Top Ten Tuesday: Covers I Liked Better Than The Book

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week is a covers freebie. Despite the old yarn about not judging books by them, I think we've all fallen prey to a pretty or interesting cover. Sometimes those books turn out to be great! Other times, less so. Here are ten books where the cover grabbed me but the insides didn't.

The Overstory: This book started out incredible and then kind of fell apart for me. But the cover remains gorgeous.

On Trails: Such a striking, simple cover for a book about the making and use of trails. This book club selection ended up being a dud for me (but I don't care for outdoors-y books).

Patron Saints of Nothing: I love the way this cover evokes prayer candles, and I thought the book was going to touch more on religious faith. Though it was clunky writing, not a lack of Catholicism, that tanked the book for me.

The Catcher in the Rye: This cover is just so visually appealing, I wish I liked the book more. Or at all. Alas.

The Buried Giant: The weakest Ishiguro I've read, but every version of the cover I've seen does something interesting with trees.

A Million Little Pieces: Even though I know this book is made of lies, I can't get over how much I love the image of this cover.

The Fountainhead: The Art Deco-ness of this cover is amazing. The book itself is...better than Atlas Shrugged, at least?

Friday Night Lights: The show is much more compelling than the book, but the image of the players strolling onto the field holding hands is perfect.

Shantaram: There's an actual golden sheen to this cover that totally drew me in and then the book is both gigantic and quite bad.

A Great And Terrible Beauty: I was really ready for this to be a kind of dishy romance because of this cover and it was very much not (nor was it good).

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Top Ten Tuesday: Covers I Liked Better Than The Book

A Month In The Life: November 2019

We're in the homestretch, y'all! Just one more month between us and 2020, which is WILD. And while I've had some awesome experiences this year, I always find myself looking forward to the new one about this time. But first, there are holidays to enjoy!

In Books...

• Patron Saints of Nothing: A Filipino-American teenager, Jason, goes to the Philippines to investigate his cousin's mysterious death amidst Duterte's drug war in this book that tries, but can't quite rise above Issue Book tropes. There's merit here, and a clear desire to raise awareness, but thin characterization and clunky exposition keep it from ever taking off.
• The Death and Life of the Great Lakes: Given my strong emotional attachment to the Great Lakes as a native Michigander, this was always going to appeal to me. But the examination of the disasters that have transpired through human meddling is written with a clear-eyed urgency and ease to read that makes it especially compelling.
• Slam: This almost seems like an experiment to see if the man-child attitude of a Nick Hornby character works better on an actual teenage boy. Honestly, it kind of does? Sam is a teenage skateboarder, himself the child of teenage parents, when he gets his girlfriend Alicia pregnant and she elects to keep the baby. I've always enjoyed Hornby's warm humor, but this book just doesn't really go anywhere. 
• The Great Mortality: The Black Death was a historical event I didn't have much of a grasp on and wanted to learn more about, but this book proved to be a bit of a mixed bag. It was clearly well-researched, but John Kelly's writing style was so casual that it didn't really work for me. It shoots for being entertaining and lands too often on cheesy, which is a pity because I did feel like I learned from it and would have liked it more if it had been more restrained. 
• The Talented Mr. Ripley: This movie is one of those that I always enjoy watching, so I was curious about the source material. It's different...the murder takes place much earlier, more time is devoted to Ripley's efforts to evade discovery, but it's still very good. Highsmith builds interesting characters and relationships even while keeping the tension humming. 
• Offshore: This very short novel tells the story of a group of people living on houseboats on the River Thames, with a particular focus on a young wife and mother, Nenna, who is unhappily separated from her husband. The prose is lovely and she does excellent work creating characters without having a lot of pages in which to do so, but the plot didn't quite work for me and the ending left me cold.
• After The Party: This book tells the story of Phyllis, who returns to England with her older husband and three children before World War 2 and gets involved with a movement both her sisters already belong to...the British Union of Fascists. Phyllis had some inconsistencies as a character, which was a problem because she was the narrator, but the prose quality is solid and the story is interesting, and a very different take on a WW2 tale.

In Life...

