This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share ten authors whose works we’d like to read, but that we haven’t yet gotten to. Here are mine:

1. Zadie Smith
2. Anne Bronte
3. E.M. Forster
4. Arundhati Roy
5. Simon Winchester
6. Kate Atkinson
7. Adam Silvera
8. Sabaa Tahir
9. N.K. Jemison
10. Octavia Butler

Who are some of the authors you’ve been meaning to read for a while now?

I just finished The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin and can’t get past the ugly crying and nose blowing to take a photo for today’s post.

If you like intergenerational friendships or were a teen fan of Lurlene McDaniel and want something that feels the same, but with less melodrama, I recommend checking it out.

Sock picture next week.

So, I fell seven summaries short of telling you about all the the books I read last year. And since I hadn’t finished sharing, I just didn’t bother to give you my ten favorites from 2021. But, there’s nothing like a freebie week for Top Ten Tuesdays over at That Artsy Reader Girl in early April to provide the inspiration to rectify that oversight.

So here are the ten books I most enjoyed reading last year:

1. T.J. Klune’s Under the Whispering Door: In back to back years,  Klune has penned the novel that I loved best. In this one, a grey, unlikeable man dies, but does not move on. A girl comes to collect him and brings him to a cafe, where a gentle bear of a man explains that it is a safe place for him to adjust to being dead, and that when he is ready, upstairs there is a door that leads on. But what happens if in this final wayfinding station between the worlds, he finally finds a life?
2. Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz: If you read the story of Joe, Beth, Meg, and Amy and got to the end and thought, “Perfect! Everyone ended up just with the people they should have!” you can just move along to the next entry. If, on the other hand, you fumed at a woman who’d been dead for 100 years for not letting two obvious characters explore things further, this book, written from the perspectives of Jo (the author of an alternative version of Little Women) and Laurie (her BFF, who knows her better than anyone), might let you explore some of those feelings.
3. Class Act by Jerry Craft: In this companion middle-grade graphic novel to the award-winning New Kid, Craft centers his story on Jordan’s friend, Drew, who is now in seventh grade and his second year at the prep school where he and Jordan are some of the only Black kids enrolled. This year, they’ll deal with colorism, remaining friends with someone whose family has a lot of privilege, and the question about why all the Black kids hang out together, among others. Another beautiful story about aggressions and microaggressions.
4. Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev: In the third of Dev’s The Rajes series, a modern quartet of novels that reimagine some of her favorite Austen novels, but featuring six Indian-American cousins, we focus on the eldest cousin, Yash, who is running for governor of California. After an assassination attempt which lands his bodyguard in a coma, Yash begins to have panic attacks. His sisters convince him to go and see their dear friend, India, who with her mother and sister, runs a yoga studio and is an expert at helping clients deal with mental health issues. Little do they know that he once long ago fell deeply in love with India, only to end up fake engaged to his own childhood friend. Way less soapy than I make it out to be. And, as with all of Dev’s books in this series, inspired by the Austen novel, rather than being a strict retelling.
5. Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli: Set in D.C., this is a sweet contemporary novel about a young woman who’s trying to find her way in the world and succeeding on the face of it, with a kick-ass new position at her dream job. But as a first-generation American, she’s struggling with issues with her parents. She’s also having a hard time making friends — and goes on a couple of hilarious friend-dates during the course of the story. And then there’s her love life — there’s the cute photographer from her sister’s wedding, but there’s also the guy she used to be in love with, who’s subsequent marriage has broken up, but with whom she swears she just wants to rekindle a friendship. Multi-layered and well-thought out. Recommended.
6. Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas: The latest in the Lady Sherlock series, this Christmassy story sees Charlotte, Mrs. Watson, and Lord Ingram having to solve a murder that Inspector Treadles has been accused of. I adore this series and highly recommend it.
7. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez: A cute middle-grade story about a boy, who in his grief at losing his mother a couple years earlier, accidentally found a way to access the multiverse. When he starts at a new school, a girl with an eye for details figures out what’s happening, and they set out on a series of adventures that just might destroy the world.
8. Michelle Obama’s Becoming: The fact that it took me nearly three years to finish listening to this memoir should not remotely count against it. Instead, take away how comforting it was to have Michelle pop in to tell me bits and pieces of her story — a remarkably rewarding life, but not remotely what she would have chosen for herself — over occasional nights washing dishes after being downsized, as I was struggling with a job that asked a lot of me, and, finally, during the pandemic. She’d talk about how infuriating her husband could be, how stressful her jobs had been, and the biggest challenges she’d faced. And I’d feel a little less alone at 3 a.m.
9. Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev: In a tribute to the Jane Austen classic, the second in this interlocking series of four stories about an Indian-American family focuses on Ashna, a chef, who is paired in a celebrity cooking contest with Rico Silva, a soccer star, who just happens to have been her secret high school boy friend — and the boy her father sent away because he wasn’t good enough for her. I love this series and recommend it to everyone.
10. Nancy Drew: The Palace of Wisdom by Kelly Thompson and illustrated by Jenn St. Onge: In this graphic novel adaptation of the famous young sleuth, Nancy is summoned from River Heights by an anonymous note that hints that her mother’s death years before is more than just an accident. Now she’ll need to team up with her old friends, George, Bess, and Joe and Frank Hardy to solve that mystery, another that dates back to the same time as her mother’s, and some that are much more recent. Nancy Drew meets Veronica Mars. Highly enjoyable.

Have you read any of these books? Got any books you’ve read recently that you’ve loved?

I’m nearly up to the heel turn for my socks, which is very exciting. I will be glad to have finished a project and to have new stripey socks to wear.

I’m almost halfway through Light from Uncommon Stars. I don’t know that enjoy is the right word for such a book, but I’m caught up in the story now and want to see if everyone will do right by one another.

I finished listening to A Marvellous Light (loved it) and have moved on to Cassandra Peterson’s memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira. I’m still in early days, but I’m enjoying her voice so far.

Head over to As Kat Knits to hear about what others are reading and crafting.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share the Top Ten 21st Century Books I Think Will Become Classics.

I’m not sure my reading preferences will line up with canon, but what can you do:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
3. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
4. The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
5. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
6. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
7. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
8. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
9. March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
10. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Interestingly this list features a lot more books by men than my usual lists. I wonder what that says about my internalization about the inherent value and timelessness of male subjects and voices. Probably not good things.

What books do you consider modern classics?

Look! It’s progress on knitting! This is the second of a stripey rainbow pair I began last year and put aside after the first one was complete. One of my coworkers recently learned to knit and another crochets and so we’ve started a knitting circle, with last week being our first meeting. I felt confident that I should have something to work on — and also, I’ve lost my knitting mojo a bit and stripey socks are potato chip knitting.

On the reading front, I’ve been dipping in an out of print books in search of one that holds my attention for more than a chapter. Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki may be that book. I’m up to page 30 in this sci fi novel about a woman who bartered her soul to the devil (I assume for violin prowess, but that part has yet to be revealed) and now is in the final year of needing to find seven other people to send him. There’s also a transgender runaway who may be a violin prodigy and a starship captain and mother of four who’s in hiding on earth with her family and passing their time making doughnuts. That’s a lot to squeeze into 30 pages.

In the ears, I’m adoring Freya Marke’s A Marvellous Light, about a man who gets a government job only to find out it’s as a liaison to the magical world. On top of that, the guy he’s replacing has gone missing, and he’s been cursed in an effort to get him to reveal a magical secret, and he’s maybe falling in love with the magician who’s his counterpart.

How about you? What are you reading or crafting? Head to As Kat Knits to see the roundup.