Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to The Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.

This week’s topic of ‘atmospheric books’ doesn’t appeal to me, so I’m picking one from the archives: Most Intimidating Books

I’ve actually only been able to come up with 79 (I thought of 2 more in the shower LOL) for this, all from my TBR – though I’m sure there are many more out there that I want to read but am intimidated by, I’m just completely blanking on them. If I think of any, I will update the post with them

Travis Baldree – Legends & Lattes The original cozy fantasy. I own it, I specifically went out and purchased it, almost a year ago, because I want to read it. It sounds amazing and I think I’m really going to love it… but I’ve hyped it up so much that I can’t quite bring myself to start because what if I don’t like it?
Michael Connelly – The Black Echo I know I’ve read it before, but the read date isn’t logged on Goodreads so that means it was well over a decade ago. I remember Mum and I reading it, along with some of the rest of the series, and we managed to pick up a lot of the books from charity shops. But there are so many books in the series that re-reading the first one becomes a huge commitment.
Marian Keyes – Rachel’s Holiday I loved Marian Keyes books when I was younger, but they were read so long ago, there’s no rating or read date on GoodReads, and that’s something I want to work on. I re-read Watermelon & Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married last year and it did not hold up to my nostalgia-tinted glasses of ‘OMG I LOVE MARIAN KEYES’, and her books have always featured in ‘favourite books’, so now I don’t know if I want to re-read the rest to have them logged properly. Plus, her books are quite chunky ones so that’s a thing in an of itself.
Stephen King – The Stand As above, I want to properly log all the books I own, and I fucking love Stephen King, especially his older stuff and The Stand has always been a favourite. I’ve always loved a good plague, y’know? But, in the wake of COVID-19 and all my anxieties stemming from the pandemic… I’m terrified to pick it back up
Tamsyn Muir – Gideon The Ninth Y’all have no idea how much I want to read this. It’s literally been sold to me as ‘lesbian necromancers in space’, and really how am I supposed to resist that? But, a bit like Legends & Lattes, the hype around it has me nervous to even pick it up, let alone start reading.

Anne Rice – Prince Lestat I’m actually a little embarrassed that I haven’t read the last three of the Vampire Chronicles books. I don’t even know if I can explain why I can’t bring myself to do it. I guess it’s another case of being scared not to like it, especially as Rice said the series was finished with Blood Canticle, and then she went and found God, wrote a bunch of Christian books, then lost God again and came back to the vampires and it makes me… wary for lack of a better word.
Samantha Shannon – The Priory Of The Orange Tree Have you seen the size of the damn book? It’s huge. This is one that Booktok has managed to pique my interest in, but the length of the book is intimidating, and I’m not the biggest fantasy fan so… I don’t know.
Oscar Wilde – The Picture Of Dorian Gray Another one that’s been sitting on my shelf, mocking me, for years. I know the general story, I like the general story but I don’t have the best experience reading classic literature and I’m scared of not liking it
Malala Yousafzai – I Am Malala I have had this one on my TBR for years, it’s sitting right there on the top of my smallest bookshelf (it’s too tall for the shelves, so it’s on the top). I want to read it, I think she’s an amazing young woman. But at the same time, it feels like it’s going to be so… much