Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is book quotes! I love good quotes from books (and about books), and have made many posts of my favorites over the years like book quotes about hope, quotes for book lovers, inspirational and thought-provoking quotes from books, favorite quotes from my favorite books (here and here), romantic things characters have said, witty snippets of banter in books, memorable things characters have said, and more. This week I’ve decided to make a list of more quotes for book lovers! These are all quotes about books and reading, and I love them all!

1. “We read to know we’re not alone.” ― William Nicholson

2. “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” ― James Baldwin

3. “Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.” ― Jane Smiley

4. “Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said…”As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells…and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…both strange and familiar.” ― Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

5. “That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive – all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.” ― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

6. “I believe in the magic of books. I believe that during certain periods in our lives we are drawn to particular books–whether it’s strolling down the aisles of a bookshop with no idea whatsoever of what it is that we want to read and suddenly finding the most perfect, most wonderfully suitable book staring us right in the face. Unblinking. Or a chance meeting with a stranger or friend who recommends a book we would never ordinarily reach for. Books have the ability to find their own way into our lives.” ― Cecelia Ahern

7. “Reading is…” His brows knit together and then his forehead smoothed as the right words appeared to dawn on him. “It’s going somewhere without ever taking a train or ship, an unveiling of new, incredible worlds. It’s living a life you weren’t born into and a chance to see everything colored by someone else’s perspective. It’s learning without having to face consequences of failures, and how best to succeed.” He hesitated. “I think within all of us, there is a void, a gap waiting to be filled by something. For me, that something is books and all their proffered experiences.” ― Madeline Martin, The Last Bookshop in London

8. “Perhaps that is the draw of books.” James put his hand over hers. “To show us the way even when we think the path is too dark to see.” ― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

9. “I am a part of everything that I have read.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

10. “A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” ― Lisa Kleypas, A Wallflower Christmas

Which quote here is your favorite?
Can you think of any other quotes for book lovers?
What kinds of quotes did you share in your own TTT this week?

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is “May Flowers”, the companion to last month’s “April Showers” topic. Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt. Some ideas include books with flowers on the cover, flower names in the title, characters whose names are flower names, stories involving flowers/gardeners, etc. I decided to showcase flowery book covers because I loooove flowers and pretty book covers make me smile!

Do You Want to Start a Scandal by Tessa Dare
Ready or Not by Cara Bastone
All’s Fair in Love and War by Virginia Heath
Old Flames and New Fortunes by Sarah Hogle (bonus points for me, the heroine in
this is a witch who tells peoples’ fortunes through flowers!)
The Fiance Dilemma by Elena Armas
Devil In Spring by Lisa Kleypas
The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
In the Weeds by B.K. Borison
The Love Remedy by Elizabeth Everett
Scoundrel of My Heart by Lorraine Heath

How did you interpret this week’s prompt?
Can you think of any other flowery book covers?

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is Top Ten Petty Reasons I’ve DNF’d a Book or Lowered its Rating. This topic was submitted anonymously through the topics suggestion form, and sounded like a lot of fun. I had to put it on the calendar! We’re all at least a little nitpicky when it comes to our books, right? Any avid reader, who has read and loved (and hated) a lot of books develops some kind of dealbreakers list. Sometimes it’s the very little, insignificant gripes that bring down a book for us. Maybe it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, or maybe it’s something that seems insignificant to others but is HUGE and insurmountable for us! Whatever the case may be, this is where we can air those out. I’m not going to be sharing the books in question because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Plus, some of these individual reasons have made me unhappy with multiple books. So here we go! I’m super excited to see all your lists this week.

1. For being too quirky.
Like, maybe the character is so unrealistically quirky that I couldn’t believe they existed. Or maybe the writing, setting, concepts were just so wild.

2. For having too many unnecessary commas.
I cannot stand it when I’m reading a book and there are commas everywhere. I love a good comma, but sometimes there’s so many and a sentence runs on forever. Just end the sentence! Let me catch my breath!

3. For being too “slice of life”. 
I need a plot. I need for things to happen. I don’t care to read about a character’s mindless musings and meanderings through life, with no point.

4. For being too many genres at once. 
I recently read a book that was supposed to be a historical romance/historical fiction blend. Great. But the romance was so underdeveloped and the historical fiction was so basic that I was left unsatisfied with all of it. If you’re promising a romance, I want to be swept away and swoon and fall in love. If you’re promising historical fiction, I want to be immersed in history and learn something. If you smush them together and don’t give me either thing, I’m not going to think favorably of the book.

5. For not being Christmassy enough. 
I’ve read so many books that had beautiful Christmas covers, festive titles, and a back cover synopsis that sounded like the story was going to be filled with cheer, only to get halfway through and forget that I was supposed to be reading a Christmas story. Don’t tell me it’s a Christmas book, but have no Christmas in it! A book set in October, ending with a scene or two around the tree in December is not a Christmas book!

6. For having an annoying narrator. 
I’ve been known to abandon an audiobook 10 minutes in because I couldn’t stand the narrator’s voice, the voice acting, or the narrator’s inability to pronounce words correctly.

7. For being sad when it’s not supposed to be. 
Sometimes I can expect that a book will be sad. If I’m reading WW2 fiction, it’s to be expected. But if I’m reading a rom-com and am hit with super sad subject matter, that’s a kind of whiplash I can’t recover from.

8. For having characters of scientifically impossible sizes. 
I get so tired of reading about heroines who are OBSESSED with recounting how large their male love interests are. Or men talking about how tiny their female love interests are. Hands the size of her entire head, shoulders the size of a car, thighs the size of her waist, neck the size of her thigh, manhood the size of a log. And this is not an uncommon trend. lol. I see this more than I’d like. Are these men 8 feet tall and 500 pounds of muscle? Are these women Thumbelina?

9. For having too many easy-to-research inaccuracies. 
It is not hard to research what it’s like to go on a cruise. I’ll leave it at that. lol.

10. For clearly ripping off another book. 
I have a lot of favorite books, so I’m always looking for similar books that will give me the same adventure. I am not looking for an inferior rip-off of the story. Write something new! Not everything has to be ACOTAR to be romantasy!

What small things make you DNF a book or lower its rating?

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is a fun one, unread books on my shelves I still want to read. I’m hoping some of you will have great things to say about the books on my list! My to-read list is lifetimes long. I will never get through everything I hope to read, but here are ten books on my shelves that I haven’t read yet and still really want to! I’ve chosen to feature titles that have been on my to-read list for 10 years or more and I’m including the date I shelved them, just for fun!

1. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (shelved on June 1, 2008)

2. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig (shelved on October 4, 2010)

3. Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella (shelved on October 15, 2011)

4. Victoria and the Rogue by Meg Cabot (bought in 2004)

5. Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn (shelved June 3, 2012)

6. Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers (bought September 13, 2012)

7. The Perfect Lie by Emily Barr (shelved March 30, 2013)

8. Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare (shelved July 5, 2013)

9. Virgin River by Robyn Carr (shelved October 6, 2013)

10. The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas (shelved February 11, 2014)

Have you read any of these? Which should I prioritize?