Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to look back at the books we meant to read last year but didn’t get to (and that, presumably, we intend to read in 2019). I am really bad at lists like this, not because I can’t make them, but because there are so many books I want to read (3,035 according to my Goodreads list as of this moment).

My track record is mixed. The list I made in 2018 includes only three titles I finished, but the one I set for myself in 2017 had seven completions. And I’ve read only four off 2016‘s list. So that’s 29 titles and less than half of them completed.

But what’s life without goals, right?

Here are ten titles I meant to read last year that I really think I’ve got a shot at:

1. Sarah McCoy’s Anne prequel, Marilla of Green Gables
2. Mackenzi Lee’s sequel, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
3. Markus Zuzak’s Bridge of Clay (Rudi gave this to me for Christmas, so it’s high on this year’s TBR pile)
4. Bruja Born by Zoraida Córdova
5. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
6. Tiffany Jackson’s Monday’s Not Coming (I own a copy of it, so it, too, is a get-to sooner book)
7. Aisha Saeed’s Amal Unbound
8. Circe by Madeline Miller (Karen gave me a copy for Christmas and it is conveniently sitting right next to me)
9. Rebound by Kwame Alexander
10. What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson

How about you? Were there books you meant to read in 2018 you didn’t get to?

As you can see from this shot, I’ve decided to pick the shawl back up again. I continue to have problems with it, but it is user error, rather than instructional, and at least I’ve loosened up my tension enough that I can move the stitches on the needle again. A sure sign these days that I should put knitting down and not pick it back up again until I’m less anxious. I am coming up with a game plan for knitting this year, which involves socks and abandoned UFOs and finishing a sweater, and I’ll let you know more in the coming week or so.

I’ve mostly moved on to new reading this week. The Harry Potter continues to be picked up for a chapter here and there. They did not issue the fourth book in illustrated format this year, so I will have to either switch over to my original tomes (not a problem after I take down the Christmas so I can once again reach where the four of them are on my shelves) or wait until next year to read the next one. Luckily, I do not have to make a decision one way or another until I am so moved to revisit the Tri-Wizarding Tournament.

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui is a graphic memoir about her Vietnamese family who immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s. The Emissary by Yōko Tawada (and translated by Margaret Mitsutani) is a novella focusing on a dystopian future in which an as-yet unnamed environmental disaster has left children unbelievably delicate. Mumei lives with his great-grandfather, Yoshiro, who literally has more pep in his step than his young relative. It just won the National Book Award for translation and has been described as delightful, funny, joyous, and playful, so I’m eager to find out why. And finally, I have a new audiobook on the go as well, having just finally started The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America’s Enemies by Jason Fagone about the preeminent American codebreaker responsible for the capture of numerous Nazis. Right now there are no Nazis in sight and she’s on the estate of an eccentric Illinois millionaire who has brought her there to help his wife prove there’s a secret code embedded in Shakespeare’s plays that proves they were written by Francis Bacon. Enjoyable starts, all.

Check out As Kat Knits to see what everyone else is reading and knitting.

January is a month for beginning as you mean to go on. So I thought, even as I need to put together my end-of-year reviews for 2018, that I would share what I’ve read in the first half of the month.

So far this year, I have finished three books. The first was an audiobook I started during my drive to Connecticut for Christmas, but the other two were new reads begun this month:

When Santa Fell to Earth, by Cornelia Funke

When, in mid-December, the sleigh/caravan of Niklas Goodfellow, the last real Santa Claus left on earth, crashes in a small town and his reindeer, Twinkletoes, runs off, Niklas and his comrades (two small angels and a group of grumpy elves) must scramble. Not only do they need to make repairs to the caravan and find their reindeer, but they must learn what the local children want for Christmas while evading detection by the evil dictator of the North Pole, Jeremiah Goblynch, and his gang of evil Nutcracker goons. Goblynch, who only gives children mass-produced presents and asks only the parents what they’d like their kids to receive, has enslaved or killed all the other Santas, turned the reindeer into meat, and turned the elves out into the freezing wilds of the North Pole — and he’s gunning for Niklas, who has already escaped his clutches once. Luckily two children loyal to the idea of Santa Claus — Ben and Charlotte — have found Niklas and are actively working to help him save Christmas.

Funke narrates the audiobook, giving the story more of a European flair with her German accent than I might otherwise have ascribed to it. I liked, but didn’t love the story, but would definitely seek out a print copy of the story to see the illustrations, and would recommend it for older children who are starting to question holiday traditions. Also, I thought this would make a fantastic film — either for the big screen or the small — but it turns out it’s already been adapted, way back in 2011. However, it was made in German and overdubbed in English, and has a limited DVD availability. So, I guess I still stand by the statement, pending some way to watch the version that’s been made.

