Top Ten Tuesday: Spring Cleaning!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

I am so excited for this prompt!

Not because my Goodreads TBR has somehow crept up from 580 to 605 in the past month (dammit), but because I have culled my (physical) shelves and am preparing to unhaul some books. Most will go to my neighborhood’s little free library, while others will go to my local library.

Is there a reason? No, not really. Did it any difference on my shelves? Also no. I have a lot of books. But also we’re preparing to move in the next few months and because it’s time to move some of these off my shelf to make room for more diverse, fantastic and awesome books!

If you’re interested in any of these, please let me know. Just because I don’t like them or want them anymore doesn’t mean you might not! There is a book for everyone, and no judgment from me—I’d love to find a home for these 🙂

It’s Not Me, It’s You

I debated removing these for a while, because while Larry Correia is a whiny as fuck conservative (he was one of the ringleaders for the whole Hugo Sad Puppies debacle, mainly because he was butthurt women and people of color were getting recognition and his books weren’t) I did really enjoy these books. However, there is a time and a place for such enjoyment, and that place is in the past. I’m just not interested in his future works, nor am I interested in keeping these books on my shelves. Because let’s face it: the human main character is basically an author self-insert, he fetishizes guns to an absurd degree, the women are problematically written and the only book I really enjoyed was the werewolf one, but I’m not going to reread it. My time is precious and I have no time (or space) for assholes.

It took about three years of owning Ruined (and another year or so of trying to find a copy in the library before I gave up and bought it), of constantly shuffling it to the bottom of my physical TBR pile, to realize I am not going to read this. It doesn’t interest me, and I’ve read another of Tintera’s books and wasn’t bowled over by her writing style. Samesies, to a different extent, with The Winter Duke, except I actually did read this one. Fantastic premise, shit writing and world-building, despite having all of the factors to make it mind-blowing. Her editor did her a real disservice, although at least that cover is breathtaking.

I’ve Moved On, Sorry

I did love these books in the same way I love Michael J Sullivan’s Riyria series. However, sword and sorcery and grittiness is a hard sell for me nowadays, and I just don’t see myself returning to reread these. Also, I never actually did read Blue Moon Rising, and I’m going to be honest with myself and admit that after owning the book for nearly ten years, I’m never going to read it. They’re solid reads if nothing super fancy or groundbreaking, but they definitely have not aged well.

I used to be a huge Tom Clancy fan back in high school (which was odd because I was a military-obsessed liberal, which yes is an oxymoron welcome to my life). However, Tom and I haven’t sat well ever since I DNF’d Red Storm Rising in my senior year of high school, nearly twenty years ago. I haven’t read the books since, and while I appreciate the place military-political thrillers had in my life back then, I don’t really see myself easing back into that genre. And while I’ll never get rid of my battered copy of Craig Thomas’ Winter Hawk (it’s really not a good book but it was the first book I remember with the f-word, it made me want to be a pilot and I um, weirdly liked the main character? Which I’m certain would not be the case if I read it now), I can say good-bye to Tom with fond memories and no regrets.

I’m unhauling Reading Player One because despite my enjoyment of it at the time (100% because of the 80s nostalgia, which was a decade I was born in but did not grow up in), my feelings for it have waned, particularly with its transphobic content and also the fact that this underserving book sat on the the Commandant’s Reading List for far longer than it should have, while there were literally no books written by women (save Barbara Tuchman, who has been dead over thirty years) or about the female Marine experience. Dust is going because I’m keeping Wool but don’t have the second book and while Dust was good I’m never going to reread it. Steelheart is going for a similar reason. I enjoyed the ride, but don’t want to revisit. I absolutely adored Hollow World when it was released—it was one of the first books I’ve read with a utopian society where gender and racism are erased and everyone is totally cool…until two assholes from the early 21st century time travel forward and fuck things up. The writing is great, the worldbuiding is fantastic, and I love the message of love conquering all, but it’s not a book I’ll return to—there are so many fantastic books exploring this topic with more nuance, written by queer writers.

I Just…Don’t Have the Time

Once upon a time (college) I read nearly every single damn urban fantasy book I could get my hands on (minus Jim Butcher because I found the Dresden Files boring). Enter the Dante Valentine series, which I was determined to love because it seemed like everyone else (I had no rationale or evidence, as Goodreads did not exist and then when it did I wasn’t aware of it until late 2011), despite my hating the main character, the plot, the worldbuilding and um, the writing. But I was going to give Lilith Saintcrow (how can you not be an amazing UF writer with that name?) a shot, and after scrounging the world for The Demon’s Librarian (Demons! Librarian!) it’s been about ten years of me owning it and it’s not going to happen.

I really enjoyed Fall of Giants, and was really looking forward to reading this one, until I entered the horrible world of Karl Marlantes’ Deep River and my joy for historical family sagas was sucked right out of me. Deep River highlighted all of the flaws I had glossed over in Fall of Giants, particularly how poorly women were written and how weirdly obsessed Follett was with this kid’s penis (it’s like, right in chapter one). Also, I am not going to sit down and read a 900+ page book. If I do pick it up (because I am still interested), this will be an audiobook read, which means I don’t need to keep schlupping this tome around.

After how many fucking years of owning this and several half-assed attempts to read it, I’m going to give up the ghost and just admit that I will never read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. The premise doesn’t interest me, the writing style is not to my taste, and I just do not have the time to suffer through 1000+ pages of something I am not feeling. Instead of using it as a doorstop or a security device, I’m going to give it away and let someone who has been dying to read it enjoy it, because all it’s doing in my house is gathering dust.

What books are you unhauling this spring?