Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Years of August Reading

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. It's been a while since I played along, but this week's prompt was too interesting to skip! 

What did your last ten years of August reading look like? I chose one memorable August book from each of the last ten summers.

2025 - Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout

Last summer I became an Elizabeth Strout completist!

2024 - The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen, David Shapard

Another year of Austen in August

2023 - Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

When Ann Patchett publishes a new novel, I read it immediately!

2022 - Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

I loved this audio production and can still hear the voice of Marcellus!

2021 - The Street by Ann Petry

What a memorable experience it was to read this classic in the author's hometown!

2020 - Beach Read by Emily Henry

If ever there was a summer that called for light reading, 2020 was it!

2019 - The Leavers by Lisa Ko

I still think about this book and, sadly, it's still relevant.

2018 - The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand

If it's summer, there must be a new Elin Hiderbrand novel!

2017 - My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul

Delightfully bookish memoir from the former editor of the NYTimes Book Review.

2016 - Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Very funny... in a passive-aggressive kind of way!

This topic was suggested by Anne at Head Full of Books.

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Top Ten Tuesday : 2025 Author Discoveries

It's been a while since my last Top Ten Tuesday post, but I do like to highlight my favorite author discoveries each year. These are not necessarily debut authors. Many have been writing for years, but I first read them in 2025. Here they are, in no particular order:

FAVORITE AUTHOR DISCOVERIES OF 2025

Michelle Huneven - Bug Hollow, Search

David Nicholls - You Are Here

Marcy Dermansky - Hot Air

Virginia Evans - The Correspondent

Jeanine Cummins - Speak to Me of Home

Beth Brower - The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion

Nikki May - This Motherless Land

Charlotte Wood - Stone Yard Devotional

Gardiner Harris - No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson 

Johnathan Mahler - The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990 

Which authors did you discover in 2025?

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Favorite Author Discoveries, 2024 Edition

It's been a while since my last Top Ten Tuesday post, but I take time every January to reflect on the new authors I read the previous year.  In 2024 I read twenty-three new-to-me authors and had a surprisingly difficult time narrowing that list down to just ten favorites. Here they are, listed in the order I read them.

FAVORITE NEW-TO-ME AUTHORS, 2024

The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai 

James by Percival Everett 

Absolution by Alice McDermott 

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

 Frances Riddle, translator

Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann

A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi

Hildegarde Serle, translator

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

What new authors did you discover in 2024?

Top Ten Tuesday: 2022 Author Discoveries

  

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Since today is a "freebie" week, we get to choose our own topic. I'd like to highlight my favorite author discoveries of 2022. This was actually last week's prompt but you know how that goes. It seems like I've been behind all month...

Favorite Author Discoveries of 2022

Mary Lawson - A Town Called Solace and Crow Lake

John Boyne - The Absolutist

Kim Fay - Love & Saffron

Damon Galgut - The Promise

Maggie O'Farrell - The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

Maggie Shipstead - Seating Arrangements

Steven Rowley - The Guncle

Claire Keegan - Foster and Small Things Like These 

Angie Cruz - How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

Lydia Millet - Dinosaurs

Have you read any of these authors? What were your favorite author discoveries of 2022?

My Top Ten Author Discoveries of 2021

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic gave me a chance to think about all the new-to-me authors I read in 2021... and there were quite a few. They seemed to be a mix of debut authors and authors I've been meaning to read for years.

Here are my top ten author discoveries of 2021, in no particular order,  along with the title of the book I read.

1. Joyce Maynard 

Count the Ways

2. Isabel Wilkerson 

The Warmth of Other Suns

3. Stanley Tucci 

Taste: My Life Through Food

4. Ed Tarkington 

The Fortunate Ones

5. Patricia Engel 

Infinite Country

6. Kate Quinn 

The Rose Code

7. Asha Lemmie 

Fifty Words for Rain

8. Elizabeth Acevedo 

With the Fire on High

9. Sayaka Murata 

Convenience Store Woman

 

10. Joshua Henkin 

Morningside Heights

Have you read any of these authors? What authors did you discover in 2021?

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Ten Classics on My TBR List

 It's time for another edition of Top Ten Tuesday. Today's prompt is actually "Books Written Before I Was Born"... but since any book written before I was born should be considered a classic, let's take a look at ten I'd like to read (or reread) within the next year or two. These are all on my second Classics Club list. 

Villette by Charlotte Brontë - I've read many of the Bronte novels, but never got around to this one.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather - This has been unread on my shelf for years.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - the Pevear and Volokhonsky  translation

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas, because I loved The Count of Monte Cristo

The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy -The first three novels of the series were excellent and I must read the rest of them!

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell - Can it be as good as North and South?

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - I've been meaning to reread this since high school.

Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope - because it's been a year since I read Trollope and I miss him!

The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton, to follow-up The Husband Hunters (nonfiction)

The Priory by Dorothy Whipple, because it's been on my shelf for a decade

Have you read any of these? Where should I start?