TBR Picks for August... or not

I'm going on holiday soon, and I don't want to take any physical books with me, just my Kindle, so I don't think I'm going to choose any TBR prompts for August. While I'm away I'll just read whatever I feel like, and when I get back I might just carry on with the books that I'd chosen for July.

TBR Picks for July

Once again, I find myself wondering whether to choose any TBR picks for July. I'm currently reading Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie, which is the second book in The First Law Trilogy. I really want to go straight into the third one when I've finished it, so that the story is fresh in my mind. 

I've also picked out several other books that I want to read, but they're all on my kindle, which doesn't exactly help with getting through the physical books! Most of them are fantasy series too, which means, if I like them, I'll probably want to read the follow ups straight away.

So, what to do?

Well, I think I might mix things up a bit by choosing both a physical book and a Kindle one for some of the prompts, and I'll read whichever one I feel like, depending on my mood. But I'll start with the definites, and the definitely maybes.

1. Last Argument Of Kings by Joe Abercrombie - As mentioned, I definitely want to read the final book in The First Law Trilogy

2. Oldest book on my list - The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge - from 2nd Dec 2025. I'm not sure if this is actually a children's book though? And the kindle book that I've had the longest is Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang.

 

3. The Institute by Stephen King - I'll give this a try.

4. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I actually read this a few years ago, but it's come up as a book club choice, although it's a 'maybe' at the moment. I'd need to either get a copy from Vinted, or a charity shop, or see if the price drops on Kindle. I'm tempted to read it again though, because I actually have the two other books in the trilogy.

So I think I'll choose six TBR prompts now to take me to 10:

5. TV/Movie Adaptation (AGAIN!) - The Revenant by Michael Punke. This was made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I've read it before and really enjoyed it, so I hope I still like it the second time around. (Annoyingly, The Institute would've fit this prompt too!). On Kindle, I've got The Martian by Andy Weir, which was made into a film starring Matt Damon.

 

6. Pink Book - The Island Home by Libby Page. My copy looks a bit more pink than the picture. And on Kindle, I had quite a few to choose from, but working from oldest to newest, this was the first one - Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.

 

7. Country House Setting - The Lost Ones by Anita Frank. "Imposing country mansion..." And on Kindle, Hawthorn by Elaine Thomson. Not sure if this fits the prompt, but there is a house in a remote area, so it's close enough.

 

8. Thriller - A Case Of Mice And Murder by Sally Smith. Well, I decided I'm not really into thrillers any more, mainly of the psychological kind, so this is more of a murder mystery. It's the first in a series though, and I want to see if I like it and whether I'd want to continue with the others. Looks like I do still have some thrillers on my kindle, so I've chosen The House Across The Lake by Riley Sager.

 

9. Flower on the cover - When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. Not sure about this one, but it's apparently 'feminist and funny'. On Kindle, I've got The Night Counsellor by L.K. Pang.

 

10. Food on the cover - A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers. I think this was actually the only option I had. And on Kindle, The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen.

 

I've just remembered that I also finally caved in and bought the hardcover version of House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, and thought I might start reading that on the 1st July and see if I can have it finished by the end of the year!

Obviously I'm not going to be able to read all these, but I'm quite excited about this list and I like that I've given myself some extra choices.

 

TBR Picks for June

I wasn't sure whether to skip the TBR prompts for a bit, or maybe just pull them one at a time as I finish each book, rather than choosing them all at the beginning of the month. But it's just so much fun! So what the heck, here we go for the month of June:

First of all, the oldest book on my list is The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex, from the 30th November 2025.

I don't know what Stephen King book(s) I'll read yet, now that I'm just picking them at random, but I'll try and fit at least one in.

1. Added to list in 2025 - Let Me Lie by Clare Mackintosh. I think this prompt probably meant "if it's been on the list for ages and you haven't bought it yet, now's your chance!" but I've just decided to choose the next 'oldest' book on the list, which I've had from the 2nd December 2025.

2. Animal on the cover - The Witches At The End Of The World by Chelsea Iversen. This was harder to choose than I thought it would be, but since this book came up in a previous month, and I didn't get around to reading it, I'm going to try again. There are hares on the cover.

3. House on the cover - The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas. I had quite a few, but I've kind of been avoiding some of my thriller books, so I chose this one.

4. Gothic vibes - The Ghost Woods by C. J. Cooke. Gothic vibes is almost every book I own!! But as I sorted through them, this was the first one I saw with the word 'gothic' on the cover, so that decided it for me.

