Top Ten Books for a 2025 Christmas song tag

Top Ten Books
for a 2025 Christmas song tag

TTT for December 9
#TopTenTuesday

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Today’s theme is Books Set in Snowy Places.
Snow is not really my thing (I’m already tired of the 8 inches we got last week and which will take for ever to melt…).
BUT we usually associate snow with Christmas,
so I’m going to do the Christmas song tag I saw recently at Readerbuzz, and which was originally created by the host of this Top Ten Tuesday (and she published her post last Friday)!
I’ll try to only pick books read this year.

Click on the covers to read my review
or info on the book

1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You”
Favorite bookish couple

Riko the gamer and her beloved cat Musubi,
in Cat+Gamer, by Wataru Nadatani
Cat + Gamer #5

2. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”
Name a book where a character is away from home (school, vacation, etc.)

The Lady Vanishes, by Ethel Lina White
Iris
was on vacation somewhere in EuropeThe Lady Vanishes

3. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
Name your favorite “little” book (children’s book, short story, novella, etc.).

Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
was the last awesome scif short-story/novella (85 pages) I read:Summer Frost

4. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town“
What book(s) do you hope Santa brings you this year?

The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories,
edited by Jay Rubin
Though Santa rarely brings me booksThe Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories

5. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
Which book turned your nose red (made you cry)?

Les Ombres du monde, by Michel Bussi
Historical novel based on the Rwanda genocide:Les Ombres du monde

6. “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”
Your favorite book/kind of book to read during the holidays.

This year, I’m listening to
The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, ed. by Otto PenzlerThe Big Book of Christmas mysteries

7. “We Three Kings”
Your favorite trilogy/book from a trilogy
(or feel free to fudge it and pick a book from a series).

Cat Massage Therapy, by Haru Hisakawa
#1 is my favorite of the whole trilogyCat Massage

8. “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow”
A character you would love to be snowed in with.

Tove Jansson
in Notes from an Island
She is not a character, she is the author, and she passed away.
Woudl have been nice to spend time with her
on her beloved island.Notes from an Island

9. “Last Christmas”
A book that seriously let you down.

I had to DNF
Empire of the Atom, by A. E. van Vogt
(read another one by him instead)
Empire of the Atom

10. “White Christmas”
An upcoming release you’re dreaming about. 

Platform Decay, by Martha Wells
The next volume in the Murderbot series
to be released on May 5, 2026Platform Decay

 Have YOU read
or are YOU planning to read any of these?
Please leave the link to your own post,
so I can visit
Try the tag!

2025: October wrap-up

FranceBookToursButton180x180 OCTOBER 2025 WRAP-UP

Another month that went way too fast!
Same number of books than last month (thanks to manga!!), just a few more pages read, but less hours of audiobooks.
Hoping to read more for the last two months of the year!
Though at this point, it’s clear I will not be able to reach my goal of 165 books.

📚 Here is what I read in October:

9 books 
6 in print 
=  with 1166 pages, a daily average of 37 pages/day
3 in audio
= 24H07, a daily average of 46 minutes/day 

4 in science-fiction:

  1. Swans in Space #1, by Lun Lun Yamamoto
  2. Swans in Space #2, by Lun Lun Yamamoto
  3. Swans in Space #3, by Lun Lun Yamamoto – these three were middle grade manga. Will review during #Scifimonth
  4. The Hopkins Manuscript, by R. C. Sheriff. Will review during #Scifimonth

2 in mysteries:

  1. Tout ce qui est sur terre doit pĂ©rir, by Michel Bussi – audio
  2. Accident (The Listerdale Mystery #6), by Agatha Christie – audio

1 in poetry:

  1. West Wind, by Mary Oliver – will review during NonficNov

1 in nonfiction:

  1. A Little Tour in France, by Henry James – audio, will review during NonficNov

1 in manga (adventure):

  1. Yotsuba&! vol 1, by Kiyohiko Azuma – middle-grade
MY FAVORITE BOOKS THIS PAST  MONTH

  The Hopkins Manuscript A Little Tour in France

READING CHALLENGES & OTHER RECAP

📚 Total of books read in 2025 = 125/165
(76%, 11 books behind of schedule for my Goodreads challenge)!!
📚 Classics Club 5th list: 48/100
(from December 2024-until November 2029)
📚  Agatha Christie Short Stories Challenge 2025: 10/12
 
