#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR.
The first #5OnMyTBR of Blogmas! And what a good one. It can be taken in different ways, too, which I really like, but for today I’m focusing on the books on my TBR I’ve been given as gifts – mostly from my partner, but a few here from friends, too.
#5OnMyTBR December 2nd: Gift
The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England from 1811-1901
Kristine Hughes
Genre: History – Research
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: February 1st, 1998
A study of everyday life in Regency and Victorian England derived from anecdotes, written histories and first hand accounts. The author covers subjects from contemporary recipes, to courtship rituals, and popular slang, to common occupations.
Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction
Lisa Kröger, Melanie R. Anderson
Genre: History – Horror
Age: Adult
Format: Hardback
Published: September 17th, 2019
Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond.
Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.
Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.
Sorry I Missed You
Lorraine Brown
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: September 1st, 2022
Sometimes love is just around the corner…
Rebecca isn’t looking for love. She’s perfectly happy with her high-flying city job, gorgeous flat overlooking Hampstead Heath and fortnightly fling with the hot CEO. She’s certainly not interested in the hot actor neighbour who’s just moved in opposite…
Jack is still looking for his big break. It turns out being the star talent at drama school doesn’t give you a golden ticket to Hollywood, after all. The last thing he needs is any distractions right now – especially not the uptight, power-suit wearing girl next door.
They might live only a few metres away from each other but their worlds couldn’t be further apart, plus opposites don’t really attract, do they…?
The Regency Years: During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern
Robert Morrison
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: April 30th, 2019
The Victorians are often credited with ushering in our current era, yet the seeds of change were planted in the years before. The Regency (1811–1820) began when the profligate Prince of Wales—the future king George IV—replaced his insane father, George III, as Britain’s ruler.
Around the regent surged a society steeped in contrasts: evangelicalism and hedonism, elegance and brutality, exuberance and despair. The arts flourished at this time with a showcase of extraordinary writers and painters such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, the Shelleys, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner. Science burgeoned during this decade, too, giving us the steam locomotive and the blueprint for the modern computer.
Yet the dark side of the era was visible in poverty, slavery, pornography, opium, and the gothic imaginings that birthed the novel Frankenstein. With the British military in foreign lands, fighting the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the War of 1812 in the United States, the desire for empire and an expanding colonial enterprise gained unstoppable momentum. Exploring these crosscurrents, Robert Morrison illuminates the profound ways this period shaped and indelibly marked the modern world.
Whispers Under Ground
Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: June 21st, 2012
In Tufnell Park, North London, a set of railway tracks run under a school playground, leading to and from King’s Cross. Wet, filthy, dangerous. Lovely place. And one Sunday before Christmas, Abigail Kamara, one of my endless brood of cousins, dragged me and my long-suffering colleague Lesley May down there to look for a ghost.
We found one.
And that was that, I thought come Monday. First case of the day: Person Unknown has been stabbed to death on the tracks at Baker Street Underground. Magic may have been involved. Sure enough, the weapon turns out to be saturated in the tell-tale traces left by magic.
But Person Unknown turns out to be the son of a US senator, so before you can say “international incident”, FBI agent Kimberley Reynolds and her firmly held religious beliefs are on my case.
And down in the dark, in the Tube tunnels of London, along with the buried rivers and remnants of Victorian sewer systems, I’m hearing some really strange things…
As always, if you’ve read any of these I’d love to hear your thoughts, and let me know if there are any books on your TBR you’re looking forward to that were gifts.
Unwrapping Words 