Category Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

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The Tough Stuff: Top Ten Tuesday

Hola Bookworms,

Today is another Tuesday, and another GLORIOUS list, the topic of which was provided by The Broke and The Bookish. Today’s topic is to list out books that deal with difficult subject matter, and the ones I’m choosing are all kind of a downer. That doesn’t mean they aren’t BRILLIANT books, because they are. It just means that they’re emotionally draining, so, you know, don’t read them all in a row.

TTT3W1. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. This book is amazing, but such a tough read. Speak is about a girl entering high school. She is date raped at a party, and while she calls the police to break up the party, she can’t bring herself to tell the authorities what happened to her. She starts her high school career as the narc who ruined the best party of the summer all while dealing with the emotional hurricane of attending school with her rapist. It’s a rough read, but really worth it. I highly recommend it.

2. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Race and incest and violent relationships and homosexuality and secrets and lies and children and turning gender roles upside down… It’s pretty amazing. It’s exceptionally powerful because it’s written in an epistolary format in a regional dialect. Try to get through it without crying. I dare you.

3. Room by Emma Donoghue. This choice seems even more appropriate now given the news coming out of Cleveland of the three women held captive in a home for a decade. Room is about a young woman who is abducted from her college campus parking lot. She is locked in an inescapable sound-proof shed and regularly raped by her captor. Eventually these systematic rapes result in a successful pregnancy and she raises her little boy, Jack, in this shed. Jack is five and he narrates the book. I think this was a brilliant choice on Donoghue’s part, because hearing this horror story through the eyes of “Ma” would probably have been too much to bear. The innocent goggles of a child make things tragic and yet, in a way, hopeful.

Don't let the colorful cover fool you, this is NOT for the faint of heart.

4. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. Teenagers with cancer! Watching mere children face down their own mortality won’t tear at your very soul or anything. Young love cut tragically short by disease won’t make you bawl your eyes out. Living with a debilitating illness that is slowly eating your body from the inside when you should be out shopping for prom dresses and going through your angsty phase in giant baggy pants won’t mar your psyche! So heartbreaking. So good.

5. Smoke Over Birkenau by Liana Millu. Talk about the tough stuff. It simply does not get any “tougher” than books about the Holocaust. There are a lot of books on the subject, and I’ve read a number of heart wrenching personal accounts. It’s difficult to pick just one, but since I really have to pace myself on reading these (so I don’t get overwhelmed by humanity’s ability to inflict horror on itself for incredibly stupid reasons) I thought it might be overkill to fill this list with Holocaust books.

6. Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. Whooo boy this one’s a doozie. Depressed teenagers. Eating disorders. Young love denied. Unbelievable acts of violence. Dealing with the aftermath. This is a draining read, but it’s really well done. Sure, it feels a bit like you’re being stabbed in the heart with a dull spoon, but it’s a good pain. It’s NOT a true story, thank God. At least you can tell yourself that when you’re sobbing into your pillow…

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7. Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume. I don’t care how open and honest and cool you are with your kids. It is awkward as heck to discuss periods with your prepubescent daughter (this, coming of course, from a former prepubescent daughter. The thought of having this conversation with my own offspring makes me preemptively uncomfortable.) Thank GOD for Judy Blume. Thank GOD for this book. That GOD it existed when I was 12. Margaret made all the late bloomers out there feel less alone. Thank you, Judy Blume, for being awesome.

8. Still Alice by Lisa Genova. Yeah, it’s tough to be a teenager, Margaret, but it’s even tougher to be an adult with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. As you follow Alice’s mental decline you feel her frustrations and her anguish, as well as her moments of hope and triumph. It’s a beautifully rendered story, and it will make you keenly aware of your own precarious mental state. You may want to order a lot of fish oil caplets or whatever antioxidant thingies they have on the market today that are supposed to help keep your brain going strong to old age and beyond…

still alice

9. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. What would you do if the most basic part of your identity, your biological gender, were called into question? Our protagonist is raised as a female but due to a gene mutation, she’s biologically male… At least, mostly. A coming of age story with the added bonus of some sweet historical fiction elements plus all the psychological turmoil that goes on when a person doesn’t fall neatly into a gender category. Powerful.

10. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Forget everything you saw in that movie. I don’t care if it won Angelina Jolie an Oscar, the book was MUCH better. It’s Susanna Kaysen’s true life account of her time in a mental hospital. I read this a long time ago, but there was one part that seriously resonated with me. Kaysen described her descent into crippling depression as the world slowing down and time crawling by. She said that there were two ways to go crazy- for everything to slow down or for everything to speed up. I’ve always thought that if I ever needed to be institutionalized, it would be due to the super fast worst-case-scenario in flashes of horror kind of crazy, at which point my brain would completely short circuit and the slow would set it. It probably says a little too much about me and my mental state that I’ve given this so much thought, but you know. I’m bad at lying.

So Bookworms, tell me. What are your top picks for books that deal with the tough stuff? I’m all ears (at least until my psychotic break, but I think we’ve got some time.)

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Word To Your Mother: Top Ten Tuesday Collaborates and Listens

Salutations, Bookworms!

I know you stayed up all night trying to guess the topic for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday with The Broke and The Bookish, didn’t you?! This week we’ve been asked to list off the top ten words or phrases that make us want to pick up a book. I’m a refined consumer of literature, see? JUST because a book says something saucy on the book jacket doesn’t mean I’ll buy it, but there are some terms that don’t hurt a book’s chances. I may be a snob, but I’m highly susceptible to marketing tactics.

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1. Time Travel- Awww yeah, I love me some time travel. I typically prefer accidental time travel, so if there’s a deliberate machine involved? Probably not going to be my cup of tea. However. Outlander, The River of No Return, and The Time Traveler’s Wife? Yes, yes, and yes. Break me off a piece of that time space continuum.

2. Penguins- Hi, I’m Katie. Have we met? If we have met in the past, oh, 22 years or so, you know that PENGUINS are my spirit animal. Sadly, they don’t make a ton of appearances in books for grown ups, but hey, kids books are a thing. Remember If You Were a Penguin? Mr. Popper’s Penguins? Or how about when penguins DO show up in adult books, like the awesomeness that was the trip to Antarctica in Where’d You Go Bernadette? Penguins can ONLY help you, I say! Penguins forever! (Seriously. Just ask Alfred. Or Josie.)

PENGUIN LOVE

PENGUIN LOVE

3. Plague- This probably makes me horrible, but plagues are fascinating! Reading up on the bubonic plague in Ken Follett’s World Without End was the shiz-nit. And the letumosis outbreak in Cinder? That’s where it’s at! And my heavens, THE STAND! The mother-loving Stand, people!!!

4. Flowers- I LOVE flowers. Darn near as much as I love penguins. It can be pretty intense. So, when flowers feature heavily in a story I do some serious geeking out. Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s Language of Flowers was amazing. More of this, please, author types. (Gardens are good, too, but I don’t grow vegetables. Has anyone else noticed that Alice Hoffman is maybe a little obsessed with growing tomatoes? No? Just me? Moving on then…)

5. Zombie- “What’s in your heeeeeeeeeeeeeeead, in your heeeeeeead, zombie, zombie, zo-omb-a-yuh-a-yuh-a-yuh!” Don’t pretend that you don’t rock out to The Cranberries. And if you legitimately don’t rock out to The Cranberries, don’t tell me, because, yodel-y Irish rock from the 90s kicks arse. But really. I like for real Zombies, too. World War Z and Warm Bodies are my JAM. 

6. History- I am a sucker for historical fiction. Chilling in ancient Greece like in The Song of Achilles or dabbling in the Underground Railroad and rocking a bonnet like in The Last Runaway or experiencing the scandalous world of the Tudor court in, well, basically anything by Philippa Gregory… It’s the only way I can time travel, and really the only way I WANT to time travel. Indoor plumbing is my favorite.