5. Buy something new - hmm, I'm really trying not to buy any more books at the moment, so I'm going to choose another prompt. Ghosts/Supernatural - A Haunting On The Hill by Elizabeth Hand. Again, this prompt covers quite a lot of my books! This is a follow up to The Haunting Of Hill House, officially approved by Shirley Jackson's estate.

6. Yellow book - Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang. The previous book is yellow, and this is the only other yellow book I have left!

7. Cover I don't like - The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell. I bought a proof copy of this from Vinted, and the cover is mostly plain black (slightly patterned), so it's not so much that I don't like it, it's just a bit boring. (Doesn't look like this image-->)

8. Five word title - There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. Looking forward to this, though I'm not expecting to understand any of it...

9. Two word title - Red Queen by Christina Henry. Hopefully I can still remember most of what happened in Alice...

10. Authors name includes initials - The Other People by C. J. Tudor. I've already got CJ Cooke, RF Kuang and qntm in this list!! 

So that's it for June. Excited for some of these!

P.S. I've just remembered that I might also need to read The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah for a book club, but I've got that on Kindle, so I don't know if I'll bother...

Breaking From The TBR... Kind Of

I've got three books left from my May TBR choices, but they're all on my kindle. My book buying has got a bit out of hand lately, and the shelves are overflowing, so I think I really need to focus on reading physical books that I can put on Vinted when I've finished them, so that I can start whittling them down. 

My last few choices have unfortunately been DNFs; I might have a break from the TBR prompts and just choose a book that I really want to read, and hopefully lift myself out of this slump...

TBR Picks For May

As previously discussed, from this month onward I'm going to read the oldest book on my list, plus a Stephen King novel.

My oldest book is The Examiner by Janice Hallett, which I've had since the 14th November 2025.

My first Stephen King book is Carrie.

I'm still going to choose another 10 books, because it's fun! And they are:

1. Book I've been putting off/don't fancy - Box 88 by Charles Cumming. When Chris was buying me books for Christmas, he took a chance and bought me a couple of random ones, including this. It's an espionage thriller, which is not something I'd choose for myself.

2. Grey book - In The Woods by Tana French. Funnily enough, this is the other book that Chris chose randomly, and to be honest, I could've chosen this for the first prompt, as it's also one that I've not really been wanting to read. [And it's the only grey book I've got]

3. The author's first name begins with 'M' - Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L Wang. This is one of my priority books.

4. Under 300 pages - Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio. 108 pages! Those first three are all quite chunky, so I've chosen what I think is the shortest book I've got.

5. Top shelf (free pick) - The House On Cold Hill by Peter James. I chose this because it's a big hardcover that I don't want on my shelf, but actually on reading the blurb it sounds like a haunted house story, so I might actually enjoy it!

6. Kindle TBR (free pick) - Diavola by Jennifer Thorne. This was a difficult choice, but I've had this one since January, so I thought I'd go 'oldest' again (although this is also a priority book).

7. Black Book - Hare House by Sally Hinchcliffe. My copy is mostly black, and also has black sprayed edges.

8. Bottom shelf (free pick) - All The Colours Of The Dark by Chris Whitaker. Another priority choice.

9. Non-fiction - To The Edge Of The World by Tilar J Mazzeo. One woman. One ship. One astonishing true story.

10. Set in the early 1900s - Mrs England by Stacey Halls. Quite a few to choose from, so just picked this at random.

Let's see how I get on in May!

A Couple Of Ideas...

I've had a couple of thoughts about my TBR list going forward. 

I think I've mentioned before that I have a spreadsheet with all my books listed (books that I own, and books that I still need). I can filter the list by the date that I acquired a book, and I think that every month I'm going to go right back to the 'oldest' one on the list, and have that as one of my choices. I do have a TBR prompt for 'oldest book on list', so if I happen to pull that prompt, then I'll just choose the next oldest.

I do think that, as my tastes are changing, I have some books which I'm not really too keen to read any more, and I think this is one way to make sure that I don't keep ignoring those books. If I decide to DNF them, that's fair enough, but at least I've given them a try.

I've also been thinking about doing some kind of author challenge. I did think about trying to read every Agatha Christie book, just because there are so many for me to work through. But the thing is, I'm not really a murder mystery fan! So I've gone for another obvious choice - Stephen King. I know it's almost sacrilege to say this, but I'm not really a Stephen King fan either! Not disputing that he's an amazing and prolific writer, but I can't say I've really enjoyed the books of his that I have read. But it's been years since I've read any, so maybe I was a bit too young to appreciate them.