Pages: 167. I borrowed an audiobook version from the library, which I listened to on my phone.

The Hollow of Fear, by Sherry Thomas

The Lady Sherlock series keeps getting stronger. In this, the third installation, which begins at the exact moment the second concludes, Charlotte must add a new role to her repertoire. In addition to playing Sherlock Holmes, noted consulting detective, she must also add the role of his brother, Sherrinford, whom she must play in drag, in order to come to the rescue of Lord Ashcroft Ingram, who has been accused of murder at his country estate.

Without giving away spoilers about what has happened thus in previous installments, all of your favorite characters from the series stop in. Livia has a larger role to play in this book, which made me happy, but Mrs. Watson and her niece get much smaller pieces of the pie. The Marbletons make brief cameos, with the promise of a larger role in the next novel for one of them. Elder sister Bernadine is not forgotten, nor is half brother Myron, and we are introduced to yet another Ashcroft brother — Remington. And Inspector Treadles makes a triumphant comeback from his petty reaction in the first novel, giving him some of the best growth in the series thus far.

If you have already read the first two novels in this series, you will be delighted by this one, which promises plenty of twists and lots of deduction. And if you haven’t yet embarked upon the series, I urge you to do so. A feminist Victorian-era take on the most famous detective in literature awaits! And you can spread out the first three novels before the fourth comes out in the fall!

And, yes, this, too, would make a great adaptation for the screen!

Pages: 326. Personal copy.

Dear Mrs. Bird, by A.J. Pearce

Emmy Lake, who has long aspired to be a war correspondent, finally gets her break when she answers an ad at the London Evening Chronicle seeking a junior. So caught up is she in the romance of her dream being nearly realized, she neglects to ask any questions about the job during her interview, a mistake she soon realizes when it turns out that she’s been hired to work as a typist for the grouchy editor of the newspaper’s sister publication, a neglected weekly women’s magazine. When the editor (the titular Mrs. Bird), who doubles as the magazine’s misanthropic agony aunt, presents Emmy with an extensive list of topics she has deemed Unsuitable — including nearly every one Emmy thinks relevant to the tumultuous early days of World War II — Emmy decides to start sending back her own advice under her boss’ name.

In between, Emmy and her childhood BFF, Bunty, shelter from the German air raids, go on dates (Emmy gets jilted early in the book, but Bunty has a longtime beau, who is a shift commander at the fire brigade where Emmy volunteers several nights a week) and generally try to live as bright a life as 20-somethings can behind their blackout curtains and dim torches.

Reading this book gave me a twinge of sadness because I would have loved to talk with my grandmother about it. She wouldn’t have read it — it made her too sad to see detailed retellings of a war she survived — but she would have appreciated the contemporary slang and the context of carrying on — and excelling — even under great duress.

Three for three endorsements for an adaptation. I’m not sure this is feature film material, but it would make a great Masterpiece addition.

Pages: 281. Library copy.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic at That Artsy Reader girl asks about the new-to-me authors I read last year that I liked best. I read a lot of favorite authors and series last year, but there were still some great new additions to my reading repertoire:

1. Amor Towles: To say I kept forgetting A Gentleman in Moscow was fiction is a compliment of highest order. I look forward to checking out his debut novel, Rules of Civility, next.
2. Elizabeth Acevedo: I started two of her books — her poetry collection, Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths and her debut verse novel, The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for young people and which I nominated for the Cybils poetry category — last year that I haven’t yet finished, but that is more an indication of where my head is than of her writing. It will be embarrassing when she wins the Cybil and I haven’t finished reading the book I nominated, so I plan to check that off my list soon.
3. Kevin Kwan: I didn’t have any interest in reading Crazy Rich Asians when it (or its sequels came out), but the movie trailer and then the film itself piqued my interest. His riff on Jane Austen was well executed and lots of fun and I look forward to reading more of his work.
4. Michelle Obama: I was already a fan of our former First Lady, but her Becoming has been a wonderful listen. I haven’t finished reading it, but will soon.
5. Ashley Blake Herring wrote the adorable middle grade novel Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, which uses the combined forces of an Emily Dickinson poem and a tornado to great effect in a novel about first crushes and sexual orientation.
6. Karina Yan Glaser: Her middle-grade debut, The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street, offered a glimpse into a working-class biracial family of seven who are about to be displaced from their Harlem home at the holidays. Reminiscent of and as timeless as the Melendys and the Penderwicks, but wholly modern. I look forward to revisiting the family in Yan Glaser’s sequel.
7. Jennifer Mathieu: Her YA novel, Moxie, is an enjoyable look at teen girls, zines, and feminism set in a small Texas town that shuts down for Friday night football games and reveres the boys who play it. She penned a #MeToo antidote to toxic masculinity for the next generation.
8. Jons Mellgren: In his unique heart-breaking and heart-healing picture book, Elsa and the Night, this Swedish author-artist shares the story of a badger named Elsa, who doesn’t sleep anymore in the wake of the death of her friend and who captures the Night, who she finds hiding under her table, in a cookie jar. Without Night coming at the end of each day, though, the rest of the world no longer works quite right. But the Night and Elsa can maybe help each other out.
9. David Grann: My fellow Conn College Camel has penned a fascinating and depressing expose of a forgotten period of American history. Killers of the Flower Moon looks at a tribe of fabulously wealthy Osage Indians, who were denied the right to look after their own finances by a racist U.S. government and then murdered one-by-one for their money and oil rights.
10. Andrew Shaffer: Hope Never Dies is a laugh-out-loud buddy flick of a book starring Joe Biden and Barack Obama as our crime-solving heroes. He gets the voices right and takes neither his protagonists nor his text too seriously, serving up precisely the book you want to read. Others agree and he has a sequel due out later this year.

