Category: Bookish Question

What were your top five (or ten) books for 2024?

Bookish Question #362 | What are your top 10 books for 2024?

Ten? You want me to pick just ten?

In past years, I’ve focused on my list (and my reading) on contemporary Christian romance. This year, I’ve branched out with my reading, so my list includes a combination of fiction and nonfiction from Christian and general market authors.

So here are ten of the most memorable books I’ve read this year, in no particular order:

  1. Broker of Lies (Travis Brock #1) by Steven James, for the unique and intriguing hero.
  2. Across the Ages by  Gabrielle Meyer, for yet another installment in this fabulous dual-timeline series with a deep faith thread.
  3. An Honorable Deception by Roseanna M White, for her fascinating characters (and I especially loved her crossover characters)
  4. So Into You by Kathleen Fuller, a unique Christian romance featuring an introverted YouTube influencer and an ex-con.
  5. Dead Ahead by Susan J Bruce, an enjoyable cozy mystery set in South Australia.
  6. The Mapmaker’s Secret by Jennifer Mistmorgan, a fascinating World War II romance.
  7. Trust and Trickery by Christine Dillon, for bringing a lesser-known Old Testament story to life.
  8. Always and Forever, Elizabeth by Emily Dana Boutrous, for a second-chance romance that deals with the sensitive topic of spousal abuse.
  9. Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski, a book I wish I’d read years ago because prevention is better than cure.
  10. You Had Me At Halo by Amanda Ashby, a general market clean rom-com in which the afterlife seems to be run by the English civil service (no, this one isn’t Christian but it gave me a good laugh).

Do you make a top 10 (or top 5) list each year? What books are on your list?

Which audiobook narrators do you like to listen to?

Bookish Question #361 | What audiobook narrators do you like to listen to?

That’s easy: Peter Jones, as The Book in the original version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, that’s really a recording of a radio play rather than an audiobook …

If we’re going for pure audiobooks, then my children loved Miranda Harcourt’s narrations of the Horrid Henry books. She did a great job with all the character voices, just like when she played Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder II.

As for real audiobooks for adults … I’m not a big audiobook listener, so I don’t have a favourite narrator, although I will admit to preferring British narrators over American (but that would only work where the characters are British).

I have come across a couple of narrators I haven’t enjoyed, usually because their monotone narrations.

I like narrators who can act well enough that I can hear the difference between the characters, rather than having to guess who is the point of view character in each successive scene. It’s hard to like a book if I don’t like the narration.

So I don’t really have an answer to this question.

What about you? Do you have a favourite audiobook narrator? Are there any romance or rom-com narrators you particularly recommend?

What authors are an automatic buy for you?

Bookish Question #360 | What author (or authors) are an automatic buy for you?

Auto-buy authors …

These are the authors we love so much that we click on the “buy” button as soon as we see the preorder on Amazon. Or we frequent our local bookstore, asking when they expect the book to arrive and remind them to put a copy aside for us …

[True story: my local Christian bookstore used to unpack new stock after closing. I’d often get a call during dinner to say a book I’d ordered had arrived. Sometimes he’d just call because he’d unpacked something he thought I would be interested in. He was usually right. I haven’t bought nearly as many paperbacks since he closed the shop and retired.]

Anyway, here is a selection of my must-buy authors:

  • Becky Wade
  • Carla Laureano
  • Christine Dillon
  • Courtney Walsh
  • Elizabeth Maddrey
  • Emily Conrad
  • Emily Dana Botrous
  • Gabrielle Meyer
  • Kara Isaac

Note that I don’t buy all the books by these authors. I enjoy Carla Laureano’s contemporary romances, but don’t read her fantasy releases. I love Gabrielle Meyer’s Timeless series, but haven’t read her earlier books.

What about you? What author (or authors) are an automatic buy for you?

What book made you fall in love with reading?

Bookish Question #359 | What book made you fall in love with reading?

I think I was about seven when I first discovered the ability of a good book to take me away from my small-town home and take me to another time and place.

