Today’s Top Ten Tuesday is a freebie week, where host Jana of That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to make up our own bookish topic.

I recently finished one book that starts in Washington, D.C., and another that includes D.C. among several settings, which made me think about other books set in the area. Rather than give you a list of books set here that I’d recommend (although I’d be happy to do so if you leave a note in the comments), I thought I’d share ten books set locally that I’d like to read:

1. Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson* (ya)
2. Rebound by Kwame Alexander (mg)
3. Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi* (ya)
4. The Van Gogh Deception by Deron Hicks (mg)
5. Calamity at the Continental Club by Colleen Shogan (adult)
6. All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones (adult)
7. All-American Girl by Meg Cabot (ya)
8. Training School for Negro Girls by Camille Acker (adult)
9. Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala (ya)
10. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (adult)

*I own a copy and have no excuse why I haven’t read it yet.

Have you read any of these books?

While the larger blooms of my flowers have died off, I still have some smaller flowers to enjoy while I water.

My bronze fennel is now over six feet tall, with sprigs of Queen Anne’s Lace-like blossoms. I don’t especially have any call for six feet of the mildly anise-flavored herb, so mostly I’m using it to prop up the tomato plant next to it, which is equally tall.

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Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm and raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading highlighted a meme that Jo at The Book Jotter runs annually, considering the first half of a reading year. It seemed fun, and she has a ton of categories to choose from, so play along if you’d like.

Here are my chosen selections:

1. Six bookshops I have visited
   1. Politics and Prose is the biggest bookstore in D.C. and my favorite. It now boasts three locations: its flagship store in Chevy Chase with its expansive children’s section and two outposts in newer, hipper neighborhoods at Union Market and The Wharf.
   2. Kramerbooks is my local bookshop (and restaurant and bar) and has recently expanded. It keeps late hours on a daily basis in case you have a book emergency in the wee smalls.
   3. Capitol Hill Books is a used bookshop adjacent to Eastern Market and is the sort of used bookshop that immediately makes you love its owners and fear for their safety. They have removed the piles of books from the stairs since we moved here and have begun hostly monthly Saturday afternoon happy hours in their back garden.
   4. Bridge Street Books in Georgetown is the last indie bookshop in the lower part of the neighborhood. Beloved by university professors, it has a great poetry collection and a number of books in foreign languages, as well as a discount table out front and the usual bestsellers. Plus, it faces down an Amazon storefront on a daily basis.
   5. East City Books is just a couple blocks from Capitol Hill Books, but instead of selling used and antiquarian tomes, it is home to newer books. It has an excellent children’s and YA section downstairs (and spacious stroller parking in their pedestrian alley) and welcomes the dogs of the neighborhood (it has an alcove with their photos featured).
   6. Loyalty Bookstore is the new name of Upshur Street Books after the original owner sold it to two of his booksellers. They are a small, highly curated shop and are highly attuned to the needs of their Petworth neighborhood. If you go on a weekend evening, you can go to the bar next door for literary-themed cocktails.
2. Six new authors to me
   1. Jasmine Guillory (The Proposal)
   2. Sonali Dev (Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors)
   3. Mary H.K. Choi (Emergency Contact)
   4. Stephanie Garber (Caraval)
   5. Nnedi Okorafor (Akata Witch)
   6. Ngozi Ukazu (Check, Please!)
3. Six favourite places to read
   1. The couch
   2. The park
   3. The Western-facing patio of the coffeehouse near my apartment
   4. The metro
   5. At the sink while washing dishes (audiobooks, obviously)
   6. In line at Trader Joe’s
4. Six series of books read or started
   1. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han (recently finished #2)
   2. Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mystery by A.J. Herbert (#1)
   3. Gethsemane Brown Mysteries by Alexia Gordon (#1)
   4. Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend (#1)
   5. Lady Sherlock by Sherry Thomas (#3)
   6. Veronica Speedwell by Deanna Raybourn (#4)
5. Six books I started in the first six months of the year and was still caught up with in July
   1. Jasper Fforde’s Early Riser
   2. The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss
   3. Naughty on Ice by Maia Chance
   4. Front Desk by Kelly Yang
   5. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
   6. Insomnia by Marina Benjamin
6. Six authors I read last year — but not so far this year
   1. Neil Gaiman
   2. Barbara Kingsolver
   3. Andrew Shaffer
   4. Melissa Albert
   5. Leigh Bardugo
   6. Karina Yan Glaser

I was watching Star Wars tonight and after it ended, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice came on. This song, “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World, is featured in a very early scene of the movie and I found myself singing along, even though Rudi was asleep in the other room. Tomorrow, I intend to sing along at full volume and bop around the Burrow in an effort to literally shake off my blues. I hope you find it similarly invigorating, both mentally and physically.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The crape myrtle are particularly lovely this summer.

2. We went out for pizza on Tuesday, courtesy of a Christmas gift from my parents.

3. Our baseball game Monday evening got rained out and rescheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Rudi had to work, but Sarah and I got to enjoy the perks of unemployment and spent the afternoon cheering the Nationals to victory through a gloriously sunny day game.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I have reached the first mosaic portion of my Tour de France shawl! I’m really happy that I didn’t end up settling for a different contrast yarn, holding out for finding something in my stash that really popped. It is remarkably unlikely that I’ll be done knitting by the time the cyclists are circling the Arc de Triomphe on Sunday afternoon, but I could be through this first mosaic section and maybe even through the first solid pink section, provided I’m a little more careful with not having to rip back the pattern stitch that populates the solids.

On the reading front, what you see here are the three books I picked up at the library this evening. I’m glad I brought a plastic bag with me, because I was heading to my volleyball game afterwards and a rogue rainstorm drizzled on us for over an hour. I’ve only read the first few pages of Wordslut so far, definitely not enough to form any reasonable opinion about the work.

I need to finish reading Red, White, and Royal Blue and There There, both of which are overdue to the library with long holds lists. I should be able to cross both off my list and return them this coming week.

I have a handful of chapters left of Peter Mayle’s The Vintage Caper to listen to. It’s been a light, pleasant, French-centered accompaniment to my Tour de France watching and knitting, but I am not so caught up in it that I’ll be sorry to reach its finale. That feeling is probably increased by the fact that a bunch of audiobooks have come off hold for me recently, and I have Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Shore, Janet and Peter Evanovich’s The Big Kahuna, and Tricia Levenseller’s Daughter of the Siren Queen waiting impatiently in the wings.

Want to see what other people are reading and crafting? Head over to As Kat Knits for the roundup.