My Spring TBR

There’s this feature hosted over at The Artsy Reader Girl called Top Ten Tuesday where by a prompt is posted every Tuesday to blog about and I think it’s excellent and I take part in it VERY SPORADICALLY (because actually I’m a little bit rubbish). Anyhow, the prompt this week is Top Ten Books on My Spring TBR and I thought YES, I have a spring TBR and I am in need of blog inspiration and I’M GETTING INVOLVED.

I don’t have a particular reading mojo for the spring (I don’t have a reading mojo at all right now HELP ME), it’s not like winter, or summer when there are books I yearn to re-read or genres I feel weirdly drawn to, but I do, as it happens have a small list of books that I would like to read before my birthday at the end of April and this is that list.

Books That You Should Read On The Beach Because Of Reasons

So I don’t do Top Ten Tuesday every week, mostly because I am so incredibly rubbish at keeping to any kind of posting schedule ever because I just suck, so it always gets to Thursday and I realise it was a really good theme this week and I kick myself. 

Not actually, because ouch, but you know, metaphorically. 

Anyway, their theme this week is a summer freebie which is nothing if not fortuitous because last night I was messaging with The Gals (which is the unique and very inspired name me and two of my friends have for each other) last night about our forthcoming weekend away in the sun (HURRY UP JULY) and my pal Hol asked me for holiday book recs. 

Which, OH HELLO LET ME THROW THESE BOOKS IN YOUR FACE. 

Metaphorically again, this girl is one of my faves; I would NEVER actually throw a book in her face.

Top Ten Childhood Books I'd Like To Revisit

I am so annoyed that this wouldn’t post yesterday because seriously, what is the point of a Top Ten Tuesday on a Wednesday. Le sigh. Sometimes the internet is my enemy. Anyway, the prompt was awesome: Top Ten Childhood Books You'd Like To Revisit so a day late or not I wanted to share it. (Top Ten Tuesday lives over at The Broke and the Bookish if you want to check them out.)

I think I did some of my best reading when I was small(er) – I’m still small, I got older not bigger – and I have so very many memories of excellent books that are as precious to me as good friends. Like, for example, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark which I recently bought for Lydia or the Enid Blyton Adventure series that made me want to live a life other than the one I was living. My formative years were full of books: books that I chose for myself and books that my parents chose for me and books that my Granny handed to me with a smile and a ‘I think you’ll like this one’; books I read alone and books I read at school and books like Superfudge that my dad read to me at bedtime; books I read when I was 7 and books I read when I was 12 and books I read when I was 16. 

So many books. 

I was a bit like Matilda when I was a child, with my ‘grown up’ library card that my Mum had to sign a form for me to be allowed to have and the seven books in my backpack every Saturday and the lady in the bookshop in town that knew my name and would let me spend a couple of hours trying to decide how to spend my book tokens – man, I really miss book tokens.

I was a bookworm then. I’m a bookworm now. These are the ten books that I think probably made me the reader I am today. Ten out of about ten million.

1. Pongwiffy was the book I chose when I won The Book Prize at school in 1990. I was seven, and winning The Book Prize was The Biggest Deal – there was one winner in the infants and one winner in the juniors every year so I was kind of a mixture of proud (yay me) and embarrassed (because even then I hated being in the limelight.) My copy – which still lives on my bookshelf -  is all purple and pretty and has a little certificate stuck to the first pages saying that seven year old me is awesome. I loved that Witch of Dirty Habits so hard.
2. The Family from One End Street is another of those books that my Granny gave me - one from her chldhood I think; it was published in 1937. I read it over and over and over. And over. I'd love to go back and hang out with the Ruggles.
3. Pardon Me, You’re Stepping On My Eyeball was a book that made me feel cool. I dunno why, it was a cool story about cool kids that are also misfits and when I read it as a teenager it kind of resonated with me. I have no idea why it’s not more widely spoken about. Unless it’s actually shit. I should read it again to find out.
4. The Story of the Treasure Seekers GIVE CHILDHOOD-ME ALL THE E.NESBIT OMG. Seriously. I loved them all, but I did always have a soft spot for the Bastables
5. Nancy Drew which I read because of the Babysitter’s Club books and which I was a teeny bit obsessed with for a while. I read as many of these as I could get my little grabby hands on.
6. Jessamy. this book people. Again, why are more people not aware of this story? Why? I loved it so much, with it's misunderstood main character and it's time travel element.   I wanted to name my first child Jessamy after the girl in this book, in fact, thinking about it, maybe I still kind of do.
7. Junk I had such an author crush on Melvin Burgess when I was a teenager you don’t even know and Junk is such a powerful book. This book should be required reading for every teenager everywhere I swear. It's so damn excellent. & I did revisit it a few years ago actually so I have read it as an adult. The verdict? Still excellent.
8. The Diddakoi is the reason I’ve always harboured a bit of a fantasy about being a traveller, with a beautifully painted caravan and a horse and barefeet. It's also a really powerful story about what it feels like to not quite fit in.  I don’t even know how many times I read this book. It was a class book when I was about 8, my teacher was called Mrs Pile and she read it aloud to the class a chapter a day and I just had to go out and find my own copy. I think it’s lost actually this book, lent out and not returned and I’m really sad about that.
9. My Family and Other Animals these books are hilarious. SO GOOD.I laughed out loud so many times, so very many times.
10. Fifteen was my Mum’s favourite book as a teenager and I had to be so careful when I read her copy because it really is hanging on by a thread and it’s one of her most treasured possessions I think – she could probably still quote the first chapter from memory.  It's written by Beverly Cleary who wrote the Ramona books which I also adored I liked it because it made me feel closer to her, even though she’s always been right there, I dunno, there’s something about feeling like you’re getting a snapshot of your parents at your age and that’s what this book was for me.

