Top Ten Tuesday is a listicle created by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was created from a love of lists, books and creating bookish friends. Each Tuesday she assigns a new topic for others to join in with. Here is where you can learn more information about Top Ten Tuesday. Ad/Affiliate – Some of these books have affiliate links, you can read my disclaimer here.
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is Top Ten Books on My Summer 2026 To-Read List. However, I really wanted to do a previous prompt that I didn’t have time to write at the time. I’m sharing the Top Ten Books I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Read. These can be super popular books you’re surprised you haven’t read yet, books that have been on your to-read list forever, review copies you’ve been sitting on, books you were so excited to get your hands on and haven’t read yet, etc. There are a fair few books that this applies to for me, so it might be hard to narrow it down to 10!
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
StoryGraph synopsis:
One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
I’ve been meaning to read this for years! My brother even bought me the sequel so I really need to try and read this soon.
2. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
StoryGraph synopsis:
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party—or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.
So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.
But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones—the most elusive of all faeries—lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all—her own heart.
I’ve seen this on so many people’s Top Ten Tuesday posts over the years. I remember first seeing it at Waterstones a few years ago, and still I haven’t read it!
3. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald
StoryGraph synopsis:
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
I started reading The Great Gatsby for my A-level English class, but I switched to Geology, so I only got around to reading a couple of chapters. It is such a classic, so I would definitely like to read it.
4. The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
StoryGraph synopsis:
Meet Rebecca Bloomwood.
She has a great flat, a fabulous wardrobe full of the season’s must-haves, and a job telling other people how to manage their money. She spends her leisure time … shopping.
Retail therapy is the answer to all her problems. She knows she should stop, but she can’t. She tries Cutting Back, she tries Making More Money. But neither seems to work. The letters from the bank are getting harder to ignore. Can Becky ever escape from this dreamworld, find true love, and regain the use of her credit card?
I bought this book a few years ago from a charity shop as I really love Sophie Kinsella’s writing, but it’s still sitting on my bookshelf! I think it’s because it is such a long series, so I feel like I really have to commit to it.
5. Finding Gene Kelly by Torie Jean
StoryGraph synopsis:
When five-year-old Evie O’Shea married her next-door neighbor in the wedding of the century, she had no idea she was swearing an oath to love the man who would grow into the bane of her existence until the end of time.
Or that she would be ushered into a large community of people with endometriosis shortly.
Now, aged twenty-six, Evie O’Shea lives in Paris, balancing precariously close to her Charlotte Lucas birthday. A burden to her parents, with no prospects and no money, Evie’s humdrum life needs a shake-up.
Enter Liam Kelly, the man Evie married at the age of five and promptly divorced at seven when he had the audacity to throw a muddy football at her while she was reading Eloise in Paris and ruined the whole darn book. Clad in a Henley and equipped with toned forearms and eye crinkles that rival Gene Kelly himself, Evie is determined to keep her ultimate temptation at a distance while she flails wildly navigating life, love, and endometriosis on the banks of the Seine.
But when a family secret is revealed weeks before her brother’s wedding, Evie seeks Liam’s help to get through the wedding with some semblance of sanity intact.
Her request? Fake date.
But making a deal with the Devil always comes with a cost, and when Liam’s conditions which include elaborate backstories and practice dates, reignite passions her disease smothered long ago, Evie has to learn to fight for her dreams and break free from her life measured in ibuprofen pills and heating pad settings. Or else risk being alive but never truly living.
I’m a bit embarrassed at how many times this book has appeared on a TBR-themed list!
6. Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison
StoryGraph synopsis:
A pasture of dead trees. A hostile takeover of the Santa barn by a family of raccoons. And shipments that have mysteriously gone missing. Lovelight Farms is not the magical winter wonderland of Stella Bloom’s dreams.
In an effort to save the Christmas tree farm she’s loved since she was a kid, Stella enters a contest with Instagram-famous influencer Evelyn St. James. With the added publicity and the $100,000 cash prize, Stella might just be able to save the farm from its financial woes. There’s just one problem. To make the farm seem like a romantic destination for the holidays, she lied on her application and said she owns Lovelight Farms with her boyfriend. Only…there is no boyfriend.
