I struggled with this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl, which asks us to share cozy reads. I mean, do you want unscary mysteries? Books you want to drink with a cup of cocoa? The Hallmark version of romance novels? Finally, I settled on ten books that I recommend that focus on things I personally find cozy:

1. If you like baking: With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
2. If you enjoy watching baseball: Summerland by Michael Chabon
3. If you like going to the library: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein
4. If you enjoy playing volleyball: Haikyu!! by Haruichi Furudate
5. If you like music: Solo by Kwame Alexander
6. If you enjoy playing games: Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia
7. If you like drinking tea: Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop by Rebecca Raisin
8. If you enjoy spending time with your cat: The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
9. If you like swimming: The Lido by Libby Page
10. If you enjoy traveling: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Friends, we’re looking for people to write posts as part of the Virtual Advent Tour. If you’d like to participate (review a Christmas book or movie, share a personal tradition — including your own holiday blog series, or hype a local holiday event), visit the sign-up page and leave the date you’d like in the comments.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl is a Thanksgiving freebie. While wondering what new giant balloons we’d be treated to in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I decided that although Macy’s has historically been great about making balloons that include characters from films, tv, and literature, they might like some suggestions for bookish characters we’d like to see moved from the page to the sky. Here are my top ten recommendations:

1. The Cheshire Cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
2. Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh
3. Peter from The Snowy Day
4. Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web
5. Max from Where the Wild Things Are
6. The Moomins
7. Amelia Bedelia
8. Madeline
9. Mr. Toad from The Wind in the Willows
10. Stellaluna

How about you? What characters would you like to see added to their giant balloon repertoire?

Also, would you like to join this year’s Virtual Advent Tour? Signups are now open for December.

So this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks for specific “awwww” moments in books, and like many participants, I struggled to come up with those. So I’m sharing ten books that made me hug them or my people when I got to the end of them:

1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows
2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
3. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
4. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
5. Landline by Rainbow Rowell
6. The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
7. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
8. A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd
9. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
10. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Are there particular awww moments, or awww books in general, that stand out for you?

Hey! We’re caught up to halfway through the year!

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny

Jane, a young teacher, moves to a new town and promptly falls into a relationship with the town handyman, who, it turns out, has already been with practically every other woman in the county. And it turns out living with that is harder than Jane thought it would be. There are twists and turns and tricks of fate and senses of responsibility and found family (whether you want to be found by them or not) and before you know it, 15 years have passed, and your life is your life.

If you’d like a novel version of the Beatles’ lyric, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,” this is it. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but I could appreciate what others saw in it.

Paper. Library copy. Pages: 320

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

This is the first novel in a series about high-powered Nashville men who read romance novels to better understand the women they love. In this story, a professional baseball player is on the verge of losing his wife after a serious fight and an ego-crushing revelation, when his teammate and some of his well-heeled friends reveal that the secret to saving his marriage can be found by reading romance novels. By taking an intensive crash course in what female protagonists are looking for in general and applying that to what his wife may feel she is missing in particular, he hopes to heal the rift with the woman of his dreams.

It was cute, but alpha males aren’t really my thing. Might or might not read another someday.

Audiobook. Library copy. Pages: 339

As always, I’m terrible at writing about the books I read. But let’s take a first stab at getting caught up before the end of the year:

An Impossible Imposter by Deanna Raybourn (review found here)

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

Rosaline, the bi single mum of a precocious daughter and amateur baker, has been selected to take part in a Great British Bake-Off-style reality show. As with every reality show, everyone taking part ticks off a single, obvious box (gay, grandmother, homemaker, entrepreneur, student, etc.). But as Rosaline starts to get to know her fellow contestants behind the scenes, she finds deeper connections — including possible romance — first with a well-spoken, driven architect and later with a kind electrician. Will she find her true love or her showstopper first? Or will she struggle both on the show and in her personal life, continuing a trend that disappoints her doctor parents to no end.

Perfect for fans of GBBO or other cooking shows. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.

Paper. Library copy. Pages: 435

The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill

In this delightful tale of the power of friendship and generosity, the villagers in a downtrodden hamlet are suspicious of everything: Outsiders. Dragons. Learning. Reading. Each other.

Except at the orphanage, where a small group of children and their older caretakers make ends meet, barely, but where love — and books — abound.

Then, one day one of the orphans disappears. While this does bring the townspeople together a little bit, it mostly unites them behind the prejudice their mayor holds toward the Ogress who lives on the village outskirts, who has, unbeknownst to them all, been helping every single one of them make ends meet with the bounty that she grows and bakes.

Will small-mindedness, distrust, self-interest, and hatred win out?

At some point in the very near future, Kelly Barnhill is going to join my very short list of authors whose books I just buy, rather than borrow from the library. Highly recommended for all.

Paper. Library copy. Pages: 400

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

A man loses something precious and then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for that misstep by trying to reunite things with their people. When he dies, he tasks Laura, the young woman who’s kept house for him, to carry on his work. A woman, Eunice, heads to a job interview, finds a charm, gets the position, and lands herself a BFF. The book slips back and forth through time, alternating between Laura and Eunice’s stories, but inching forward to their inevitable meeting.

The book was too ambitious and didn’t fully pull off its periodic forays into otherworldliness. But other than that it was a pleasant enough way to pass the time while doing dishes. I did have to speed up the reader to 1.5 times her desired cadence to keep from gnashing my teeth.

Audio. Library copy. Pages: 278

My camera on the phone is still on the fritz, which means I’m using Rudi’s mom’s old phone and then sharing the photo with my phone and then putting the photo someplace I can use it. Which is a lot and mostly means I’m not taking a lot of photos just to take them right now.

But I thought I’d tell you that I’ve gotten to the heel of the first of a pair of Christmas socks, knit out of West Yorkshire Spinners’ Signature 4 ply in Candy Cane, a red, white, and green stripey yarn. It makes me happy to see it, and I’m excited to see what an industrial Blue-Faced Leicester yarn will be like to wear.

On the reading front, I have several books that are suddenly overdue at the library, so I’m trying to quickly plow through them. First up is Sarah Maas’ oft-banned A Court of Roses and Thorns, which one of my teammates recommended. In the ears, I’m back to Jane Pek’s The Verifiers.

Check out what others are crafting and reading at As Kat Knits.