Top 10 Tuesday: Random Books From My Shelves
A new Tuesday, a new prompt for Top 10 Tuesday. This week the prompt is to randomly choose 10 books from your bookshelves . That's a fun and easy one. I actually closed my eyes and picked one from the stack by my bed, one from the stack by the sofa, the other 8 from my bookshelves, 2 per shelf.
Thanks to Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl for hosting another week of Top Ten Tuesday. I enjoy participating each week for a couple reasons. I'm a compulsive list maker and love a good list. And, I love a connection with other readers as I wander their book blogs. Here are random books from around the house.
From the stack next to my bed and next to the sofa:
The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain
A rich, genre-spanning, breathtaking novel about one mother's quest to save her child, unite her family, and believe in the unbelievable. Diane Chamberlain pushes the boundaries of faith and science to deliver a novel that you will never forget.
Babel by R.F. Kuang
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
From my bookshelves, shelf 1:
Suspect #1 by Robert Crais
LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well. Eight months ago, a shocking nighttime assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty...until he meets his new partner.
Maggie is not doing so well, either. A German shepherd who survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before losing her handler to an IED, her PTSD is as bad as Scott's.
They are each other's last chance.
Silent Girl #9 by Tess Gerritsen
Every crime scene tells a story. Some keep you awake at night. Others haunt your dreams. The grisly display homicide cop Jane Rizzoli finds in Boston’s Chinatown will do both.
Cracking a crime resonating with bone-chilling echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with centuries of cunning—and a swift, avenging blade.
From my bookshelves, shelf 2:
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone’s Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it’s the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you’ll never forget . . . one you’ll want to pass on to your best friend.
The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs
Avoiding shellfish was easy. The stoning of adulterers proved a little more difficult - and potentially controversial. Was it enough to walk up to an adulterer and gently touch them with a stone? Even that could be grounds for accusations of assault, especially with female adulterers in Manhattan. So what's a good Bible-reading boy to do?
Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the hundreds of less-publicised rules. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal, and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.
From my bookshelves, shelf 3:
The Snowman #7 by Jo Nesbo
Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother's pink scarf. Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he's received and the disappearance of Jonas's mother - and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised - and constantly revised - by the killer.
One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf
In her most emotionally charged novel to date, New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf explores the unspoken events that shape a community, the ties between parents and their children and how the fragile normalcy of our everyday life is so easily shattered.
As tension mounts with each passing minute, the hidden fears and grudges of the small town are revealed as the people of Broken Branch race to uncover the identity of the stranger who holds their children hostage.
From my bookshelves, shelf 4:
Child 44 #1 by Tom Rob Smith
MGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken. He is forced to watch a man he knows to be innocent be brutally tortured. And then he is told to arrest his own wife. Leo understands how the State works: Trust and check, but check particularly on those we trust. He faces a stark choice: his wife or his life. And still the killings of children continue...
Everybody's Son by Thrity Umrigar
Umrigar deftly explores issues of race, class, privilege, and power and asks us to consider uncomfortable moral questions in this probing, ambitious, emotionally wrenching novel of two families—one black, one white.
Following in his adopted family’s footsteps, Anton, too, rises within the establishment. But when he discovers the truth about his life, his birth mother, and his adopted parents, this man of the law must come to terms with the moral complexities of crimes committed by the people he loves most.
I think this will be another week that will cause my TBR to grow (and grow). I can't wait to see what books are on your shelves. Here's to all of us reading lots of good books in 2023.