How about you? Who were your favorite newly discovered writers last year?

Yesterday it was so warm I spent the early part of the evening sitting outside at my local coffeehouse with my book. I had a tshirt and sweatshirt on and added a scarf while I was sitting there after sunset, but didn’t need to break out my hat or mitts from my bag and I certainly didn’t need a coat. Today it blustered a lot and snowed a little (not enough to stick, but still).

Anyway, this was what I was reading yesterday, but it was so charming that I was quickly done with it. If you enjoy historical fiction (it’s set in WWII London) that mostly (see previous parentheses) ends on an up-note, do check it out.

I’ve tried starting both An American Marriage and Washington Black, but I don’t want to read bleak but Important stories right now. Which I recognize makes me the worst type of liberal White reader, so I’ve just put them to the side for now rather than taking them back to the library just yet in the hopes that I can get out of my own way in the near future. I pulled out (carefully, because it was under my holiday light display) the illustrated version of the third Harry Potter film and picked up where I left off back in the fall, figuring it may help me over my reading hiccup. Or it may not, but at least I’ll have enjoyed it.

My knitting is also experiencing a hump. I could show you the various skeins of yarn I’ve pulled out of storage (quite pretty!), the older projects I’ve moved closer to the couch but haven’t otherwise touched (I could have FO’s with so little work!), or the six rows I actually knit on the beginning of that blue shawlette I thought would be done by (this, rather than next) New Year’s, but none of it is really knitting, but knitting-approximate, and we all know the difference.

Anyway … maybe by next week.

Head over to Kat’s where you can see what people who actually pick up their needles are making.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday asks us to share our most anticipated releases for the first half of 2019:

1. Early Riser by Jasper Fforde. He’s coming to Politics and Prose the week of my birthday next month, so no one ask me to do anything on Feb. 18 because I am busy! (I know someone on Twitter who has read an ARC and she says it’s less thrillerish than it sounds, which is good because I was very nervous about the description.)
2. Angie Thomas’ On the Come Up. Her The Hate U Give was the best book I read in 2017, so I’m definitely on board for her sophomore effort.
3. Deanna Raybourn’s latest Veronica Speedwell mystery, A Dangerous Collaboration. Something INTERESTING happened at the end of the last novel, so I’m excited to see where it goes.
4. Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. They have a new series!!!!!
5. Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High. I’m loving The Poet X (so much so that I nominated it for a Cybil without having finished it) and look forward to Elizabeth’s next book.
6. Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America, edited by Ibi Zoboi and Tracey Baptiste. I want to like short story collections more than I actually do and I’m a sucker for this kind that features a bunch of authors whose novels I like.
7. Local author Kosoko Jackson has a queer historical fiction novel, A Place for Wolves, coming out this spring and even though describing anything as “[X] meets Code Name Verity” sounds like it’s going to be desperately sad and therefore not my cup of tea, I want to want to read it, but this could be a game-time decision.
8. Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Okay, so I hadn’t heard of this until I started looking at publication dates, but I am all in for a romance between the First Son (his mom is President) and the Prince of Wales.
9. Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan. I enjoyed Watson’s last book and this sounds like it will carry on the themes of some of my favorite books from 2018.
10. Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner. This YA novel sounds like it should be a wild ride.

Rainbow Rowell’s graphic novel, Pumpkinheads, isn’t due out until the end of August, but the release date for her latest regular novel, Wayward Son, hasn’t been announced yet, other than sometime this year. If it’s sooner, I will definitely be reading it, too.