This month I’m going to be concentrating on books I’ve had on my TBR for quite some time. I decided that for a few reasons; firstly, I don’t have ANY ARC deadlines this month – for like the first time ever (woooo me!); and secondly, I’m well and truly failing at the TBR Pile Challenge that I signed up for at the beginning of the year.
It’s my own fault because I set a rule for myself that I’d only count the books that had been on my TBR shelf for over 4 months, in an attempt to read all of those books I’ve had forever (some up to 5 years!) but haven’t got round to yet. Well, that obviously didn’t happen because I kept buying new books and adding them to the pile and obviously reading them before the older ones. Sigh.
So, in a last attempt to get my TBR pile down, I am dedicating the rest of the month, and some of August to those dust-gathering TBR Pile books.
Here’s what you can expect to see on Lipsyy Lost & Found in the next month or so. Click on the image to go to the Goodreads page.
The Princess Bride – William Goldman
Released: October 20th 1999 by Bloomsbury (first published 1973)
Genre(s): Classics; Fantasy; Adventure
Time on TBR Pile: About 1 year
A tale of true love and high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts – The Princess Bride is a modern storytelling classic.
As Florin and Guilder teeter on the verge of war, the reluctant Princess Buttercup is devastated by the loss of her true love, kidnapped by a mercenary and his henchmen, rescued by a pirate, forced to marry Prince Humperdinck, and rescued once again by the very crew who absconded with her in the first place. In the course of this dazzling adventure, she’ll meet Vizzini – the criminal philosopher who’ll do anything for a bag of gold; Fezzik – the gentle giant; Inigo – the Spaniard whose steel thirsts for revenge; and Count Rugen – the evil mastermind behind it all. Foiling all their plans and jumping into their stories is Westley, Princess Buttercup’s one true love and a very good friend of a very dangerous pirate.
The Foreshadowing – Marcus Sedgwick
Released: May 23rd 2006 by Wendy Lamb Books (first published 2005)
Genre(s): Young Adult; Historical Fiction; Fantasy
Time on TBR Pile: Over 1 year, maybe 2.
It is 1915 and the First World War has only just begun.
17 year old Sasha is a well-to-do, sheltered-English girl. Just as her brother Thomas longs to be a doctor, she wants to nurse, yet girls of her class don’t do that kind of work. But as the war begins and the hospitals fill with young soldiers, she gets a chance to help. But working in the hospital confirms what Sasha has suspected–she can see when someone is going to die. Her premonitions show her the brutal horrors on the battlefields of the Somme, and the faces of the soldiers who will die. And one of them is her brother Thomas.
Pretending to be a real nurse, Sasha goes behind the front lines searching for Thomas, risking her own life as she races to find him, and somehow prevent his death.
The Assassin’s Blade – Sarah J.Maas
Released: March 4th 2014 by Bloomsbury Childrens
Genre(s): Young Adult; Fantasy
Time on TBR Pile: Since its release, 4 months.
Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan’s most feared assassin. As part of the Assassin’s Guild, her allegiance is to her master, Arobynn Hamel, yet Celaena listens to no one and trusts only her fellow killer-for-hire, Sam. In these action-packed novellas – together in one edition for the first time – Celaena embarks on five daring missions. They take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, where she fights to liberate slaves and seeks to avenge the tyrannous. But she is acting against Arobynn’s orders and could suffer an unimaginable punishment for such treachery. Will Celaena ever be truly free? Explore the dark underworld of this kick-ass heroine to find out.
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Released: September 16th 2003 by Picador (first published 2002)
Genre(s): Contemporary
Time on TBR Pile: About FIVE years!
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal.”
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.
Godmother – Caroline Turgeon
Released: 2009
Genre(s): YA; Fairy Tale Retellings
Time on TBR Pile: 5 months
Lil is an old woman who spends her days shelving rare books in a tiny Manhattan bookstore and lonely nights at home in her apartment. But Lil has an intriguing secret. Tucked and bound behind her back are white feathery wings–the only key to who she once was: the fairy godmother responsible for getting Cinderella to the ball to unite with her Prince Charming.
But on that fateful night, something went terribly and beautifully wrong. Lil allowed herself the unthinkable: to feel the emotions of human beings and fall in love with the prince herself, going to the ball in place of Cinderella in her exquisitely gorgeous human guise. For her unforgivable mistake, she was banished to live among humans, far from her fairy sisters and their magical underwater world. But then one day she meets Veronica–a young, fair-skinned, flame-haired East Village beauty with a love of all things vintage and a penchant for falling in love with the wrong men–and suddenly it becomes clear to Lil that she’s been given a chance at redemption. If she can find a soul mate for Veronica, she may right her wrong and return to the fairy world she so deeply longs for. . . .
The Little White Horse – Elizabeth Goudge
Released: December 31st 2001 by Puffin (first published 1946)
Genre(s): Classics; Children’s Fiction
Time on TBR Pile: About 1 year
A new-fashioned story that is as wonderful as the best fairy tales
When orphaned young Maria Merryweather arrives at Moonacre Manor, she feels as if she’s entered Paradise. Her new guardian, her uncle Sir Benjamin, is kind and funny; the Manor itself feels like home right away; and every person and animal she meets is like an old friend. But there is something incredibly sad beneath all of this beauty and comfort—a tragedy that happened years ago, shadowing Moonacre Manor and the town around it—and Maria is determined to learn about it, change it, and give her own life story a happy ending. But what can one solitary girl do?