I don’t remember the title, but I do remember it was a Nancy Drew mystery. I’d borrowed it from the school library, and it was probably a Scholastic title (the school library had a lot of Scholastic titles, from the regular book club catalogues).

It doesn’t matter. I had fallen in love with reading, and nothing has changed in the intervening years.

What about you? What book made you fall in love with reading?

When a book becomes a movie, do you watch it or skip it?

Bookish Question #358 | What a book becomes a movie (or TV series) do you watch it or skip it?

Movie and TV adaptations are a touchy subject with many readers …

If I read and enjoyed the book, I might watch the movie, but it will depend on the genre and how faithful they are staying to the source material. If I think of  examples of movies I have watched after enjoying the book, they tend to be children’s or young adult stories (e.g. Harry Potter, Divergent), or books that I haven’t read in decades, such as Dune, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

I haven’t watched the Bridgerton or Outlander TV series, for the same reason.

If I haven’t read the  book and I see the movie first, I’m unlikely to go back and read the book. For example, my  husband and I watched The Maze Runner movies, then he bought me the books. I’ve never read them, because I didn’t like the way the movies ended so don’t want  to invest the time in the books when I already know what is going to happen. however, I recently  bought the prequel novel, so I can see how they got there…

However, I diligently watched and loved the Christy TV series, loosely based on the classic Christian novel by Catherine Marshall. I think the reason I enjoyed that was because it took the book and expanded it while remaining true to the source.

What about you? Do you watch the movie (or TV ) adaptation if you’ve read the books?

What is the perfect number of pages in a book?

Bookish Question #357 | What is the perfect number of pages in a book?

As many as it takes to tell the story, and no more.

I have read stories that have gone on too long, and they leave me disinclined to read books by  that author again.

I’ve also read stories that have ended too quickly. With those, I am only too keen to read something else by the author.

The too-long stories are generally bogged down by  too much irrelevant detail—too many subplots that don’t related to the main characters, or too many characters. I remember one that was over 500 pages, and kept introducing more and more characters, including the hero’s grandparents, and how they met and fell in love and … I think I skipped the next sixty years/pages because I wanted to get back to the actual plot.

The too-short stories are complete stories but leave me wishing there had been some more subplots, just so the story would last longer. When these stories are part of a series, I’m usually quick to buy or preorder the next book in the series so I can spend more time with characters who feel like they’ve become friends.

A story can be too short, however, and that comes down to reading time. I’m a fast reader, and I prefer stories that take me at least two hours to finish. That means at least 50,000 words … particularly  if it’s a story I’ve paid for. I’m more forgiving of free or 99 cent novellas, or novellas that are part of an anthology.

I sometimes see the analogy that we happily pay $5 for a coffee, yet won’t pay $5 for a book. Well, if I can read a $5 book in less time that it takes me to drink the $5 coffee, it’s too short.

My ideal story length is three to five hours of reading time, which is 200-300 pages (about 50,000 words to 100,000 words), although I have read and enjoyed longer stories. And shorter stories.

What about you? What do you think is the perfect length of a novel?

What country do you want to travel to because you read about it in a book?

Bookish Question #356 | What country do you want to travel to because you read about it in a book?

A good novel that integrates the setting into the story is like taking a mini holiday to that place, and is one of the joys of reading fiction.

I’ve “travelled” to many states and countries through fiction, and have visited many of those locations in real life (either before or after reading about them).

I visited Berlin after reading The Secret of the Rose series by Michael Phillips, and was disappointed to find the graveyard was fictional (but I did get to visit Checkpoint Charlie and many other locations in the story).

I read The Russians series by Michael Philips and Judith Pella, and later travelled to Moscow and St Petersburg. There I visited The Winter Palace and other locations from the stories.

I’ve visited many countries in Europe in real life, then again in fiction thanks to authors such as Elizabeth Musser and Milla Holt.

I’ve visited Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, the locations of many Biblical fiction stories, including The Esther Paradigm by Sarah Monzon and The Light of Nations series by Christine Dillon.

I’ve visited around half the states of the USA, but not Alaska (the setting for the Alaskan Courage series by Dani Pettrey) or Texas (a popular setting for cowboy romance). I’d like to visit both.