So that’s me. Come talk to me, leave me a comment and tell me: have you read any of these? What books from your childhood would you like to revisit?

Top Ten Books to Make You Cry a Sea of Tears.

Top Ten Tuesday is an excellent weekly Meme hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish – kudos to them for the idea which is pretty much just an excuse to make lots of bookish lists. I love lists.

They have a cute logo and everything but this website is not my friend today and won’t let me insert the image. Annoying.

Soooo, you want to know a worrying thing? I’ma tell you one: It was actually difficult for me to limit this list to just ten books. I wonder if I have a problem. Do I have a problem? Am I really the only person who continues to read books that shatter her heart into millions of tiny pieces? I can’t be, can I? I mean, surely everyone loves a book that rips them apart, right? Look at me, looking for justification like I care: let's be real, I'd be totally continuing with the books that make me sadder than a sad person even if I was the only person alive doing so. I can't help it. If a book is going to make me cry so hard I have Wet Neck then I am always going to be all over it. But I'm fairly sure it isn't just me: those books that get you RIGHT IN THE FEELS, everyone loves to read those books at least once in a while.  I refuse to believe that anything else is true. 

So here, all ready for the next time you find yourself wanting to cry a sea of tears, this is my list of ten books that BROKE ME. (I tried to pick a few that I don’t talk about all the time because a broken record I do not want to be.) 

1. Between Shades of Gray (not to be confused with Fifty Shades of Grey, not now, not ever.) This book, oh man, this book. I’m not over it. I will never be over it.
2. TFiOS Presented without comment.
3. The Cellist of Sarajevo Oh but this book is a good one. It’s kind of incredible. And it hurts.
4. Eleanor & Park So good and hurty and beautiful. My love for this book knows no bounds
5. The Book Thief I didn’t actually cry at The Book Thief but it made my hands hurt (which is a weird thing that happens when I’m intensely emotional: sad, angry, nervous etcetera. I feel any of those things deeply enough and my actual hands actually hurt. I’m a weirdo.) It made my hands hurt and I loved it, so very much
6. A Song for Issy Bradley I read this in an afternoon and felt like I had been broken apart and put carefully back together again. Carys is an incredible talent and this book will make you do the crying thing fo’ sho’
7. The Kite Runner I see the words for you, a thousand times over and I swear my eyes fill up.
8. The Time Traveller’s Wife Everyone cried at this right? It’s not just me?
9. The Siege Why have I not heard more people talking about this book though? My Granny told me to read it and my Granny is never wrong about books. So you know, read it please. Read it and weep like Meatloaf told you to (It’s about the Nazi siege on Leningrad if you wondered and it’s phenomenal.)
10. Love Story Oh MY. We probably shouldn’t talk about this, because talking about it is all it takes to break me.  You don’t even want to know the mess I was in when I actually read it. Don’t look at me. Do not look at me.
    

& that I guess is that. Sometimes you just need a good old cry and sometimes the books that hurt the most are the books you love the most and so I maintain that despite appearances, this list is a very good list. & if it makes you too sad:

(I do so love OITNB)