I read four books in February, three audiobooks and one in print:

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss

Eccentric curios shop dealer Augustus North of Rowan Thorp has died and left his three daughters an unusual bequest: They inherit his estate only if they complete two tasks as a unit. The three estranged women are unhappy about the plan, but each of them needs the money selling the property will bring. (more…)

So far, I have only read one of the books on my winter TBR list, despite the fact that I finished my 14th book of the year yesterday. I do not think I can read the other nine before spring arrives on Thursday, but I may sneak one more in. (I pulled several of them out so they’re in front of me to aid in that process.)

But, that said, I’m still going to make a list for spring that maybe I’ll ignore and maybe I’ll get to. But either way, what is a TBR list for but to strive to get to everything we want to read someday? Who’s to say it won’t be the coming season?

Here are ten of the books I hope to read before summer’s arrival, some of which I own and some of which will be library borrows:

1. Linda Holmes’ Back After This
2. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
3. Grace Lin’s The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon
4. Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey
5. A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
6. The Stargazers by Harriet Evans
7. Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
8. Rainbow Rowell’s Slow Dance
9. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
10. Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge

What’s on your seasonal reading plan for the next few months? Lighter, fluffier fare to fit into the smaller moments between being out and about? Or now that the weather is getting warmer, are you feeling like you can tackle some weightier tomes?

You can see what else folks have queued up at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl focuses on books set in another time. Here are some of my favorites, all of which are set in the 20th century:

1. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (fiction, WWII)
2. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (fiction, 1985 (I keep trying to say this is set in the 1950s, because this was most certainly not my experience of the mid-’80s))
3. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (novel in verse, 1920s Dust Bowl)
4. Maus: A Survivor’s History by Art Spiegelman (graphic nonfiction, WWII)
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (fiction, 1940s)
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (fiction, early 20th century)
7. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (graphic novel, 1931)
8. Crazy ’08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Best Year in Baseball by Cait Murphy (nonfiction, 1908)
9. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (fiction, 1941)
10. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (fiction, 1940s and ’50s)

How about you? What are some of your favorite reads set in other times?

One of the things I promised myself I’d do last year was to share the books I liked best in 2023, none of which I reviewed here. Today’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites me to get my act together and do a down-and-dirty update of this draft and finally hit publish:

1. Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
   Two generations of Dominican-American women with magical gifts (ranging from the ability to tell if someone is lying to possessing an “alpha vagina”) find their lives upended when Flor, whose gift is knowing when someone will die, announces she’s throwing herself a living wake. Organized as personal narratives/interviews told to Flor’s daughter, an anthropologist, the chapters mostly alternate through all four senior sisters and the two daughters/cousins. Each one looks back at how her life — both in New York and in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic — has been shaped by her gift and her family and how these matrilineal powers cause them to walk through the (male-dominated) world. If you like family sagas or immigrant stories and magical realism, I highly recommend Acevedo’s first novel for adults.
    

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Today’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to come up with our own love-related topic for this week. I thought I’d share the top ten romantic books I have either out from or on hold at the library:

1. Love in Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello
2. A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy & Sienna Simone
3. The Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth
4. Old Flames and New Fortunes by Sarah Hogle
5. A Lady’s Guide to Marvels and Misadventure by Angela Bell
6. The Second You’re Single by Cara Tanamachi
7. Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi
8. The Hedgewitch of Foxhall by Anna Bright
9. Empire of the Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson
10. Back After This by Linda Holmes

The first two are Christmas-themed romances that are still lingering into 2025, which is more an indictment of my scattered reading habits thus far this year than of the books themselves.

After I’ve crossed those two off my in-progress list, has anyone read anything from the list they’d recommend I start with?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Arty Reader Girl asks us to share the books that came out last year that we were excited to read — but then didn’t get to. Here are some of mine, all of which I hope make it onto this year’s finished list:

1. Rainbow Rowell’s Slow Dance
2. T.J. Klune’s Somewhere Beyond the Sea
3. Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde
4. 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg (In fairness, I did start this one and decided I was going to want my own copy, which I now have.)
5. A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall
6. How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin
7. Amor Towles’ Table for Two
8. The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (Currently reading and overdue back to the library)
9. The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
10. 50 Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott

How about you? Were there books that came out during 2024 you fully intended to read and then … life?