Top Ten Tuesday: Spring TBRs

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is all about my spring reading plans.

I last made one of these TBR lists back in September when the Tuesday theme was about Autumn reading plans. I started five of the books I listed then: three I completed, one was cast aside (The Sot Weed Factor) and there’s still one more that I intend to go back and finish off (I’m not sure why I stopped with those Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories, I was enjoying them).

Anyhoo, I haven’t done a TTT list for a while now, just because I wasn’t overly inspired by the last few topics, but I quite like these seasonal TBR ones. They’re a nice way of taking stock of my reading progress and putting all my many, many plans into some sort of order. As always, this comes with the usual disclaimer: I’m really bad at sticking to my reading plans so there’s a very good chance I won’t actually end up reading all of these!

1. Katherine by Anya Seton. After whinging about how I’ve never located a secondhand copy of this I was dead pleased to find a nice shiny, new one under the Christmas tree. It’s fairly long so it keeps getting pushed to the back of the queue but one day, Katherine, one day…

2. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. I’ve been stockpiling books for the Around the World in 80 Books Challenge and scored a splendid haul of suitable reads at the Oxfam shop a few weeks ago. I was particularly delighted with this one as I’ve had Allende on my mind for ages.

3. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. Oh my stars. This has been on all three of the seasonal TTT lists I’ve posted on this blog. How shameful.

4. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo. Another from the Oxfam haul. I know absolutely zero about this book but I liked the blurb on the back and the reviews seemed pretty positive.

5. John Clare: A Biography by Jonathan Bate. I’m currently reading Adam Fould’s novel, The Quickening Maze, about Clare’s incarceration at the Epping asylum. I’ve delved into this biography a few times over the years but I’m now thinking that I’d like to tackle it properly. Maybe in small chunks since it’s so huge.

6. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Another TBR oldie, this book has moved house with me eight times since I first bought it.

7. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A few weeks ago I was complaining about my own lack of effort with African literature so far and a few readers commented that I should give Adichie a try. I’ve been seeing her name everywhere recently so I’m looking forward to this one immensely.

8. The Warden by Anthony Trollope. Seeing all the adverts for Dr Thorne on ITV this week has reminded me that I’ve still not tackled the two untouched Trollopes on my shelf. Aargh.

9. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh. I bought a cheapie Penguin paperback of this the other week, purely because it has the loveliest cover design.

10. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. I’m ridiculously pleased with this one, it just looks like a book I’ll enjoy, but it’s quite long and at the moment I’m still favouring shorter reads. It’ll be a few months until I’m over my Tolstoy hangover and in the mood for this I think.

And there we are, another satisfying but ultimately pointless TBR list for the collection.