Hi and welcome to the reading world!
Today is another Top Ten Tuesday post, which is as always hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a freebie, and for the past freebie weeks I’ve participated in I typically make and share my own tags! This week’s edition is back to school themed for the freebie!
You can check out my Making Waves Book Tag in 2021 and 2022, Books with the Holidays Tag and my Bookish Romantics Tag to see those.
Highlighters: a book with quotes/writing you want to annotate or remember
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! "Remarkably Bright Creatures is a beautiful examination of how loneliness can be transformed, cracked open, with the slightest touch from another living thing." -- Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late. Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Published by HarperCollins Publishers on August 7, 2022
Pages: 368
Backpack: a book you’re carrying around with you recently
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An intimate, behind-the-scenes, richly illustrated celebration of beloved The Office co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey’s friendship, and an insiders' view of Pam Beesly, Angela Martin, and the iconic TV show. Featuring many of their never-before-seen photos. Receptionist Pam Beesly and accountant Angela Martin had very little in common when they toiled together at Scranton’s Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. But, in reality, the two bonded in their very first days on set and, over the nine seasons of the series’ run, built a friendship that transcended the show and continues to this day. Sharing everything from what it was like in the early days as the show struggled to gain traction, to walking their first red carpet—plus exclusive stories on the making of milestone episodes and how their lives changed when they became moms—The Office BFFs is full of the same warm and friendly tone Jenna and Angela have brought to their Office Ladies podcast.
The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey
Published by HarperCollins on May 17, 2022
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts, Biography & Autobiography / Women, Family & Relationships / Friendship, Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood, Humor / Topic / Celebrity & Popular Culture
Pages: 336
Classroom: a non fiction book on your TBR
An unconventional history of homosexuality We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those ‘bad gays’ whose unexemplary lives reveal more than we might expect? Many popular histories seek to establish homosexual heroes, pioneers, and martyrs but, as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and dastardly deeds have been overlooked despite their being informative and instructive. Based on the hugely popular podcast series of the same name, Bad Gays asks what we can learn about LGBTQ+ history, sexuality and identity through its villains, failures, and baddies. With characters such as the Emperor Hadrian, anthropologist Margaret Mead and notorious gangster Ronnie Kray, the authors tell the story of how the figure of the white gay man was born, and how he failed. They examine a cast of kings, fascist thugs, artists and debauched bon viveurs. Imperial-era figures Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Casement get a look-in, as do FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, lawyer Roy Cohn, and architect Philip Johnson. Together these amazing life stories expand and challenge mainstream assumptions about sexual identity: showing that homosexuality itself was an idea that emerged in the nineteenth century, one central to major historical events. Bad Gays is a passionate argument for rethinking gay politics beyond questions of identity, compelling readers to search for solidarity across boundaries.
Bad Gays by Huw Lemmey, Ben Miller
Published by Verso Books on May 31, 2022
Genres: Social Science / Human Sexuality, Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies / General, Social Science / Popular Culture
Pages: 368
School: a book set at school
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A delectable brew of gothic horror and Hollywood satire . . . [and] what makes all this so much fun is Danforth’s deliciously ghoulish voice . . . exquisite." —Ron Charles, THE WASHINGTON POST "A multi-faceted novel, equal parts gothic, sharply funny, sapphic romance, historical, and, of course, spooky.” —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Named a Most Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • USA Today • Time • O, The Oprah Magazine • Buzzfeed • Harper's Bazaar • Vulture • Parade • HuffPost • Refinery29 • Popsugar • E! News • Bustle • The Millions • GoodReads • Autostraddle • Lambda Literary • Literary Hub • and more! The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls—a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit Our story begins in 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, the Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period-inspired illustrations, Plain Bad Heroines is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant read. “Full of Victorian sapphic romance, metafictional horror, biting misandrist humor, Hollywood intrigue, and multiple timeliness—all replete with evocative illustrations that are icing on a deviously delicious cake.” –O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
Published by HarperCollins on October 20, 2020
Genres: Fiction / Gothic, Fiction / LGBTQ+ / General, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Women
Pages: 656
College: a book set at university
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Published by Scholastic Inc. on March 1, 2022
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Coming of Age, Young Adult Fiction / LGBTQ, Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Emotions & Feelings
Pages: 432
For fans of Love, Simon and I Wish You All the Best, a funny, honest, messy, completely relatable story of a girl who realizes that love can be found in many ways that don't involve sex or romance.