7. Dystopia- It’s almost ridiculous the amount I adore screwy fractured future scenarios. The Giver and The Hunger Games and Brave New World and 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale just make me feel warm and fuzzy about our effed up present. Let’s face it y’all. It could be a whole lot worse. Gratitude, brought to you by oppressive governments, lack of color, religious persecution, and kids fighting to the death for sport! 

8. Saga- Sweeping epics are right up my alley. The word “saga” implies length and drama and change and grand scale. Les Miserables and Gone With The Wind and The Pillars of The Earth are some of my favorites. If it couldn’t be made into a mini-series or a very long movie, I want nothing to do with it. (That isn’t really true. See this? Terrible liar. I tell you IMMEDIATELY when I lie. I also like books that couldn’t be long movies and mini series, but it didn’t WORK with my POINT there. Ugh. I’m a walking vial of sodium pentothal.)

9. Whimsy- I’ve mentioned how fervently I adore Amy Sherman-Palladino, head writer of Gilmore Girls and Bunheads haven’t I? Yes. I know. I obviously have. One of my all time favorite quotes came out of Kirk, Stars Hollow’s resident weirdo when he was describing his new Condoleeza Rice decorative mailbox: “Whimsy goes with everything.” Whimsy DOES go with everything, books in particular. Alice in Wonderland probably gets to wear the tiara for most whimsical title of all time, but Harry Potter, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, and The Night Circus aren’t in short supply on the whimsy front.

Curiouser and curiouser...

Curiouser and curiouser…

10. Awkward- I spent the weekend with some of the world’s most excellent friends, and we were discussing high school. They both said that they had enjoyed themselves. I said, “I was too busy being morose and wearing really baggy pants.” Both of those things are true, and both are reasons I have a serious soft spot for the awkward characters. Bridget Jones? Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower? Eleanor & Park? To paraphrase a song I heard far too often at wedding receptions, “These are my people. This is where I come from.” Teen angst is CHARACTER BUILDING, dangit!

Oh Bookworms, my Bookworms, what are some of the words and phrases that make YOU think you’ll like a book?

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Well, That’s Not What I Was Expecting (A Top Ten Tuesday Adventure.)

Tis Tuesday, my dear Bookworms!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is brought to you, as usual by The Broke and The Bookish. They’ve asked the book bloggers of the internet to list out the books we’ve read that really weren’t what we were expecting. Something you thought you’d love but didn’t? Something you thought would be terrible that you adored? Let’s get to listing!

Katie Is Disappointed

This is my McKayla Maroney face. Sort of.

This is my McKayla Maroney face. Sort of.

1. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I feel like an uncultured blob of loser admitting this, but I really did not like this book. I can always tell how much I like a book by how well I remember it. The only thing I really remember from this one? One of the teenager’s mothers made homemade yogurt. That was weird. Otherwise? Something about gold leaf instead of Viagara? Yeah. I expected rock-n-roll coming of age stories. I got angry middle aged people lamenting their lost youths. Just… No.

2. On Gold Mountain by Lisa See. I’m bad at non-fiction, and I didn’t realize just how much of a plod this was going to be when I picked it up. I had visions of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Shanghai Girls and Peony in Love and I got… Well. None of those things.There were an awful lot of less than thrilling business ventures were described in great detail. Bummer.

3. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. After reading The Fault In Our Stars, I was quite certain I would love everything John Green had ever written. Too bad I spent the majority of this book wanting to smack Colin around…

4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I know there are zillions of people who found deep meaning in this book. I happen to not be one of them. I would have stayed at home with my flock of sheep, and would never advise anyone to go in search of their personal legend if it meant giving up all their security. That’s just plain foolish, y’all.

5. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I was sure that this book was destined to by my new favorite novel- all the cool kids dig Vonnegut! Sadly, it just was not my thing. Sorry Vonnegut fans, I am not one of you.

Katie Is Pleased

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This is my “YAY!” face.

1. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I KNOW. The amount I rave about these books is ridiculous, but honestly? I almost didn’t read them. My Aunt Margie got my mom hooked on them. I remember calling my mom from college and she’d be all, “Oooh these BOOKS! She’s being tried for witchcraft! But she went back in time. Jamie will save her. He must!” And I was like, “That sounds ridiculous!” Eventually I gave into peer pressure, and the rest is delightful history. But. Now you know the truth.

2. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I first heard about this book on the YA blog circuit. I’d never heard of John Green before (for shame, I know) but I was completely expecting this book to be a Lurlene McDaniel knockoff (Lurlene McDaniel wrote a series of books on critically ill teenagers that were all the melodramatic rage when I was in 5th grade.) I thought I’d get snarky blog fodder from it. Have I mentioned that I’m not a good person? Anyway, I loved this book so much I read it in a single sitting.

3. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I read this initially because I felt like it was something I should read. I was thinking that it would be a slow-going classic that would put me to sleep. I WAS WRONG! So very wrong. And so very HAPPY to have been so wrong!

4. Still Alice by Lisa Genova. I can’t even tell you how long this sat on my shelf. My mom gave it to me, but I saw the word “alzheimer’s” and thought “old people book.” Isn’t that terrible? I’m ashamed of myself. My mom usually has decent taste in books, I should trust her opinions, ESPECIALLY after the Outlander incident. Sigh. Teenage habits die hard I guess.

5. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. I read this as a senior in high school. It was assigned reading, so I naturally expected the worst. I was utterly tickled to find myself engrossed in the soapy scandals of the sisters Bennett! It was exciting and intriguing and full of questioning what glances and offhand comments meant. It was like Jane Austen KNEW how I analyzed boys! (Which is rather unfortunate, seeing as I was analyzing boys quite a long time after Ms. Austen was… This probably explains my lack of dates.)

What books surprised YOU, Bookworms? The good, the bad, the ugly. Spill it!

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Once Upon A Time, Before Words For Worms… (Top Ten Tuesday- The Prequel)

Good Day Bookworms!

It’s Tuesday, which can mean quite a number of things… What it means on this blog, however, is that we make LISTS. That’s right, it’s time for Top Ten Tuesday with The Broke and The Bookish! This week’s topic is the top ten books I read before I was a blogger. Here’s the thing. A lot of stuff I’ve blogged about, I read before I was a blogger. I learned to read when I was like 5 or 6… And I’ve only been blogging since August… That’s a whole LIFE of reading outside of the blogosphere. I’ve tried to narrow today’s list down to ten books that haven’t gotten a whole lot of attention on my blog… I feel like I’m screaming Outlander and Gone With The Wind and Song of Achilles every week, so I’m trying to feature some of the lesser known heroes of my bookshelf.

toptentuesday1. Stones From The River by Ursula Hegi. If you liked The Book Thief, you will love Stones From The River. It’s about a woman named Trudi who has the bad luck to have been born a dwarf in what would become Nazi Germany. Spoiler Alert: Both books involve books, resisting the regime, and hiding Jewish people at great personal risk. It’s a fantastic read and I highly recommend it!

2. Fortune’s Rocks by Anita Shreve. Anita Shreve wrote an entire series of books set at the same beach house throughout different points in history. I don’t know if I should really call them a series, though they are all obviously entwined. The characters and situations are all so different, only the landscape ties them together. Anyway, Fortune’s Rocks is set in the early 1900s (I wanted to say “turn of the century” but the stupid HANDS OF TIME just keep on ticking and that phrase is no longer useful to me!) There’s a young girl, an older man, and the kind of scandal you’d expect from a young girl getting involved with an older man (who happens to be a “fine” “upstanding” married doctor with children.) This is BY FAR my favorite Anita Shreve title, so you should probably read it.

3. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. This book was given to me by one of my dearest friends (who happens to have just recently graduated from veterinary school. Can we all give Dr. Erin a big CONGRATS, Words for Worms Style?) Dr. Erin gave me this book on my 19th or 20th birthday (I cannot remember, I am very, very old.) Sedaris’s humor is quirky and irreverent and bizarre and wonderful. My personal copy may look a wee bit worse for the wear, but it’s one of the books I practically beat people with until they agree to read it. (That may or may not be why it’s a wee bit worse for the wear…)

The Easter Bunny doesn't leave chocolate for French children. Church bells that fly in from Rome do. I know. I KNOW!

