakian refugees.

7. I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows (Henry Holt 8/9/2016) - This one keeps landing on my radar, historical fiction about a woman trying to keep her family together in 1930s Oklahoma, where drought and dust storms threaten.  I love the cover, and the story sounds compelling, too.


At this point in my list, I became uncertain of which book to feature as number eight, so naturally I got sucked into a Goodreads vortex of "Omigosh this one sounds good!  And this one sounds good!  And this one sounds good, too!" until I had to take a break to tremble in a corner for a while and cry out to all my friends that it's not fair that there are so many books to read and so much time that I spend not reading them.  Hold on, let me gather myself here.


But this one...  And that one...  And...and...uh, one more minute.  Okay.

8. Mischling by Affinity Konar (Little Brown/Lee Boudreaux 9/6/2016) - I am a sucker, a total and complete sucker, for Holocaust related historical fiction.  I have been since I was but a young reader. There are twins and Auschwitz and Mengele and liberation...and I must have it. 

9. The Wonder by Emma Donaghue (Little, Brown 9/20/2016) - In the authors I don't read so much as I collect, is Emma Donaghue with a new book that sounds every interesting.  A girl in Ireland is fasting and surviving only on "manna from heaven."  Is it a miracle or a murder?

10. The Infinite by Nicholas Mainieri (Harper 11/15/2016) - And then, out of left field comes this debut I heard about during Harper's fall books preview webinar-y thing that I totally left work early to attend before BEA.  It's a post-Katrina love story of sorts.  There are undocumented immigrants and babies and violence, and I am enticed all over again.


I could go on and on and on.  I mean, I didn't even hazard a glance at the YA side of things lest be reduced to a quivering mass of to-be-readness.  I trust that there will be a boat load of YA focused Top Ten posts that will reduce me thus, anyhow.  What's one (ha, one!) book you're looking forward to that's coming out later this year?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Will Make You Laugh

It's been a while since I've done a Top Ten Tuesday with The Broke and the Bookish, or really much blogging at all, I guess.  This week's a great chance to talk about some different books than the usual suspects because we're talking books that make us laugh.  I rarely laugh out loud reading a book but here are ten that got me giggling.

1. No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene - I loved Greene's memoir about raising her large family of both biological and internationally adopted children.  The only way to make a family this big work is with a good sense of humor, and Greene has plenty of laughs to spare.

2. Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger - This book is Hilarious with a capital H.  Composed of letters between a misfit pain in the ass kid and the arrogant ballplayer that becomes his father figure, this book had me rolling.  It's full of laughs and heart.

3. Home to Woefield by Susan Juby - This one's a fun romp of a book about a former city dweller turned idealist farmer and her newfound odd ensemble of friends that help her restore a run down farm to its former glory.  Irrepressible Prudence trying to wrangle her staff of a kid who breeds chickens, a guy who lives his whole life on the internet, and the farm's grumpy old caretaker is definitely good for some laughs.

4. The Cactus Eaters by Dan White - In which hiking novice and downright funny guy Dan White decides to take on the daunting task of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.  Let's just say the books is way more successful than the hike.

5. Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty - When Celia runs off to join the circus, she leaves her best friend Elizabeth behind.  Elizabeth's life is illuminated entirely in notes and letters but in the most entertaining way possible.

6. The Martian by Andy Weir - Mark Watney's sense of humor makes this very science-y novel about an astronaut stuck on Mars into an unexpectedly laughter filled novel.

7. Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream - For those among us who prefer a little dark humor, artist Clementine has decided to commit suicide, but first she has to tie up some loose ends and, you know, practice.  A dark topic maybe, but trying on coffins and practicing injections on chickens make for some twisted laughs.

8. The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky - Dark humor at its finest again.  The mother in this tale is such a twisted narcissist that you might just find yourself laughing, if you aren't cringing too much.

9. Queen of the Road by Doreen Orion - The travel memoir of a woman who has way too many shoes and a penchant for staying in bed, but is persuaded to road trip the nation by her wily husband.  There's this converted motor home and this story about a tractor (I think?) and a cocktail for every chapter.  What's not to love (and laugh at)? 

10. Paperboy by Tony Macaulay - Paperboy is a hilarious coming of age memoir about a kid growing up in 1970s Belfast.  Macaulay takes the guitar lesson after "Pammy Wynette," attains paperboy seniority in a wretched ensemble of typically '70s clothing, and can be found kicking his favorite band in appreciation.  I laughed so much.

