Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, which means it’s time for Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly theme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl where we talk about books!

I hope you had a good Christmas (if you celebrate), and if books were on your Christmas list, that you got many of them!

This week’s theme is Most Recent Additions to my Bookshelf. This week we’re going to end up with a few books that I probably wouldn’t have mentioned otherwise. I wonder if I’ll see the same thing with other people’s lists this week?

So this week includes some books on the writing craft, some books I’ve read, and a couple books I got in museums or on a recent vacation I took. Not what most Top Ten Tuesday topics cover. Hope you find it interesting.

1. My True Love Gave to Me—Stephanie Perkins. This was the last book I bought. I’ve checked it out of the library at least a couple of times, and have thought about buying it multiple times, but didn’t really want to shell out $14 for an eBook when I can usually find it at the library (although sometimes there’s a waiting list). When it went on sale for $1.99, I figured that was my sign to pick it up. I’ve spent more on virtual cats in video games. And it’s a good thing I got it when I did, because it’s back up to $9.99 as of today.

This book has 12 YA love stories centered around a winter theme. One of the stories, Rainbow Rowell’s “Midnights” is perfect for reading around New Year’s, and is incredibly sweet. Although I picked it up late in the season this year, I will definitely be reading that story before 2026 starts.

2. The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro’s Impressionism—Clarisse Fava-Piz and others (editors). I’ve been a member of the Denver Art Museum for several years and for the most part, I prefer most older art to modern art (although there’s some work by Banksy and some other modern creators that I do like). Right now, there’s an impressionism exhibit at the DAM, and after I went to it, I picked up this book. I haven’t read it yet, but I did browse through a copy at the museum and it has all the pictures from the exhibit and text talking about Pissarro and his life and work.

I was in Paris for a couple of days in October (my husband and I figured that since we were in the area for a Mediterranean cruise, we might as well hop on over there afterwards so we can see it). I thought the parts of the exhibit where they were talking about Paris was interesting, because I could say “I was just there!”

3. A Christmas Truce—Emma Bennett. I do a lot of dishes and cleaning at work. While doing those duties, I usually have some headphones on and am listening to audiobooks, mostly. I also like to read at least one Christmas story around the holiday season. So I read this one this year.

4. We Met Like This—Kasie West. Haven’t read this one yet, but it is on my shelf. I’ve liked some of Kasie West’s books before, and I needed something to read while at work. Normally at work I will finish one book and then immediately fish my phone out of my pocket and put on the next one. So when I get within 8 hours of finishing a book, I put another book on standby. Right now I’m listening to the Realm Breaker series by Victoria Aveyard, and before that I reread the Red Queen series, so that’s kept me busy for the last few weeks, so I haven’t dug into this one yet. But it’ll be there soon. I only have 38 more minutes in Fate Breaker, the last book in the Realm Breaker series.

5. The Best Wild Idea—Lily Parker. This was a nice little audiobook that I got when I was looking for something to read. I was getting ready for work and realized I needed a book, and this popped up.

It’s about three best friends. Jules and Grant got engaged, but then he ended up dying. Grant, knowing that his best friend was also in love with Jules, had one dying wish: that Silas, who was a billionaire CEO, take his friend on the trip of a lifetime, a year after his death. It had a very nice ending.

6. Nobody’s Girl—Virginia Roberts Giuffre. I’ve seen this one Top Ten Tuesday several times now, but I think I first saw it on Goodreads. Yes, I read it at work. I don’t read a lot of memoirs, but this is an important and timely topic, about one poor girl who was sucked into Epstein’s abusive world. I was surprised by a lot of what I read. I definitely recommend this book.

7. Description and Setting—Ron Rozelle. I’m trying to read a book about the craft of writing on a regular basis. I’m almost done with this book, and I’ve found it definitely useful. Description is one of those things I could use more work on.

I found the first part of the book the most useful. One of the things it suggests is to pay attention to the things around you and then try to describe them. I think it’s a good exercise.

8. Outlining Your Novel—K.M. Weiland. Another book on the craft of writing. I hope to write another book in the Mirr universe soon, and I’ve found it really useful to have an outline before I write. This book has given me other tips, and has really helped me understand the characters in Save the Best for Last—sometimes in surprising ways.

Although NaNoWriMo is no more, if you plan on writing a book soon, you might want to check this book out.

9. A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women—Emma Southon. I read this at work last year. I didn’t remember that I had read it, and I saw this while I was at the gift shop at the Museo Archaeologico Nationale di Napoli (the National Archaeological Museum of Naples). Even though I had lived in Naples for three years and had been to Pompeii twice, I had never gone here, so when our cruise had an excursion here, I had to go.

Emma Southon is a lovely historian and writes books that make tragic stories seem quite funny. These stories are from about 2000 years ago, so I think we can see some of the humor in tragedy at this point. Anyway, her books are all great (and she’s a frequent guest on History Hit podcasts so if you like history you might want to seek her out there too), so if you are interested in Roman history, I’d check out one of her books.

10. Red City—Marie Lu. I originally thought the guidebook for the above museum was a purchase I made after this book, but no. This book came out around when I was in Cartagena, and I went to Naples a couple days before that. The Kindle edition of this book was delivered to me while I was at sea on a boat. So this was one of the last ten additions to my shelf.

So, after I wrote this, I technically bought another book. But it’s not a normal book. I bought the Duolingo Learning Companion Notebook. It was on my Christmas list, but I didn’t get it. I started learning Japanese lately, because we hope to go to Japan in 2029, and I figured if I’m going to be able to understand Japanese passably, I better start now. I figure this will be a great notebook to practice my Kanji with. There are so many characters!

What about you? What were some of your most recent book acquisitions? Were they all fiction, or did you have a mixture of books for reading and books for hobbies or work?