Top 10 Tues: Those we left behind

January 23: Books I Meant to Read in 2023 but Didn’t Get To

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

That Artsy Reader Girl

I love this topic! It made me go back over last year’s top of the TBR list – low and behold there are quite a few that I was definitely going to get to that I did not.

1

2023 by Andrew Jennings – 134 pages, Kindle Edition – First published May 19, 2011 – SciFi, CliFi

I had this one marked “to be read by March 20, 2023.” I had several books listed this way, for last year, this was the only one I did not get to. 🙄

An angry world is divided between the clean green new economies (China, India,Europe), and the old fossil fuel economies (Russia, US, Australia) spewing forth pollution into the atmosphere. … 2023 is a thriller in the world of active climate change. It is not environmental catastrophe that is center stage. It is the battle between the two economies. The battle between two sets of ideas.

goodreads

I need to read this asap!

2

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due – 573 pages, Kindle Edition – First published October 31, 2023 – Horror, Historical Fiction, Mystery

Listed on my TTT from 09.19.23: Books on My Fall 2023 To-Read List

… novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

goodsreads

Adding to this year’s TBR spreadsheet.

3

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger – 465 pages, Kindle Edition – First published September 3, 2019 – Historical Fiction, Literary, Coming-of-Age

I read Krueger’s Ordinary Grace in 2022 and immediately thought I should read at least one of his books every year. 🤷🏻‍♀️

… novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression …
1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee,

goodreads

I felt like reading Ordinary Grace made me a better person; I expect this one will too.

4

Ascension by Nicholas Binge – 333 pages, Kindle Edition – First published April 25, 2023 – SciFi, Horror, Thriller

From 2023’s most anticipated.

An enormous snow-covered mountain has appeared in the Pacific Ocean. No one knows when exactly it showed up, precisely how big it might be, or how to explain its existence. When Harold Tunmore, a scientist of mysterious phenomena, is contacted by a shadowy organization to help investigate, he has no idea what he is getting into as he and his team set out for the mountain.
The higher Harold’s team ascends, the less things make sense. Time moves differently, turning minutes into hours, and hours into days. Amid the whipping cold of higher elevation, the climbers’ limbs numb and memories of their lives before the mountain begin to fade.

goodreads

I am just going to add all these books to this year’s TBR. 😁

5

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling – 305 pages, Kindle Edition – First published March 30, 2023 – SciFi, CliFi, Dystopian

Another one from 2023’s most anticipated.

America, 2049: Summer temperatures are intolerably high, the fossil fuel industry has shut down, and humans are implanted with a ‘Flick’ at birth, which allows them to remain perpetually online. The wealthy live in the newly created Floating City off the coast, while people on the mainland struggle to get by. For Rose, a job as a hostess in the city’s elite club feels like her best hope for a better future. At a Cold War-era research station, a group of highly trained women with the code name White Alice are engaged in climate surveillance. But the terms of their employment become increasingly uncertain. And in a former oil town in northern Canada called Dominion Lake, a camp is being built-Camp Zero. A rare source of fresh, clean air and cooler temperatures, it will be the beginning of a new community and a new way of life.

goodreads

Local library has this one now!

6

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei – 358 pages, Kindle Edition – First published July 18, 2023 – SciFi, Space, Clifi

Also on 2023’s most anticipated list.

It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect.
With the crew turning on each other, Asuka is determined to find the culprit before they all lose faith in the mission—or worse, the bomber strikes again.

goodreads

7

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride – 400 pages, Kindle Edition – First published August 8, 2023 – Historical Fiction, Literary, Mystery

This is not on my 2023 TBR; I have no idea why. I closed and reopened the spreadsheet several times, as if this would make a difference 🤣; it is not there.

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

goodreads

Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Award (2023). It is now on this year’s TBR.

8

Lone Women by Victor LaValle – 282 pages, Kindle Edition – First published March 28, 2023 – Horror, Historical Fiction, Western

2023’s most anticipated

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.
The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

goodreads

My local library has this one now!

9

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – 336 pages, Kindle Edition – First published July 18, 2023 – Horror, Historical Fiction, Mystery

2023’s most anticipated

… meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film–and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.

goodreads

Adding Silver Nitrate and Mexican Gothic to this year’s TBR!

10

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir – 384 pages, Kindle Edition – First published March 1, 2022 – Contemporary/Historical Fiction, Realistic, Romance

This is my only clue as to where I heard about this one: ? Email. 😃

Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.
Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.
[They] must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

goodreads

Won National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (2022).

thoughts