Enter best friend Luka Peters. He just stopped by for some hot chocolate and somehow got a farm and a serious girlfriend in the process. But fake dating his best friend might be the best Christmas present he’s ever received.
I first saw this book on a ferry on the way back from France, and then it became really popular on TikTok, so that put me off because I thought it might be overhyped.
7. The Brief Life of Flowers by Fiona Stafford
StoryGraph synopsis:
The beauty of flowers is well known, inspiring creative minds from Botticelli to Beatrix Potter. But they’ve also played a key part in forming the past, and may shape our future.
Roses and thistles have served as symbols of monarchs, dynasties and nations. We wear poppies to remember the First World War, but it was the elderflower that treated its wounded soldiers. A rose might mend a broken heart, and sunflowers may just save our planet.
At once enchanting and intriguing, The Brief Life of Flowers reveals how even the most ordinary of flowers have extraordinary stories to tell.
I bought this back in 2020 after I finished my first year of university, and I have had a couple of goes at reading a few chapters, but I have not completed it yet!
8. Much Ado about Mothing by James Lowen
StoryGraph synopsis:
This book coaxes moths out from the darkness and into the daylight; Much Ado About Moth-ing reveals that moths are so much more attractive, approachable and astonishing than butterflies–with richer tales to share, from migratory feats through mastery of camouflage to missives about the state of our planet. This book seeks to persuade the skeptical, the fearful and the unaware of the unexpected beauty of these misjudged insects.
The author, James Lowen, makes a case for moths by recounting a suitcase full of journeys across Britain over the course of a calendar year. Britain has a lot of moths–40 times more species than butterflies–so rather than try to see them all, James pursues quality over quantity, prioritising our scarcest and most special species. His travels extend from the Isles of Scilly to northernmost Scotland. More than any other animals, moths demonstrate a very precise determination of place – one species, for example, rarely ventures more than 10 meters from the place it hatches as a caterpillar. Accordingly, this book drinks in the landscapes where moths reside. It’s also a book about people–James meets moth-fans wherever he goes, be they expert entomologists, professional conservationists or amateur “moth-ers.” He asks why they love what many people choose to hate, and how moths impact their lives. Through the filter of moths, he explores the concept of obsession, both in other people and, as the year progresses, in himself. This will be a book not just about moths, or about moths and place–but about moths and place and people.
A counterweight to James’s expeditionary travels is his suburban garden. James and his young daughter measure the seasons by the moths that come and go, for perhaps the greatest virtue of moths–paradoxically, for those who consider them invisible–is their accessibility. Moths are everywhere, but above all they are here, and what’s more, they’ll sit calmly on a fingertip, providing first-hand amazement to children and adults alike like no other animal.
At a moth trap group I used to go to, some of the people there recommended this book, so I’d really like to read it. My dad and I just made a moth trap last weekend, so I think I would find it a bit more interesting now.
9. The Accidental Housemate by Sal Thomas
StoryGraph synopsis:
Cath Beckinsale is in a jam. She’s a single mum of three, with her 40th birthday in sight and a precarious hold on employment. And she can’t quite let go of her late husband Gaz, whose ashes are still in an urn on the kitchen table.
To make ends meet a student lodger seems like the perfect solution – after all, what’s one more child in the house? But when Dan flies in from the US with guitar and chest hair on display, it’s immediately clear that he’s no teenager, but someone who quickly sends life in an unexpected direction.
I won this in a giveaway and haven’t managed to read it yet.
Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates
StoryGraph synopsis:
The Everyday Sexism Project was founded by writer and activist Laura Bates in April 2012. It began life as a website where people could share their experiences of daily, normalised sexism, from street harassment to workplace discrimination to sexual assault and rape.
The Project became a viral sensation, attracting international press attention from The New York Times to French Glamour, Grazia South Africa, to the Times of India and support from celebrities such as Rose McGowan, Amanda Palmer, Mara Wilson, Ashley Judd, James Corden, Simon Pegg, and many others. The project has now collected over 100,000 testimonies from people around the world and launched new branches in 25 countries worldwide. The project has been credited with helping to spark a new wave of feminism.
I’ve read about a third of this book, and I found it so interesting that I definitely want to finish the book. I tend to go towards more lighthearted books, but this one is definitely an important read.
What books can’t you believe you’ve never read?
Caroline ♡
You’re not alone. I haven’t read any of these either.