I went to his website where you can see a list of all his work, by publication date, and there is a lot. A VERY LOT! So I've decided to only focus on the novels; I'm not including novellas or short stories or collections or anthologies or anything like that (I have read a few of the short stories, like The Shawshank Redemption [which I actually did enjoy] and [is it called] The Body? The one that was made into the film Stand By Me?)

So I've now got a list of his novels, oldest to most recent. I was looking for the books on Amazon at the same time as I was making the list, and there were two that I couldn't find. I thought maybe they were really old / least popular ones, so I deleted them from my list, but I think I have since found them. But I can't be bothered to add them back into the list! As I said, I don't even really like Stephen King so I don't want to get obsessive about this. I think I'm going to try and read one SK book a month, starting with the oldest (which is Carrie) and working forwards. Although I've added all the kindle versions to my Amazon Wish List, I don't really want to spend much money on them (I bought The Shining because it was on a 99p deal), so I think I may actually request them from the library instead. I've placed a hold on Carrie so hopefully that'll come to me in time for me to read it in May.

As for my TBR Jar, I think I'll still continue to pick out my ten prompts, because most months I seem to manage to get through more than 10 books, especially because I usually DNF at least a couple.

So that is my new reading plan for May onwards!

TBR Picks For April

It's that time again! I now have 80 TBR prompts, and I've bought myself a nice jar and written them all out on coloured paper because it's a lot more fun than using the random number generator 😀

On my book spreadsheet, I'd selected some books that I currently own for my 'Priority TBR', the ones I really want to read asap, so I've tried to choose from that list first, with reasonable success. I've also tried to choose more physical books than digital, because the books were starting to pile up!

So without further ado, here are my chosen prompts and books for the month of April:

1. Witchy/witchcraft - The Witches At The End Of The World by Chelsea Iversen (paperback). It was between this or Hex Appeal, but this is set in Norway which is always a draw for me.

2. Five words in the title - We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer (paperback). Heard a lot of good things about this (but also some not so good), but I'm excited to read it.

3. Retelling/reimagining - Red Queen by Christina Henry (paperback). Since this was the same prompt which led me to read Alice, it seemed a no-brainer to use it again to read the sequel.

4. Animal on the cover - Rainforest by Michelle Paver (hardcover). Author of my favourite book of all time (Dark Matter), so I'm always keen to read anything by her, especially if it's something creepy.

5. Body part in the title - A Head Full Of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay (paperback). I had a couple that mentioned blood, and also Yellowface, but I thought 'head' fit the description more.

6. Newest/most recently acquired book - The Sword Of Kaigen by M.L. Wang (KU). Whenever I add a book to my spreadsheet, I record the date that I've added it to the list, but then also the date that I acquire the book. I'd just added this to my KU library on the 26th March, so it was the newest book. 

[Confession: I chose my prompts and wrote this post on the 27th March, because I just couldn't wait any longer! So as long as I don't buy/download anything for the next few days, this is my most recent book!]

7. Green book - Tress Of The Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson (paperback). I almost chose this for my five word title, so I'm glad I got another chance.

8. Oldest book on my list - Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney (paperback). Again, I can filter my list to see which book I've had the longest. Technically, this is the second longest (from the 28th Sept 2025), because the first is The Silent Patient (1st Sept 2025), which I'm going to read this month for Book Club, and I didn't want to use that book for this prompt!

9. Orange book - The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman (hardcover). I don't have many orange books so this was a fairly easy choice.

10. Free pick from the shelves - Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (paperback). I've heard so many good things about this so I'm really excited to read it, I hope it lives up to expectations.

11. Set in the early 1900s - Dark Voyage by Helen Susan Swift (Kindle). This is the first book in a series of five, I think, and I've been wanting to read it for ages, so I'm really excited about this (set in 1914, by the way). 

12. Let Anthony choose - I've been so excited to get this prompt because I was really curious about what he'd choose, and why. I had to wait a while though, because he was doing homework, and then went out to play with a friend, but when he came in I asked if he wouldn't mind helping me with something. He was a bit overwhelmed by all the choices, so instead I asked if he wanted to choose another prompt for me, which he did, and he got Water on the cover, and he then chose Ascension by Nicholas Binge (hardcover) which I was really pleased with.

13. Book Club choice - The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. As mentioned, this has been on my list the longest, but I've been hanging on because I knew it was an upcoming choice for the book club.

And there you have it, my April books!