After a year’s hiatus I’m finally getting back to the blog!  These last twelve months have been one hell of a bumpy ride and reading dropped off my radar so much that I didn’t even meet my reading challenge target for 2018 which I usually always exceed.
So now, after getting to grips with the stuff that has gone on, I’m finally getting to grips my mental health and anxiety, am coming out the other side and taking more time out for me by getting back to some of the things I love… reading! To mark the fresh start, the blog has a new name ‘The Biblioshelf’. I wasn’t particularly happy with the old one anyway so hopefully this will give me renewed motivation to keep going, starting with one of my favourite Book Tags ‘Top Ten Tuesday’.

Top Ten Tuesday by That Artsy Girl Reader is the ultimate tag for the bookish list-lover amongst us and I always look forward to seeing the different prompts and responses people have. It also helps by making me have a stern talking to myself to read more widely as most of my lists end up being from the same ten books just in a different order!

This week’s theme was ‘Places in Books I’d Love to Visit’. Hyperlinks of titles link to Goodreads.

10) The World of His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
I remember being hooked on Northern Lightswhen I was a child on holiday in Greece; so much so that the only part of the holiday I can actually remember is sitting by the pool and reading this book… That said, I haven’t actually read the remainder of the trilogy so one of my 2019 reading goals is to go right back to the beginning and immerse myself back into this glorious world that I remember loving but can’t quite remember why…

9) The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey
So this one isn’t really a place from a book – it’s more a place to visit an object from the book…if that makes sense?! The Chemistry of Tears is centred around the creation of a gorgeous silver swan automaton. The Silver Swan which was created in the 18^thCentury and is kept at the Bowes Museum in County Durham (England). It sits on a little pool of glass and eats up tiny silver fishes. I’d love to go and visit this incredible piece of clockwork one day, but for now I’ll just have to settle for watching people’s YouTube videos of it!

8) Narnia from The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
Who doesn’t want to crawl through the back of their wardrobe and end up in a magical place? I imagine Narnia as being one of the ‘must-see’ locations from the worlds of fantasy literature. I’d love to explore it with one of those passports that you stamp when you get to a different area.

7) Berk from How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
Let’s face it, I’m only going here to see the amazing dragons!

6) Carcassonne from Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Kate Mosse’s books based in the Languedoc region of France always made me want to visit and due to this book Carcassonne is definitely one of my ‘to visit’ places in France. I love how she brings such a historical place to life and fills it with such mystery and intrigue. I’m also a sucker for a maze!

5) Kotor (Montenegro) from Wicked Like a Wildfire by Lana Popović
I loved this book so much and the way Lana writes about Old Town Catarro just seemed to appeal to every single one of my senses. I’d love to take a little boat trip to visit Our Lady of the Rocks which sits on a tiny island and I’d definitely have to find the little confectionery where Iris and Malina’s mother bakes delicious sounding cakes and pastries. I tried to convince my friend that we should go there on holiday, but we went to Walt Disney World instead!

4) The Cemetery of Forgotten Books from The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Pick one book from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books then look after and protect it for the rest of your life…what book lover would turn down this opportunity? Zafón is one of my all-time favourite authors and is such a genius story-teller. Everything he writes is so lyrical and his character Daniel Sempere is probably one of literature’s greatest bibliophiles. I believe Barcelona, where the books are set, now has a trail dedicated to the Zafón’s stories and it’s definitely on my travel bucket list. I only wish that there was such a place as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books!

3) Terrasen from the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas
I know it’s incredibly hyped but I fell head over heels in love for this series! To pick just one place in Erilea to visit was tricky but I knew as soon as I read the final book in the series (Kingdom of Ash) it had to be Terrasen. Obviously I’d be making sure to pack my forest disguise to try and hide in Oakwald in the attempt at spotting the elusive Little Folk and the Lord of the North!

2) Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Let’s be real, I’d visit any place in Middle Earth (yep, even Mordor!) but seeing the elves in Rivendell would probably be the place I head to first. Or Gondor to see Aragorn, or to the Green Dragon to have a pint with the Hobbits, or to Fangorn to chat to the Ents…I could go on but then my list would probably be as long as the book itself!

1) Flourish and Blotts from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
Once, a student I teach bought me a mug that says ‘Hogwarts wasn’t hiring so I teach muggles instead’. If the Wizarding World were a real place, I’d probably have emigrated there already. Similarly to Middle Earth, I couldn’t possibly just stop off at one place then head back home, but somewhere I have always wished I could step into was Flourish and Blotts. Surely it’s the ultimate bibliophile’s pit-stop in the amazingness that is the Wizarding World!

This was such a fun theme to explore for Top Ten Tuesday so thanks to That Artsy Girl Reader and Georgia @justreadthemm – now to try and curb that building wanderlust! What would make your list? Drop me and comment and let me know.

Until next time Bibliophiles, have a great week!

T xx