From the marvelous author of Heartstopper comes an exceptional YA novel about discovering that it's okay if you don't have sexual or romantic feelings for anyone . . . since there are plenty of other ways to find love and connection.
This is the funny, honest, messy, completely relatable story of Georgia, who doesn't understand why she can't crush and kiss and make out like her friends do. She's surrounded by the narrative that dating + sex = love. It's not until she gets to college that she discovers the A range of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum -- coming to understand herself as asexual/aromantic. Disrupting the narrative that she's been told since birth isn't easy -- there are many mistakes along the way to inviting people into a newly found articulation of an always-known part of your identity. But Georgia's determined to get her life right, with the help of (and despite the major drama of) her friends.
Graduation: a book featuring a major life event
A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" (The New York Times Book Review). WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town? ANSWER: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story. A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy. "I could not love LESS more."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post "Andrew Sean Greer's Less is excellent company. It's no less than bedazzling, bewitching and be-wonderful."--Christopher Buckley, The New York Times Book Review
Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize) by Andrew Sean Greer
on May 22, 2018
Genres: Fiction / Humorous / General, Fiction / LGBT / Gay, Fiction / Literary
Pages: 272
National Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of 2017
A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2017
A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book of 2017
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award, and the California Book Award
Notebook: a short book you recommend
Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure." In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Published by Tom Doherty Associates on May 2, 2017
Genres: Fiction / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Science Fiction / Crime & Mystery
Pages: 144
Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella
Winner: 2018 Alex Award
Winner: 2018 Locus Award
One of the Verge's Best Books of 2017
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller
A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.
Pick a Subject [English: a favorite book; Foreign Language: a translated novel you recommend; Math: a book with numbers in the title]
"[A] 21st-century response to Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener.'" -NPR A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig--watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods--turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job--writing trivia for rice cracker packages; punching entry tickets to a purportedly haunted public park--it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful. And when she finally discovers an alternative to the daily grind, it comes with a price. This is the first time Kikuko Tsumura--winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award--has been translated into English. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job is as witty as it is unsettling--a jolting look at the maladies of late capitalist life through the unique and fascinating lens of modern Japanese culture.
There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA on March 23, 2021
Genres: Fiction / City Life, Fiction / General, Fiction / Literary
Pages: 416
“A thought-provoking, drily funny critique of capitalism and the systems of self-worth that are built around it.” -TIME, “Must-Read Books of the Year”
Back to School: returning to a series you enjoy OR a new series or new release you’re excited for
Winner: 2017 Hugo Award "A mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy — a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll's and C. S. Lewis' classics" —NPR Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy's arrival marks a change at the Home. There's a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it's up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things. No matter the cost. The Wayward Children Series PRAISE FOR EVERY HEART A DOORWAY "Seanan McGuire has long been one of the smartest writers around, and with this novella we can easily see that her heart is as big as her brain. We know this story isn't true, but it is truth." — Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series (TV's True Blood) "Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire is one of the most extraordinary stories I've ever read." — V. E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of A Gathering of Shadows "Seanan McGuire once again demonstrates her intimate knowledge of the human heart in a powerful fable of loss, yearning and damaged children." — Paul Cornell, author of London Falling and Witches of Lychford "So mindblowingly good, it hurts." — io9 "With Every Heart a Doorway, McGuire has created her own mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy — a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll's and C. S. Lewis' classics, even as it carves its own precocious space between them." — NPR
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Published by Macmillan on April 5, 2016
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Contemporary, Fiction / Fantasy / Dark Fantasy
Pages: 173
Winner: 2017 Alex Award
Winner: 2017 Locus Award
Winner: 2016 Nebula Award
Nominated: 2017 World Fantasy Award
Nominated: 2017 British Fantasy Award
2016 Tiptree Honor List
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests
Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Book 4: In an Absent Dream
I hope you enjoyed this new tag! Feel free to leave your answers to the questions in the comments below. If you do this tag as well, let me know and I’d love to check it out!
Thanks for stopping by!
Rae