• Winter begins: It was a pretty quiet November, but with this being Thanksgiving weekend, it's officially the holiday season. I baked a delicious Zingerman's coffee cake for dessert for the big meal, and we got our first significant snowfall of the season!

One Thing:

I was not an especially frequent visitor to sports blog Deadspin, though I look forward every year to Drew Magary's Hater's Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog. But even if you never loaded the website once, the way that it and other media outlets have been purchased and essentially pillaged by private equity is chilling. In a world where getting a reliable paycheck for writing and journalism is growing more and more difficult, the bravery of the whole staff for resigning in protest of the challenges made to their editorial independence is inspiring. Deadspin Forever.

Gratuitous Pug Picture:

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A Month In The Life: November 2019

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Fall 2019 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! These are my favorite lists: our quarterly TBRs! This fall looks to bring some books-made-into-movies, some prize-winners, as well as some infectious disease nonfiction, and a bunch of other stuff too.

The Hours: I've wanted to read the book ever since I saw the movie, but thought I should probably read Mrs. Dalloway first. Well, now I have and so it's time to read this!

The Age of Miracles: The concept behind this (the earth's rotation slowing, lengthening days and throwing the world into a panic) seems intriguing, and I heard that it was inspired in part by Jose Saramago's Blindness, which I loved.

The Overstory: The book club pick for next month, this was the most recent Pulitzer Prize winner and I'd actually already bought a copy to read before it was picked!

Plagues and Peoples: The influence of disease on human history is extremely up my alley.

Revolutionary Road: I tend to find suburban dissatisfaction interesting, and I did like the movie version, so I've got high hopes for the book.

The Line of Beauty: I will read anything that has won the Booker Prize.

Patron Saints of Nothing: I don't read a ton of young adult, but this one has a UMich connection, deals with the political situation in the Philippines (which I'd like to learn more about) and has gotten good reviews.

Slam: I've heard some mixed reviews of this one, but I love Nick Hornby so I'll give it a try.

The Great Mortality: It's all about the Black Death, which I've never really learned much about except kind of broadly, so I'm excited to read more about it.

The Talented Mr. Ripley: There's a lot of "I saw the movie" in this quarter! Because that's the appeal here, too.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Fall 2019 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday: Upcoming Releases I’m On the Fence About

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This is another one of those topics that I struggle with since I read so much backlist! I do look for things I might like on the frontlist, but generally wait to hear about other books from people I trust. I did manage to put together ten books that caught my eye but I'm waiting to have vetted to see if they'll make my list.

Machines Like Me: This concept seems intriguing (a love triangle with an android), but then again so did Ian McEwan's last book, Nutshell, which I mostly heard to stay away from...so I'm waiting it out on this one.

The Body Lies: Thrillers are a category I don't always love, though this one about a creative writing group does pique my interest, so I'm going to hold out until I know if it's any good or not from people who generally don't read the genre.

Dual Citizens: I'm always interested in reading books about sisters, but there are plenty of stinkers out there so I'm hoping someone tells me if this one is worth picking up.

Polite Society: I'm on the fence, generally, about retellings-of-classics...for every one that delights, there's another that clings too tightly to the original to be fresh, so someone please tell me if this take on Emma is great or not so much.

Henry, Himself: This book about an old man looking back at his life seems like it will either be heartwarming and charming or intolerably annoying.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton: I used to love historical fiction but have found myself gravitating away from it more and more as I get older unless I hear great things...this one does sound like something I'd like, so I'm keeping an ear out for word about it.

Disappearing Earth: A mystery about missing children set in rural Russia, this promises to look at multiple perspectives in a way that I might be interested in exploring, but I want to hear how well it executes first.

Furious Hours: This is a book about Harper Lee planning to write a book about a murder trial (which, obviously, she never ended up publishing), which sounds fascinating but also I've heard virtually nothing about it, which makes me wonder if it's actually a dud.

Homeland: This is a novel about Basque nationalism and the ETA which sounds either like it'll be really good or really grim and I need more input to know!

Patron Saints of Nothing: This is YA, which I don't normally read, but the subject matter (the drug war in the Philippines) seems promising, so hopefully the word on the street is good.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Upcoming Releases I’m On the Fence About