Top Five Wednesday | Books I Want to Read Before 2019

This week's Top Five Wednesday is the top five 'books you want to read in 2019'. Our Goodreads goals are quickly closing in. What are you prioritising for the end of the year? This is a slightly belated post but I love discussing the books I want to get around to reading. Here are my top five!

1. The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

I really enjoyed The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue which I read last month so I've been excited to get to the sequel/companion novel. This book follows Monty's sister, Felicity Montague, who has returned to England with two goals in mind—avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. However, her intellect and passion will never be enough in the eyes of the administrators, who see men as the sole guardians of science. I'm actually currently reading this and I'm about halfway through. I really love Felicity's voice and I can't wait to finish this book.

2. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

I really want to get to at least a couple of classics by the end of this year so I think adding this children's classic to the list will motivate me a bit more. I do really love classics but some of the 1000+ page ones are a bit more time consuming so I'll stick to a couple of shorter ones instead. I read this book when I was very young so this will be a re-read, but I've forgotten pretty much everything that wasn't in the Disney film at this point! I imagine everyone knows what this book is about, but just in case you don't: This follows the story of a boy named Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the jungle until the tiger, Shere Khan, discovers and tries to kill him.

3. Under the Dome by Stephen King

I like to read at least one Stephen King book a year and this year I've actually read two already, but this one just appeals to me so much that I can't wait to get around to reading it. It is the story of the small town of Chester's Mill, Maine which is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. No one can get in and no one can get out.  The normal rules of society are suddenly changed and when food, electricity and water run short, the community begins to crumble. This concept is obviously similar to other books/films but I love Stephen King's writing so I'm really excited to see how he has written this story. 

4. The 7(1/2) Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

(Not to be mistaken for The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo which is a fantastic book, but has nothing to do with this one! Also why they've since added the 1/2 to the title so the two books aren't muddled up). I've been hearing about this book everywhere so I finally picked up a copy a few weeks ago. I've been told this book is like if Doctor Who met Agatha Christie (which, yes that did happen, but this more combines the genres rather than the characters). It follows Aiden Bishop who is trying to identify the killer of Evelyn Hardcastle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others... This book sounds like such an interesting concept and I love this sort of mystery.

5. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Again, this is another classic I've been meaning to pick up for years. I read H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man about ten years ago and absolutely loved it, so it's about time I picked up his more famous work. This was one of the first works of science fiction ever to be written. Even long before man had learned to fly, H.G. Wells wrote this story of the Martian attack on England. This story was popularised when it was broadcast over the radio in 1938 and many believed it was real. I'm really excited to finally read this book this year.

So, those are my top five book that I want to read before the end of 2018! Let me know what your Top Five are below, or if you have a blog post then link it! Just in case anyone is new to this, Top Five Wednesday was created by Lainey (Gingerreadslainey on YouTube) and is now run my Sam (ThoughtsonTomes on Youtube), so that people can share more of their favourite (or sometimes least favourite) books in an interesting way. Sam creates weekly topics for each month so Bloggers and YouTubers alike to discuss books. The group which lists the monthly topics can be found here! And if you want to see more of my previous Top Five Wednesday Blog posts, you can click here!