I didn’t particularly feel like writing about this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic, so I decided instead to tell you ten books I currently have checked out from the library and why I borrowed them. (I am a big library borrower. I have 16 print books out from the library, as well as five audio books checked out via Overdrive.)

1. Murder Games by James Patterson and Howard Roughan, because Instinct is one of the few tv shows we watch that was renewed for the coming year and I’m always interested in literary inspirations for tv adaptations.
2. The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya: It was a Cybils Award finalist in the middle grade category this year, which is probably the category I like the best; a 2018 Pura Belpré Author Honor Book; and an Earphones Award winner from AudioFile.
3. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin: Eight years ago a list of 100 best kids books came out from the School Library Journal and I decided to finish reading all the titles on it that I had never gotten to. Recently I realized I’d never finished that laudable goal, but that it was accomplishable over the next summer or two. This is one of the books from the list. (Plus, I loved her When the Sea Turned to Silver.)
4. The Thief by Meghan Whalen Turner: This is another one off that list.
5. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken: And another one.
6. Refugee by Alan Gratz: This was the Cybils winner in the middle grades category this year and is particularly relevant to the moment, but starting it just feels like work, which is why I haven’t started it.
7. The Room by Jonas Karlsson: I really liked his book The Invoice several years ago, so when I needed a couple books by foreign authors set in foreign places for my summer book bingo sheet, I decided to see if he’d written anything else my library had in stock.
8. The Problim Children by Natalie Lloyd: The last time I was at the bookstore, I saw Lloyd had a new book out. I loved A Snicker of Magic and liked The Key to Extraordinary, so decided to check this one out and see if it was one that I could like and move on from or if it was one I needed to own.
9. Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ahsley Herring Blake: Another book I saw the last time I was at the bookstore, this one had a striking cover and was on their recommended reads table.
10. The Refugees by Viet Thanh Ngyuen: This was the 2018 D.C. Reads title. I’ve had it out for months. I read the first story, it made me cry, and I was loathe to pick it back up again. Plus, it’s short stories, which I don’t especially love. I’m just having a hard time taking it back even though I don’t want to read it anymore because I think I should read it. I hate doing things I should.

How about you? What do you have checked out from the library at the moment and what made you pick it?