Top Ten Tuesday – Places of Worship Around the World I Visited

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is a Non-book Freebie! My list was inspired by the recent classical concert at Melbourne’s St Paul’s Cathedral, and is dedicated to the memorable cathedrals, churches, temples and mosques I visited on my travels. I decided to limit to one place per country, otherwise nearly half of my list would just be Italy.

Though I’m not a believer myself, I’ve always enjoyed religious buildings, for their historical and artistic value as well as their atmosphere of peace and reaching out to something greater beyond. I have fond memories of my grandmother taking me to a Russian Orthodox church when I was little, where I listened to the choir and looked at the beautiful frescoes of angels and saints.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Book Covers with Animals

I haven’t done the bookish lists from That Artsy Reader Girl in a while, so I thought I’d jump back in with this week’s fun topic, Covers with Animals On Them. I deliberately decided to exclude domestic cats, since it would be all too easy for me to get carried away and make an all-feline list.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Read on Holiday


Another great topic from That Artsy Reader Girl that combines reading and travel.

Though I will readily admit the practical advantages of Kindle, I remain old-fashioned and always prefer to take a physical book with me, even if it occupies valuable luggage space. Quite a lot of space at times: looking at the list, I really tend to go for massive door stoppers when it comes to a long overseas holiday.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Typographic Book Covers

As a graphic designer, I just had to do this week’s topic from That Artsy Reader GirlTypographic Book Covers.

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it is after all the first thing you notice. Even when I don’t end up buying a book, it gladdens my heart to see typography that’s beautiful, fun and creative. To make it a bit more challenging, I decided to restrict the covers to science fiction, fantasy and other works of imagination.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Books Set in a Place I’d Love to Visit


I’ve really looked forward to this topic on the That Artsy Reader Girl, since it combines my two great loves, reading and travel. Some of the places on my list exist only in imagination and will always remain out of reach… but one can always dream! I probably could have filled the entire list with nothing but fantasy and sci-fi, however I tried to keep it mostly grounded in this reality.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Comfort Reads


I’ve always loved re-reading and comfort read to me is almost always about the pleasure of re-visiting an already familiar book. Naturally not every book that I go back to would qualify. I think I re-read Tolstoy’s War and Peace about four times by now, but I doubt that many people would put this dense door-stopper on their list. Bright, breezy and not too long is what usually hits the sweet spot.

Before I started compiling the list (as prompted by That Artsy Reader Girl), I thought it would be about individual books, but it turned out to be more about the authors with a writing style that makes for a perfect comfort read.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Pet Peeves

Top Ten Tuesday weekly meme resides at That Artsy Reader Girl – see the link for the rules. I’ve seen it pop up many times on the blogs that I follow, and I thought that since I love reading and compiling lists, I should finally jump in and participate! This week’s topic is Bookish Pet Peeves, basically a chance to rant about the things that ruin the reading experience.

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