📚 Japanese Literature Challenge: 5/8 books
+ 6 outside the challenge dates + 3 bilingual
📚 Hundred Years Hence Reading Challenge (#HYH25) (hosted by Neeru) = 3/3
📚 BookBound: 8 in 2024, 7 in 2025
📚 Number of books added to my TBR this past month = 18

📚 Compared to my October plans:
not too good, I read 4/7 titles.
I have 2 in process, and I DNFed The Iron Heel, by Jack London

  1. My October TBR = 4/7 
  2. 1 book for my BookBound project  = DNFed!
  3. From my TBR: 1 book in print 
  4. a book in Spanish/Italian – alternate = in process
  5. From my TBR: the last one I ran into on a blog, etc
  6. From my TBR: from my jar or 1 I recently added to my TBR = 1
  7. From my TBR: 2 classics at least = 3
  8. 1 audiobook in French = 1 
  9. 1 for Agatha Christie Short Stories Challenge = 1

📚 In October,
– I traveled to:
Armenia, Australia, England, Italy, France, Japan, Russia, Turkey, and US
– 3 books I read were published between 1884-1939
– I read 4 books in translation (from Japanese)
– I read 1 book in French
– 5 books came from my public library

📚 In October:

OTHER BOOKS  REVIEWED THIS PAST MONTH

My First Goose The House Without a Key The Layton Court Mystery

MOST POPULAR BOOK REVIEW THIS PAST MONTH

We'll Prescribe you a Cat

 click on the cover to access my review
Really? Back to this meh book??

MOST POPULAR POST THIS PAST MONTH
– NON BOOK REVIEW –

French Bingo 2015 cardOld post, but maybe it can inspire you

BOOK BLOG THAT BROUGHT ME MOST TRAFFIC THIS PAST MONTH

In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel

please click on the banner to go visit this blog, lots of good things there

TOP COMMENTERS 

Marianne at Let’s Read
Deb at Readerbuzz
Tammy at Books, Bones & Buffy
please go and visit them,
they have great blogs

BLOG MILESTONES 

3,218 posts
over 5,270 followers
over 434,610 hits

📚 📚 📚

Come back on Sunday to see
my reading plans and events for November!
How was YOUR month of October?

Spell the month in books: October 2025

    spell-the-month-in-booksSpell the month in books:
October 2025
Click on the logo to join

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I discovered this meme thanks to Marianne @ Let’s read.
“The idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles”,
and there’s an accompanying theme.

October:
Trick or Treat – Books that you feel strongly about,
whether positively or negatively

So I am going with books I rated with 5 Eiffel Towers.
And I tried to pick books that few bloggers talk about.

Olga’s Egg
Calypso
Two Days Gone
On la trouvait plutĂ´t jolie (English: The Read Notebook)
Between Two Sounds
L’EtĂ© meurtrier
The Reunion

 📚

Click on the covers to access my review

 Olgas Egg Calypso two-days-gone

Olga’s Egg:
MY VERDICT:
The Fabergé eggs as you never knew them. Intriguing, lavish, fascinating. My best historical novel of the year.

Calypso:
MY VERDICT:
A unique sci-fi boundary-pushing verse epic: ancient myth meets futuristic engineering, challenging readers to navigate humanity’s choice between technological dominance and ecological stewardship.
A compelling reading experience I will not easily forget.

Two Days Gone:
MY VERDICT:
Super suspenseful thriller enriched with a great reflection on the art of writing and the connection between the author and his characters.

  On la trouvait plutot jolie Between two Sounds

On la trouvait plutĂ´t jolie, published in English as The Red Notebook!
Be careful, Antoine Laurain has also a book translated as The Red Notebook, but this is Michel Bussi. So weird choice of the translator/publisher.
Very power book, on Africans trying to migrate to France.
I posted a few thoughts here.

Between Two Sounds: Arvo Pärt’s Journey to His Musical Language:
MY VERDICT:
Masterful chronicle of Arvo Pärt’s journey, through meticulous research and striking monochromatic illustrations.

  L'été meurtrier The Reunion

L’EtĂ© meurtrier (published in English as One Deadly Summer)
Impressive author. Short Goodreads review

The Reunion:
Also excellent French author. Check out why

Have YOU read
or are YOU planning to read any of these ?
Should I ignore any?
Please leave the link to your own post,
so I can visit.