What books left you laughing?

Top Ten Tuesday Featuring Bookgenie the Great!

This week at The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday, there is a special guest.  The Bookish Genie is on hand and ready to grant each of us our top ten bookish wishes.  I want my wishes to have staying power, so here are a few reading accoutrements I think would really brighten up my reading life.  Thanks, Bookgenie!  

1. Expandoshelves  - Come on, who doesn't want these?  They look like normal shelves and take up the space allotted to normal shelves, but they have hidden depths that hold zillions more books.  No more double stacking on your shelves!  No more feeling bad about those books that are still stuffed in boxes because you're all out of shelf space.  Expandoshelves, yes.

2. The Reformatter - Okay, so sometimes you want hardcovers because they look pretty on your shelves, right?  But sometimes you wish those same books were paperbacks so they wouldn't drag you down when you stuff them in your purse for reading on the go?  And sometimes you want your paper book to be an ebook and your ebook to be a paperback?  Or even audio?  So without spending lots of extra dough, I want to have the same book in all the versions.

3. The Speedier Readier Experience - I want to be able to read fast without feeling like I'm rushing.  And while I'm reading fast I want to have the same experience as if I were reading slow and savoring.  Is it so much to ask?

4. The Weight Transformer - When you put books in a box, like when you're about to move, could they suddenly become like an eighth of the weight you would expect? You know, so your friends and family will stop ridiculing you when you move?  That would be good.

5. The Eater Reader Forcefield - Some of us like to eat while we read.  Some of us are also slobs.  How about a nice little invisible forcefield to protect my books from their reader?

6. The Annotator Eraser - Sometimes it would be nice to be able to write in my books without feeling like I'm defacing something.  So I can underline stuff and write notes for reviews without leaving a messy lasting impact, once the review is written and I'm ready to send a book on its merry way?  Annotations begone!

7. The Ebook Deal Shock Collar - I mean, something has to keep me from pulling the trigger every time I see a half decent ebook priced at $1.99.  When am I ever going to read....even half of them??

8. The Bookstore Equalizer - Wherein we take a few beautiful bookstores out of the cities where they're struggling under the weight of colossal rents and magically move them to places where we're struggling under the weight of having startlingly few bookstores.  Sorry, high rent cities, how come you get to have all the fun anyway?

9. The Series Reader Time Machine - Gone are the days of waiting a year for that next book in the series.  Never again will you forget the details of books one and two while waiting for book three.  Just hop in your trusty time machine, snag copies of the rest of the series, and presto no more of those pesky unfinished series' dogging you through the years.

10. The Reading Time Stretcherator - No longer will the perils of having a job and human relationships keep you from having the time you need to read.  That's because the book genie can magically stretch, the uh oops, only ten minutes you managed to save to read before bed, into as many minutes as you want!  Yay, bookgenie!  How long I have wanted this!

Do you have any wishes for the Bookish Genie? 

Top Ten Tuesday: My Fall TBR

It's time again to engage in that futile effort of trying to predict what I may read in the next season that is presently coming upon us.  This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic brought to us by The Broke and the Bookish is, of course "Top Ten Books on My Fall TBR."  Since I read from my own stacks almost entirely at random, this seemed like a good opportunity to share 10 review books that I'm particularly looking forward to and hope to get to this fall.  Here they are!

Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam - "A vibrant debut novel, set in Brooklyn and Bangladesh, Bright Lines follows three young women and one family struggling to make peace with secrets and their past."  I received two excellent-looking books from Penguin earlier this summer that are set to help me read more diversely.  I read the first one which was excellent, but I've still got this one to go! 

 The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks - This one just rolled into my mailbox.  I loved Year of Wonders, so I can't wait to see what Brooks does with the story of King David, you know...of Biblical fame?

Love and Other Ways of Dying by Michael Paterniti - I won this one from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers months and months and months ago, but it only just came.  In other news, this book of essays just got a longlist nod for the National Book Award, so I'm that much more excited to read these "ultimately uplifting" essays that "turn a keen eye on the full range of human experience."

Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade - Debut historical fiction - "In 1919, four-year-old Rachel Rabinowitz is placed in the Hebrew Infant Home where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research on the children. Dr. Solomon subjects Rachel to an experimental course of X-ray treatments that establish the doctor's reputation while risking the little girl's health. Now it's 1954, and Rachel is a nurse in the hospice wing of the Old Hebrews Home when elderly Dr. Solomon becomes her patient. Realizing the power she holds over the helpless doctor, Rachel embarks on a dangerous experiment of her own design. Before the night shift ends, Rachel will be forced to choose between forgiveness and revenge."  Yes.

The Uninvited by Cat Winters - Here's a good token ghost story for the ghosty season of the year.  "
Ivy’s life-long gift—or curse—remains. For she sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked, unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918 she sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother’s chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death of Ivy’s older brother Billy in the Great War."

The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marra - I'm not always the biggest fan of short stories, but something about these interconnected ones that start with a 1930s Soviet censor caught my eye.   

Early One Morning by Virginia Baily - World War II historical fiction in which a woman in occupied Rome rescues a boy from being deported, and the aftermath of that event.  

Marvel and a Wonder by Joe Meno - A man and his biracial grandson come together while chasing down the thieves that stole the horse that was willed to the man by mistake.  Sounds different, right?  And good!

A Master Plan for Rescue by Janis Cooke Newman - Historical fiction is apparently my thing this fall.  Set in 1942 New York and Berlin "A Master Plan for Rescue is a beautiful tale, propelled by history and imagination, that suggests people's impact upon the world doesn't necessarily end with their lives, and that, to some degree, we are the sum of the stories we tell."  I kind of dig stories about the power of storytelling, too.  This sounds like a winner.

Under a Dark Summer Sky by Vanessa Lafaye -  Because I'm not ready to let summer go, and also, more historical fiction!  "Huron Key is already weighed down with secrets when a random act of violence and a rush to judgment viscerally tear the town apart. As the little island burns under the sun and the weight of past decisions, a devastating storm based on the third-strongest Atlantic Hurricane on record approaches, matching the anger of men with the full fury of the skies. Beautifully written and seductive, Under a Dark Summer Sky is at once a glorious love story, a fascinating slice of social history, and a mesmerizing account of what it's like to be in the eye of a hurricane."

What are you looking forward to reading this fall?

Top Ten Tuesday: Unfinished Reading

Wow, it's been forever since I did a Top Ten Tuesday.  Today's topic seemed like a great one to pick up with, however.  My readerly life is littered with series that I've started but not continued reading.  A lot of those series are even finished being written now.  This week The Broke and the Bookish are asking about all those completed series that we need to go back and finish reading.  Here are mine...

1. The Chaos Walking Series by Patrick Ness -  That's right, I, Megan of Leafing Through Life, have committed the cardinal sin of not having gotten past The Knife of Never Letting Go in my reading of The Chaos Walking Series. Admittedly, I didn't think I loved TKONLG as much as the rest of my book blogging brethren, but I never intended to quit the series. 

2. The Chemical Garden Trilogy by Lauren DeStefano - I loved Wither so much that I snapped up the other two books in the series as they came out, but I still have yet to actually read them.  I'm pretty eager to get back to this series, but I think I'll be starting over again at the beginning to refresh my memory.

3. Matched by Ally Condie - I picked up a copy of Matched at my very first BEA, and loved it.  Then I waited a year for the next book and never picked the series back up again.  I have all the books at my disposal now, so it's about time I got back to this one.

4. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr - I loved Melissa Marr's faerie world when I originally read Wicked Lovely.  Now I finally have the rest of the books in the series.  Time for a binge read!

5. Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne - I'm loving this series about a bunch of kids fighting to survive the apocalypse in a department store. This is one series I can guarantee I'll be finishing, and soon!

6. Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready - Okay, I read Shade a good few summers ago, and I didn't love it, but I think I was falling out of love with paranormal YA after a summer over-saturated with it.  I think this is a series I might want to get back to and finish after all.

7. The Gemma Doyle series by Libba Bray - I devoured A Great and Terrible Beauty one Memorial Day weekend when I was hideously sick, and I loved it so much.  Boarding school and magic, always a winning combo, right? I finally managed to amass the other two books, so it's long past time to get back to this one.


8. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - I read the first Twilight book before having done so practically instantly made you an object of ridicule.  I have the box set on my shelves.  Should I finish?  Or is this so five minutes ago?  LOL

9. Penryn and the End of Days by Susan Ee - I was so addicted to the first book of this series about a world overtaken by evil angels that I remember sitting in my car in the grocery store parking lot to finish it instead of putting it down to go do my shopping.  All three books are loaded on my Kindle now.  Can't wait to find out the rest of the story!

10.  The Last Survivors by Susan Beth Pfeffer - I looooooved Life As We Knew It and its impressively realistic view of the start of the apocalypse. Despite what appears to be widespread disappointment with the other three books in the series, I can't help wanting to return to Pfeffer's world where the moon got a little too close and wreaked havoc over the earth.

What series do you need to finish?  Would you encourage me to finish (or not finish) any of the series' above?

Top Ten Tuesday: Quotable

This week's topic for Top Ten Tuesday at The Broke and the Bookish is "Top Ten Inspiring Quotes From Books."  I knew from the outset that I couldn't scrounge up an appropriate amount of inspiring quotes, so I just went with quotes from books that I really like.  There are three types of quotations that occasionally (I wish more often!) make me stop and take notice:  the ones that say something true just right, the ones that make me think, and the ones that describe something ordinary extraordinarily.  Here's a random sampling of ones I've actually managed to record in the course of my reading.  I've attempted to categorize them, but the more I think about, the more they blur the lines. ;-)

The Too True

1. Loneliness is like being the only person left alive in the universe, except that everyone else is still here.  - Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

2.  "Dunno.  Why do you think she's scared of anything?  She's a grown-up, isn't she?  Grown-ups and monsters aren't scared of things."

 "Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie.  "That's why they're monsters.  And as for grown-ups..." ... "I'm going to tell you something important.  Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either.  Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing.  Inside, they look just like they always have.  Like they did when they were your age.  The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups.  Not one, in the whole wide world." -  The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

3. Memory, which so confounds our waking life with anticipation and regret, may well be our one earthly consolation when time slips out of joint. - The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

Give Me Something to Think About

4. Today I am bothered by the story of King Canute. (...) The story is, of course, that he was so arrogant and despotic a leader that he believed he could control everything - even the tide. We see him on the beach, surrounded by subjects, sceptre in hand, ordering back the heedless waves; a laughing stock, in short. But what if we've got it all wrong? What if, in fact, he was so good and great a king that his people began to elevate him to the status of a god, and began to believe that he was capable of anything? In order to prove to them that he was a mere mortal, he took them down to the beach and ordered back the waves, which of course kept on rolling up the beach. How awful it would be if we had got it so wrong, if we had misunderstood his actions for so long. - After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell

5. There was ugliness to it, too, I didn't miss that, but church was full of ugly things - blood and crucifixion and thorns and swords and ears lopped off - that were part of God's perfect plan. - The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips

6. "Safe" said Mr. Beaver, "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe.  But he's good.  He's the King, I tell you." - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (on Aslan the Lion)

7. That's the thing, tho. Noise is noise. It's crash and clatter and it usually adds up to one big mash of sound and thought and picture and half the time it's impossible to make any sense of it at all. Men's minds are messy places and Noise is like the active, breathing face of that mess. It's what's true and what's believed and what's imagined and what's fantasized and it says one thing and a completely opposite thing at the same time and even tho the truth is definitely in there, how can you tell what's true and what's not when you're getting everything?

The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking. - The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.

The Extraordinary Ordinary

8. From that time on, the world was hers for the reading.  She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends.  Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.  There was poetry for quiet companionship.  There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours.  There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography.  On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read a book a day as long as she lived. - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith


9. He still loves the sense of possibility that permeates every building and block. He loves the view of the Hudson from Riverside Park, loves watching the ducks paddle in the Central Park pond, loves the almost-too-pungent scent of gingkos on Manhattan Avenue in the summer. He loves watching his dog's tail wag when he pulls Ike toward Strangers' Gate. He loves the sounds of baseball games in Morningside, mah-jongg tiles on 107th Street, playing cards outside the Frederick Douglass Apartments, the subway underfoot, the flutter and clang of the flags atop the Blockhouse -- every bit of it is music. - Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer

10. Yet on the other hand the snowstorm might mean a respite, a happy wintertime vacation. Schools would shut down, roads would close, no one would go off to their jobs. Families would eat large breakfasts late, then dress for snow and go out in the knowledge that they'd return to warm, snug houses. Smoke would curl from chimneys; at dusk lights would come on. Lopsided snowmen would stand sentinel in yards. There would be enough to eat, no reason for worry. - Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson

What's your favorite quote from a book? 