There is one country I’d like to visit that I’ve visited in fiction—India, through reading Linda Chaikin’s old Silk series. However, that’s set in 1800s India, and the only way I’ll be able to visit that version is through a time machine 🙂

What about you? What country do you want to travel to because you read about it in a book?

What's the best setting: small town or big city?

Bookish Question #355 | What’s the best setting: small town or big city?

I grew up in a small town but have spent my adult years living in cities (because that is where the work is).

I enjoy living in cities. I currently live in an apartment in the middle of New Zealand’s capital city, and I love it. I love being able to walk most of the places I want or need to go—to work, the library, the supermarket, the shops, the theatres. There are inexpensive buses and trains if I’m going a little further afield. I love that there are so many things to do—shows, plays, exhibitions.

Okay, so the weather isn’t always great, but the apartment is cozy and I’ve yet to be drenched in rain.

It’s all very different from the small town I grew up in.

It was small enough that I knew most of the kids in my school by name. I knew many of their siblings and parents by sight. I didn’t necessarily know the names of the shop owners, but certainly recognised them. Walking down the main street and not seeing anyone I recognised was the exception. Here in the city, it’s the norm.

Maybe that’s why readers like me like small town stories, because they remind us of a different time, a simpler time, a time when we knew our neighbours and our friend’s neighbours. When we knew the town gossip, when reading the newspaper was about people we knew.

Are small towns still like that in real life? I don’t know, but they certainly  are in fiction. That’s why I love small-town stories.

What about you: do you prefer: small towns or big cities?

What's the longest book you've ever read?

Bookish Question #353 | What’s the longest book you’ve ever read?

Probably one of the multi-book anthologies I’ve bought on Kindle. Some of them have included 20 books. However, I think that’s 20 books in one volume, not a single book.

On that basis, the longest single title I’ve read is probably War and Peace. I checked a couple of “longest book” lists online, and War and Peace is apparently 1225 pages long, or 587,000 words.

The longest Christian book I can think of reading is Glastonbury by Donna Fletcher Crowe, which is 1134 pages long. That may or may not be longer than War and Peace: bigger fonts make for longer books regardless of word count.

What about you? What’s the longest book you’ve ever read?

Have you ever stopped reading a series before the end?

Bookish Question #352 | Have you ever stopped reading a series of novels?

I’d like to say I finish every series I start. I’d like to say I finish every book I start, but neither statement is true.

There are three main reasons I don’t finish a series:

1. The Publisher

Sometimes, a publisher decides not to complete publishing a series. I’ve had this happen a couple of times, and it’s really frustrating as a reader. In one I remember, the second book in the series ended just as the Berlin Wall went up, leaving the hero and heroine on opposite sides of the wall. I was so annoyed that I stopped buying fiction from that publisher unless the complete series was already available. They stopped publishing fiction soon after.

I know some readers prefer not to buy books in a series, especially a trilogy, until all the books have been published so they know they’ll get the full story arc. I also know this can become a self-fulfilling prophesy: if a publisher doesn’t see sufficient sales for the first book in a series, they might cancel the contract and not publish the full series.

While I can see the publisher’s point (they need to make a profit), their actions are counter-productive: every time a publisher cancels an incomplete series, they increase the number of readers who won’t buy books in an incomplete series.

(But that’s only for traditional publishers: self-published authors will probably finish the series because they know a book is forever, and they will increase their readthrough and their profits when the series is complete).

2. Boredom

There are, unfortunately, series I’ve stopped reading because of boredom—usually because the series has gone on so long that it’s no longer about the characters who originally caught my interest.

3. Lack of Knowledge

The other reason I don’t complete reading a series is because I didn’t see a new book was available.

An easy way to make sure this doesn’t happen is to sign up for an author’s email newsletter – most authors have a newsletter now, especially self-published authors. Yes, some email too often, but it does make sure I don’t miss out on a book I wanted to read.

What about you? Have you ever stopped reading a series of novels before the end?

Do you remember why?