Hi all! I hope you’ve had a good (almost) week since I last did one of these. This is once again late but I’ve had another fairly busy week and just didn’t have the time to sit down and write it on Tuesday-honestly I could have done it yesterday but I spent most of the day on the train up to Stirling and just felt like vegging on the sofa after that long journey so you’re getting it today. I had another fairly busy week of theatre last week: on Wednesday I finally got to see a long awaited cover at Hadestown: Femi Akinfolarin, who took over as 1st cover Hermes in the most recent cast change had his first Hermes shows and he was absolutely wonderful, it was so great to see him and as an added bonus I also got Sebastian Lim-Seet as Orpheus who I love and missed his scheduled shows the week before, so that was great. It was such a wonderful show-worth the half hour show stop due to technical issues and getting home much later than I usually would! On Thursday I went to see Jesus Christ Superstar and I have to admit that one wasn’t really for me, the performers were great, but I just didn’t really get it? I wouldn’t say it wasn’t worth going, Sam Ryder and the rest of the cast were fab, the material just wasn’t for me. On Saturday I went to see the closing show of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind with my mum and a friend of hers and honestly it was probably one of my biggest theatre surprises of the year so far: I knew next to nothing about it and I thought it was just wonderful. Such a gorgeous piece of theatre, a wonderful cast, so well performed……I’m really glad we got in there to see it just before it closed because it would have been such a shame to miss out on such a gorgeous show. It’s also been a very Operation Mincemeat heavy week because there have been so many different cover combos recently: in the last few shows I’ve seen a solo Amy Parker Jean, Amy Parker and Molly Cutter as Jean and Bevan, Amy Parker and Ben Durham as Monty and Charles, and finally on Tuesday a Amy Parker Monty, Ben Durham Charles and Molly Cutter Jean which was an absolute gem of a show and so much fun to get to see Molly on her Jean debut (day) just before I went off on holiday.
Anyway, no it’s not Tuesday, but it is time for another Top Ten Tuesday (Thursday) courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. The topic this week was meant to be Books That Live Rent Free In My Head but I didn’t really know what to do with that one, so instead I thought I’d skip ahead to next week’s topic of Books I HAD To Have Immediately But Still Haven’t Read as I thought that one would be an easier one for me to do! I had like 20 books on my list the last time I did this but honestly even with my slow down in physical book buying in the last few years, I think I can still easily do a ten book list of this. So here we go:
- Hell Bent (Ninth House #2)-Leigh Bardugo (Bought In 2023)
I bought this pretty soon after its release date in 2023-in fact I’m fairly sure I got it at the London tour stop. 3 years later have I read it? Nooooooo. Admittedly my love for Ninth House wasn’t quite as much as some of Leigh Bardugo’s other books but I did fully intend to read it and I still haven’t-my interest has kind of waned in the last few years if I’m totally honest.
2. The Familiar-Leigh Bardugo (Bought In 2024)
My Leigh Bardugo reading did kind of fall off cliff after King of Scars I fear! This one I was actually really excited for cause I love historical fantasy, I love Elizabethan era stuff, this should be right up my street. But again it kind of got lost in the shuffle of newer releases and me not really reading physical books anymore. Hopefully I can get round to the audiobook at some point because I would still like to read this.
3. Ace of Spades-Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (Bought In 2021)
This sounded so good when I first bought it, very Gossip Girl-esque but it kind of fell victim to my waning interest in YA? I don’t have quite as much interest in reading YA as I once did and I only really read YA now if it’s something I’m really interested in and generally more genre stuff than contemporary stuff. This does fall into the crime/mystery genre which I do read a lot of these days, so there’s still potential I might read it but it has fallen way down the TBR compared to when I first bought it.
4. Spectacular-Stephanie Garber (Bought in 2024)
Honestly this could apply to most Stephanie Garber books from the last few years, I’ve bought a lot of them and then not read them! Again it’s a lot of a timing thing because I’ve just not really been reading a lot of YA in the last few years. I did love Caraval though and this is a very short one so hopefully I can slip it into my reading year at some point.
5. The Reappearance of Rachel Price-Holly Jackson (Bought in 2024)
Again this was kind of a victim of my waning interest in YA but I got a lot of Holly Jackson books after reading AGGGTM cause I loved it so much and then proceeded not to read them. But Not Quite Dead Yet kind of reignited my interest in her books and I have been on a bit of a crime streak recently so I do think this one will make it onto my audiobook list sooner rather than later.
6. A Lesson In Vengeance-Victoria Lee (Bought In 2022?)
I’m not quite sure when I bought this but I remember being really excited about it at the time: it sounded so much fun, dark academia, magic and yet have I read it? No of course not! I really don’t know why, it’s one of those ones that’s just a case of so many books, so little time. I do think I’d still like to though!
7. By Any Other Name-Jodi Picoult (Bought in 2024)
I got this at the event I went to with Jodi talking about this book I think and I was really excited about reading it because I love books about underrepresented women in history and I loved the play Emilia about Emilia Bassano when I watched it a few years back but have I read this one yet? Nope! I would still like to because it is very up my street but anything I have in physical copy does kind of get forgotten about because it just isn’t the main format for my reading these days.
8. Femina-Janina Ramírez (Bought In 2023)
This sounds amazing and forgotten women throughout history is so completely my jam but again, I got the physical copy and I rarely read physical books these days and I honestly just keep forgetting I have it. I do need to get round to reading the audiobook at some point because I am sure I will love it!
9. A Kingdom For A Stage-Heidi Heilig (Bought In 2019)
I got this one fairly soon after reading For A Muse of Fire I think and I had full intentions to read it because I did enjoy that one but I just…..never did. I would like to continue this series because I remember finding it quite interesting and different but again don’t read much in the way of physical books these days so it probably would depend on if I could find the audio or not.
10. The Paris Library-Janet Skeslien Charles (Bought In ??)
I can’t totally remember when I bought this, it was still in hardback so must have been fairly close to when it came out and I was so excited to read it. Several years down the line, it’s still unread and has been on many of my seasonal TBRs with no success. I do still really want to read it because I love historical fiction about books and it sounds very up my alley, I just need to draw my attention away from the shiny new releases for long enough to read some of my backlog!
So there we go, 10 books I just had to have and still haven’t read. Have you read any of these? Do you recommend them? Let me know in the comments.
This was meant to be next week’s topic but obviously I’ve done it this week so I guess you’ll just have to see what I do next week!
