TSS: The Annual Christmas TBR Explosion

Because my birthday and Christmas are so close together, I’ve always had a glorious few weeks where my to be read pile explodes and I find myself possessing books I’ve craved all year long. Most people I know well enough to exchange gifts with understand that pretty much all I want is books, so I’m lucky enough to receive books as gifts; this year I also … um … bought myself several as a birthday present. Kind of a celebration on lifting the TBR ban.

On top of this wonderful yearly addition to the physical TBR pile, Amazon also tend to put Kindle ebooks on sale around the New Year. This naturally means that I jump on the opportunity to possess wishlisted books at the ridiculously small price of 99p or £1.99; since Christmas I’ve acquired over 20 ebooks.

First, though, the physical books:

I’m particularly excited about Dangerous Women, although I think it will take me a while to read as it’s much too big to take with me on the train. But I’m actually looking forward to all these books, including the out-of-print Dreamsnake, one of the few remaining Hugo and Nebula award winners written by a woman that I haven’t read yet (the other one is Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold which I have somewhere).  The Raven Boys comes as a recommendation from Ana and Jodie. I think I also read about Biting the Sun on a blog but can’t actually remember where.

Then, there were the ebooks. I can’t take a picture of these, but I can list them:

• The Grass is Singing, Doris Lessing
• The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
• The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
• The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri
• First Grave on the Right, Charley Davidson
• Cinder, Marissa Meyer
• Heart of Steel, Meljean Brook
• The Countess Conspiracy, Courtney Milan
• Across the Universe, Beth Revis
• The Valley of Amazement, Amy Tan
• One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
• Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki
• We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo
• Harvest, Jim Crace
• Life after Life, Kate Atkinson
• The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton
• Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, Max Hastings
• Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O’Farrell
• Goddess with a Blade, Lauren Dane

I’ve actually read three of these already – We Need New Names (fulfilling one of my monthly goals) and Life after Life, both of which I loved. The third was A Countess Conspiracy and above I’ve linked to my mini review post in which I discuss it.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, the pace of book acquisition has slowed down since then – otherwise I think I’d never catch up! Which of these do you think I should read next?