This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is: Books I Meant to Read In 2018 but Didn’t Get To

 

Oh boy, this could turn out to be a really long post. I mean, just deciding which books that were published last year alone could turn out to be a long one. Not to mention all those books that are lolling about on my bookshelves, probably betting amongst themselves how long it will be before they each get picked up. (“I’ve been waiting here for months”, says one gleefully. “Months?” another scoffs, “try years”.)

Circe – Madeline Miller
Her first book Achilles was a great read!
From the synopsis:
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

 

My Sister the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
Because who can resist that title and that cover?

From the synopsis:
Satire meets slasher in this short, darkly funny hand grenade of a novel about a Nigerian woman whose younger sister has a very inconvenient habit of killing her boyfriends.

Red Clocks – Leni Zumas
From the synopsis:
In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.

How Long ‘Til Black Future Month – NK Jemisin
Love her books! Can’t wait to read her stories.

In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow south must figure out how to save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

Tell The Machine Goodnight – Katie Williams
Sounds interesting and quirky
From the synopsis:
Pearl’s job is to make people happy. Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She’s good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion?

Wild Milk – Sabrina Orah Mark
Love the cover!
From the synopsis:
Wild Milk is like Borscht Belt meets Leonora Carrington; it’s like Donald Barthelme meets Pony Head; it’s like the Brothers Grimm meet Beckett in his swim trunks at the beach. In other words, this remarkable collection of stories is unlike anything else you’ve read.

 

Happiness – Aminatta Forna
I really enjoyed Forna’s The Memory of Love
From the synopsis:
London. A fox makes its way across Waterloo Bridge. The distraction causes two pedestrians to collide–Jean, an American studying the habits of urban foxes, and Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist there to deliver a keynote speech. From this chance encounter, Aminatta Forna’s unerring powers of observation show how in the midst of the rush of a great city lie numerous moments of connection.

Call Me Zebra – Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
I’m intrigued by the title

From the synopsis:
Zebra is the last in a line of anarchists, atheists, and autodidacts. When war came, her family didn’t fight; they took refuge in books. Now alone and in exile, Zebra leaves New York for Barcelona, retracing the journey she and her father made from Iran to the United States years ago

The Golden State – Lydia Kiesling
I’m always drawn to books set in CA
From the synopsis:
Keenly observed, bristling with humor, and set against the beauty of a little-known part of California, The Golden State is about class and cultural breakdowns, and desperate attempts to bridge old and new worlds. But more than anything, it is about motherhood: its voracious worry, frequent tedium, and enthralling, wondrous love.

The Parking Lot Attendant – Nafkote Tamirat
From the synopsis:
A mesmerizing, indelible coming-of-age story about a girl in Boston’s tightly-knit Ethiopian community who falls under the spell of a charismatic hustler out to change the world

Have you read any of these books? Which would you recommend?

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018.