Top Ten Books on My Spring TBR List

It's been a while since I've done a Top Ten Tuesday, or much reliable blogging at all, if we're being honest, so I'm ready to dive right back in with this week's lists of the top ten books on our Spring TBR lists.  There are a ton of books I want to be reading this spring, and these ten barely scratch the surface, but here's a quick look at what I hope to be reading this spring!

If you want to check out more lists or link up your own, head on over to The Broke and the Bookish to join in the fun.

1. The Reluctant Midwife by Patricia Harman - I read and enjoyed a review copy of Harman's The Midwife of Hope River back when it came out and really enjoyed it.  I'm looking forward to making a return to Harman's richly set Depression-era West Virginia.

2. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman - If you know me, I don't go in for a whole lot of short storying, but if Neil Gaiman writes it, exceptions can be made.

3. In a World Just Right by Jen Brooks - In a World Just Right was on my Top 10 Most Anticipated Debuts list from a few weeks ago.  When Jen wrote to offer me a review copy, I was delighted to say yes.  Looking forward to reading this one very soon!

4. The Martian by Andy Weir - I was excited to find this one under my Christmas tree since I'd heard so much good stuff about it.  I definitely have to read this one before its movies version comes out.

5. The Illusion of Separateness by Simon van Booy - This one was on my Christmas list, too, but I ended up buying it for my own self after the holiday.  I'm super-stoked to read another van Booy after having quite liked Everything Beautiful Began After.

6. Girl Underwater by Claire Kells - I hadn't heard of this debut at all until a listing of Dutton's spring titles showed up in my e-mail box.  It's about a girl who survives a plane crash with a guy she's been avoiding.  Sounds really interesting.

7. The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue - I loved Keith Donohue's The Stolen Child, and this new one of his about a boy whose drawings of monsters "take on a life of their own" sounds like it might well evoke the same kind of eerie magical realism that The Stolen Child did.

8. The Chronicle of Secret Riven by Ronlyn Domingue - I read and quite loved the first book in the series, The Mapmaker's War, around Thanksgiving.  I'm eager to return to Domingue's thoughtful fantasy world.

9. Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy - I spotted this Appalachia-set debut on someone's else's anticipated debuts list, so I was excited to snag an early copy.  They're calling it Winter's Bone meets "Breaking Bad" about a guy who has to choose between his father (and the meth ring he runs) and leaving the life he was born to.

10. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - I'm pretty excited about this one, too.  World War II historical fiction that includes a woman who joins the French Resistance?  I'm in.

What are you excited to be reading this spring?

Top Ten Tuesday: My Bookish Problems

I stopped over to check out the week's prompt for this week's Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish), and I giggled a little when I realized that all I needed to do to list my top ten book-related problems was to take a brief walking tour of my house.  Most of my book related problems have to do with having an overabundance of books and an underabundance of time.  So, that inspired me to share with you a quick photographic tour of my "book problem."  I mean, pictures are worth a thousand books, right?  ;-)

1. Without even moving from my desk, I can spot one problem - the stack of books that have been read and are awaiting my review...

2. A few steps away, my second book problem - my mom's books.  Which are like mine except I won't have to take them all with me when I move...

3. Advancing upstairs, we find these piles of books which are creeping steadily across what remains of my bedroom floor....

4. And this snapshot of just the most recent crop of review copies...

5. Don't even get my started on the Kindle problem.  Yes, that number says 510.  It should be noted that I probably read about 4 ebooks last year.  Yeah, that's definitely a book problem.  (Also, *mumbles* I might have bought a couple more today.)

6. Moving on to the room we fondly refer to as the "book room" as if all the other rooms aren't book rooms, you can spot these poor boxed titles that can't even fit on the overloaded shelves....

7. Next up, this neglected shelf lurking in the uh, non-"book room."

8.  This place is a major book problem.  I have all these books, and this place wants me to spend 40+ hours a week there, not reading books.

9. When I'm not coughing up my 40+ hours for the man, you might find me in front of this problem that takes me away from my books....

10. And finally, it's probably important that I disregard the creeping book piles in favor of demonstrating my trivia prowess to total strangers, right?

So ends my photo tour of book-related problems.  What's your problem?  ;-)