Backlisted Books Deserve Love Too | Top Ten Tuesday

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.

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I am all about reading backlisted books. New releases are wonderful and as the book world progresses, it only gets more and more diverse and a wider variety of stories are being told, which is fantastic. But that doesn’t mean that every book that has already been published is bad, and I feel sympathy for those books that get all the hype when they’re released, and then are simply forgotten about when something newer and shinier comes along. So today’s Top Ten Tuesday is dedicated to those books that have been a little overlooked, but I’m excited to read nonetheless. For this list I’m going to choose books that were published prior to 2016, as that is when I started reading seriously again and jumped back into the world of young adult fiction.

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The Halifax Connection by Marie Jakober

My mom gave this book to me for Christmas several years ago and I have yet to read it. It has been so long that I couldn’t even remember what it was about other than being a Canadian historical novel. I would love to read this book soon because it’s honestly been 10 years since being released and I feel it could use a little love. Also it only has 12 reviews on Goodreads. What?!

Publication date: June 3, 2008

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

I remember when this was released and picking it up in the bookstore and absolutely loving the cover. I hadn’t yet read a single F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and knew next to nothing about the couple in general, but I knew I wanted to read it. It feels like yesterday but this book was published before I graduated high school, which was nearly five and a half years ago.

Publication date: March 26, 2013

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

The ways in which I decide to read certain books is really interesting. I wasn’t really keen on this book at first, but then they made a movie of it and the trailer looked amazing. I read the summary again and suddenly knew I wanted to read it. I don’t know what changed, but I would love to read more books that take place in Australia and this one hits that goal.

Publication date: July 31, 2012

Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys

Ruta Sepetys’ book Salt to the Sea is the book I credit to getting me back into reading young adult fiction. I had completely forgotten that books which I thought were meant for teens could have such a story within them. Not only that, but I think that book as well as Between Shades of Grey bring new perspectives of the Second World War, of which there are a lot. I’m really looking forward to reading this one in the future.

Publication date: March 22, 2011

Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson

I actually think I own almost all of Jennifer Robson’s books, but I haven’t read a single one of them. It makes no sense, but I think I’m just so confident in the fact that I will love them, that it doesn’t come with a huge sense of urgency to read them. The covers are lovely and even if I don’t end up liking this book, I’ll be happy enough to leave it on my shelf.

Publication date: December 21, 2013

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

I’ve actually had this ebook for ages, and I often forget it exists at all. I don’t think I’ve read a single book that takes place in the Netherlands and I can’t really think of why this is the case because the country and its history as a whole are two things I really enjoy. I know a few who have read this recently and it was brought back onto my radar, so perhaps I’ll pick it up sooner than later.

Publication date: August 26, 2014

The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore

There is nothing more wonderful than a a debut author who stuns with their first book – except for perhaps discovering an amazing author who already has a plethora of previous books just waiting to be ravished by your prying eyes. The moment I started to read Wild Beauty, I knew I wanted more of Anna-Marie’s writing, so I was incredibly pleased to discover that she had already written a few books. The Weight of Feathers is her debut novel from 2015 and I can’t wait to read it.

Publication date: September 15, 2015

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

If you had asked me to guess based upon the cover when this book was published, I would have likely not guessed anything before 2014. But this book was published in 2003! I added it to my list in December 2016, so clearly it has been able to stand the test of time and stick around long enough for people to continue loving and reading it.

Publication date: April 1, 2003

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

Picture this: I’m at a yard sale that is nothing more than a small card table with about 10 items on it. Nothing really interests me, until I pick up an impressively thick paperback called Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. It intrigues me, yet for some reason in the next ten seconds, I decide that I didn’t want to buy it for what was likely less than a dollar. I think about that moment every single time I come across Labyrinth yet again in my want-to-read list, and I have never been able to come up with a logical and reasonable explanation for why I didn’t buy the damn book. Oh, well. One day.

Publication date: February 6, 2007

Moloka’i by Alan Brennert

You can tell that July 27, 2015 was the date that I really started to use my Goodreads account to find more books to read, because that is the day that I added the most books to my list. Moloka’i was suggested to me based upon my choosing of ‘historical’ as my favourite genre, and it has remained buried amongst new releases and daring fantasies on that list ever since. The sequel is being released next year, a full sixteen years after the original novel. It’s one of the only books I’ve heard of that takes place in Hawaii, so I think it would be a good choice to expand my worldly horizons a little bit.

Publication date: October 21, 2003

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What are some of the backlisted books that you’d like to read the most? Do you prefer new releases or old? Let’s chat in the comments!