Top Ten Tuesday: Books I was Reading on This Day Over the Last Ten Years

The Artsy Reader Girl's assignment topic for August 11th is the books we were reading on this day over the last ten years. This was a really fun exercise! I started keeping a reading log in 2001 (although I did not get as much reading done when I was in law school - my book group gave me a beautiful bookmark from Tiffany's, expecting not to see me again, but I turned up quite often, although never on time, due to evening classes) and joined Goodreads several years later so it is relatively easy to figure out what I was reading and when. What is more interesting (at least to me) is how well I remember most of these books.

2025 – All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (2024). This is the story of obsession and friendship because when Patch saves a girl’s life he completely loses his grip on his own. While that is understandable, it was tiresome to hear – I felt this audiobook was endless so while I persevered, hoping to learn what had happened, I do not recommend this book.  However, it's funny that I've read all the others "Readers also enjoyed," although not on purpose.  I don't like to be predictable in my reading!

2024 – Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1914). My own nephew stunned me the other night by saying he didn’t know there were Oz books following The Wizard of Oz! Can he be lured away from his current preference, Brandon Sanderson? Tik-Tok is not my favorite but I reread all fourteen with blogger Lory.  My review.

2023 – The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (2022). This is my favorite of O’Farrell’s books, a fictional portrait of 16th century young duchess Lucrezia de’ Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court, after being forced to marry her deceased sister’s fiancé, the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso II d’Este. This was one of my book group’s best choices and what a thought-provoking cover. My review.

2022 – Across the Barricades by Joan Lingard (1972). This is the second book in a once popular YA series about Belfast’s Protestant Sadie and Catholic Kevin. Although their families had discouraged their friendship, in this book they reunite but the gossip and antagonism make it impossible for them to meet anywhere safely, so they decide to leave together. Lingard died in July 2022 during my reread.  I recommend all five!

2021 – Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell (2013). This is the sort of whimsical story I probably would have enjoyed more as a child. The heroine is an orphan, rescued from a cello case in the English Channel. When she learns her mother might be alive, she goes searching for her on the rooftops of Paris. I liked the parts about Sophie and her guardian but got tired of the urchins on the rooftops. My review.

2020 – South Cove Summer by Sara Ware Bassett (1956). This author was recommended to me by blog friend Dewena and, coincidentally, it turned out Bassett was a teacher in Newton, MA where I grew up. This book is about a Boston lawyer whose family summers down the Cape, as we say. His first love is now a widow so he has a second chance. I am heading to the Cape myself at the end of this week but it has changed a lot since Bassett’s day. My review.

Bassett, from Wikipedia

2019 – Men on White Horses by Annette Motley (1988). Set in 18th century Russia, this is a fictionalized version of Catherine the Great as a young German princess, followed by the early years of her marriage to a very unsatisfactory Russian prince. I hunted this down on ILL because I am a big fan of Motley’s book, The Quickenberry Tree.

2018 – A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller (2012). When three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner in Acker's Gap, West Virginia, the only witness willing to talk is a difficult teen, Carla Elkins. Her mother is the District Attorney so there is not only a possible conflict of interest but both their lives may now be in danger.

2017 – The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck (2017). Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, this is the story of three widows from different backgrounds whose lives and secrets have become intertwined. This interested me because I haven’t read many WWII historical novels actually set in Germany. 

2016 – Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher ( 2010). I remember all the books above but not this one. Moreover, I can’t believe I wanted to read a book with bad grammar in the title. The author is a blogger married to musician Tom Fletcher, a member of the band McFly (not that I had ever heard of it), so I suppose she was well suited to write a romance about a shy English girl who falls for a celebrity, an actor in town to play Mr. Darcy in a new film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. (If only they'd stop filming Austen and spend some of tht money on dramatizing Georgette Heyer!)

So this was entertaining!  Have you read any of these?

2026

 This is what my Book Group was reading tonight!  Our hostess, Carrie, maintained the 250th theme by serving Chicken Pot Pie (early versions of this meal evolved in medieval Europe, while the specific American "pot pie" style with a bottom and top crust took shape in the 18th and 19th centuries via European settlers) and red, white, and blue macarons and similarly-colored ice cream for dessert, as well as patriotic Hershey's Kisses to take home.