Hi and welcome back to another Top Ten Tuesday post! This week’s topic is The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf, whether it’s your read shelf, your physical bookshelves, your digital one or your TBR. Not long ago, we did something similar for Let’s Talk Bookish, but there we called it TBR roulette. So, I decided to go for some more confrontation and to play another, yet longer, round of this little game. What books do I find this time? I put my Goodreads shelf in a number generator and “rolled the dice” ten times. Which books of the 292 ones on my TBR did pop up? Let’s find out!

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.

1. Running with Lions by Julian Winters (2) – This book has been on my TBR for forever at this point, I believe so since 2018. I somehow don’t prioritize it, which is unfortunate, given it’s queer and a sports romance. Two things I used to enjoy. I still enjoy queer literature, and sometimes even a sports romance when the character growth is superior to the sports. However, this is a young adult one and I have kind of outgrown the genre. Will this high school story still pique my interest? In other words, will I still read it?
2. Who I Was with Her by Nita Tyndall (66) – This is a pandemic leftover. During Covid, I got myself tons of diverse YA novels, believing I would read them anytime soon. Not knowing I slowly but gradually felt myself outgrowing the age range. Many books are left unread as a result and this novel is just one of them. I still want to read it though, because it’s queer and diverse.
3. Silvercloak by L.K. Steven (276) – One of the newer additions to my TBR. I was completely unaware of this book until I saw someone posting about it on either a blog, or Instagram. Then, I still was ignorant, until I realised this book is written by Laura Steven, whose contemporaries I enjoyed in the past. This book is still on my TBR, and I hope to read it rather sooner than later. But oh well, that’s the case for many of these books, isn’t it?
4. Code of Honor by Alan Gratz (123) – This book has been on my TBR for years as well. I grabbed this one in a bookish advents calendar on a Dutch bookish platform. The platform itself has changed, and the advents calendar is no more for years now. I always tend to leave such books rotting on the TBR the longest, because I grabbed them for free with the thought of reading them sometime, whenever I feel like it. Not urgent, no priority. So, this one is probably falling victim to this mindset of mine.
5. Een echte man by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (271) – In contradiction to The Most Secret Memory of Men by this author, this novel doesn’t have an English translation. It’s originally French, but I wrote down the Dutch title. Another newer addition to the TBR and one I’m planning to read pretty soon.
6. A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross (137) – I added this book a while ago, probably years ago. I heard so many positive things about it and I therefore wanted to judge for myself. However, I don’t own it, so who knows whenever I will read it.
7. The Dare by Elle Kennedy (96) – This is the fourth and final book in the “Briar U” series. I finally picked this series up last year by reading The Chase and I wasn’t really into that book anymore. It’s a college romance and I couldn’t resonate with the characters’ behaviour anymore. Still, I want to read it though as I own the entire series. But when, that’s the question.
8. Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales (159) – Another YA novel that has been sitting on my TBR for years. I’m not sure if I own this one, but if not, it will be removed as it feels to high school for me. Not my cup of tea anymore. However, I’m afraid it’s on Kindle somewhere.
9. Truth or Dare by M.J. Arlidge (92) – This is the tenth book in the beloved “Helen Grace” series and has been sitting on my TBR for years as well. I used to devour thrillers, but I find them boring and too easy to understand now. I always suspect the right suspect way too soon and therefore am able to easily predict how the story will unfold. This is definitely a genre bore-out. I took a years-long break from this series and I hope to be able to start the sixth book anytime in the near future.
10. The Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton (52) – And finally, we have another historical fiction set during WWII. I have multiple novels set in this time period, but I definitely haven’t read all of them. This one falls victim to the amount of historical fiction books I own and still haven’t read. Furthermore, I can’t read multiple books about WWII back-to-back, but I want to read this one soon. But I keep saying this for years.

Okay, I have been confronted with many backlist books this way. Have you read any of these? And which one do you think I should read first? Or which one do you think I should remove, judging by the books I discuss here on the blog?