Top Ten Tuesday: Recent Additions to My Book Collection

• Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
• 6 comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and it’s so much fun. My contributions will naturally be heavily kidlit skewed! 

This week I’m looking at the ten most recent books I’ve added to my collection, either through buying them myself or being gifted them for Christmas or my birthday.

1. Ghostly, Ghastly Tales: Frights to Tell at Night by Anastasia Garcia | A middle grade collection of ghost stories with a glow-in-the-dark cover! This was a Christmas present to myself and I’ve only read one story so far but I just feel so happy whenever I see it on my shelf.

2. Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang | An adult satirical novel about racism and representation in the publishing industry. Everybody told me to read this one and I loved it – it’s brilliantly written and terrifyingly accurate with an often very unlikeable protagonist  – although I did find the ending a bit of a letdown.

3. Grim edited by Christine Johnson | a collection of dark YA fairytales. I’ve read about half of these and really enjoyed them, although the first story is probably my favourite.

4. She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran | A YA gothic mystery I haven’t read yet but has had loads of buzz

5. You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron | A YA horor I’m really excited to read!

6. The Christmas Jigsaw Puzzle Murder by Alexandra Benedict | An adult murder mystery. This is a book I wouldn’t have picked out myself but when my husband and son put it in my stocking for Christmas I thought I’d better give it a go, and I loved it! It was super cosy and really easy to zip through. Very funny and voicey, too, and reading the POV of an 80-year-old cantankerous puzzle setter instead of a child or teenager made a nice change!

7. Berserker by Adrian Edmondson | The autobiography of comedy actor Ade Edmondson. I recently listened to his Desert Island Discs episode and was really fascinated by his upbringing (sent to a British boarding school while his siblings stayed living with their parents abroad) and his career in comedy. I’m a big Rik Mayall fan and he spoke about him with such love and respect, so I thought I’d check this out on audiobook. I’m a sucker for comedians’ autobiographies!

8. 8 Days in the Woods: The Making of The Blair Witch Project by Matt Blazi | A non-fiction, behind the scenes account of the production of TBWP. This was a present from my dad and I really enjoyed digging into the secrets and details of how this film was made – I hadn’t realised just how in the dark the actors were and what a terrible time they went through.

9. The Undying of Obedience Wellrest by Nicholas Bowling | This is a YA gothic horror novel that I’m going to start reading this week since I’ve set it as the January readalong in The Wolf Pack Facebook group.

10. Zoinks! The Spooky Folklore Behind Scooby Doo by Mark Norman | This was another present and I’m very excited to read it! I absolutely love learning about the legends and stories that inspired books or TV shows and I think this will be a really fun ride.