The Easter Bunny doesn’t leave chocolate for French children. Church bells that fly in from Rome do. I share David Sedaris’s WTF?! on that one!

4. The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan. Okay, maybe I’ve discussed some of these titles before, but dangit, they’re awesome! I read this for a literature class in college and was astounded to find myself with a taste for eel and sticky rice and a host of other Chinese dishes that I’d never eaten nor cared to taste. The mark of badass prose? Making exotic food sound appealing to a girl with a bland palate. High five, Amy Tan!

5. Fall On Your Knees by Anne Marie MacDonald. I know some of you out there shy away from anything bearing an Oprah sticker, but trust me on this one. It’s practically a Greek tragedy, except that the characters are Lebanese and Canadian. Really amazing, disturbing stuff, and it’s stuck with me for years. Side bonus? The title always gets “Oh Holy Night” stuck in my head, which is among the most beautiful Christmas carols (which has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the book, it’s just the way my brain works.)

6. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. This is a YA title, but it deals with THE TOUGH STUFF. Basically? The main character is date raped at a party just before she starts high school. She calls the police who come to bust up the party and is treated as a pariah. Everyone knows she was the narc, but nobody knows WHY. She never reports the rape, but has to attend school with her rapist. The emotional aftermath is raw and real and frightening. It’s a great book, but if you’ve got some of your own personal demons on this subject, you may want to skip this one.

Kristin Stewart starred in a movie version, but since brooding an morose is her default expression, it might not be too bad...

Kristin Stewart starred in a movie version, but since brooding an morose is her default expression, it might not be too bad…

7. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Awww yeah. Dystopia time. The premise of this book is that society has begun to breed human clones in order to harvest their organs for the greater good of the population. This novel takes you inside the lives of these clones. It’s a little bit science fiction, a little bit dystopian, and a whole lot of ethical conundrum rolled into a tasty little package.

8. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. This book tells the story of an intersex individual from a Greek family that immigrated to the US. Thanks to a genetic mutation, the narrator is raised believing she is a female until hormonal changes at puberty eventually lead to the discovery that she is biologically male… Sort of. It’s a fascinating look at a medical condition I was never aware of, and the impact gender can have on one’s psyche and family unit. If you can read this book without empathizing the crap out of Callie/Cal, I’m concerned about the size of your grinchy heart.

9. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. When Susie Salmon is brutally raped and murdered by her creepy neighbor, she continues to keep track of her family from the “other side.” Yes, this book starts out with a horrific tragedy, and it’s not easy to read. That’s really not a spoiler at all, because it’s at the very beginning of the book. The meat of this book is watching how her family deals with the tragedy. It also goes to show that the BEST murder weapon is, in fact, an icicle (which is NOT, by the way, the weapon that is used on Susie.)

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I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie… I get grouchy when they stray too far from the book. That said, Stanley Tucci is one creepy creepster. ::Shivers::

10. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. This is one of Atwood’s lesser known novels. It never gets the accolades of The Blind Assassin or Alias Grace but I thought it was fantastic. It’s about a psychopathic woman who makes it her life’s mission to destroy all of her “friends’” love lives. It taught me a great many things, not the least of which being that one can give oneself scurvy by being bulimic. As if we needed ANOTHER reason eating disorders are horrible. Now you know you can get swarthy pirate conditions. Not cute, y’all.

So, Bookworms. I know that a lot of you aren’t bloggers, let alone book-specific bloggers, but I like to think that this top ten list is more of a memory lane sort of theme. What are some of the best books you’ve read in the not so recent past?

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Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recommended Books

Greetings, Bookworms!

It’s Tuesday, and you know what THAT means. No, no, it is not time for tacos. (But dangit, now I want tacos!) It’s time for Top Ten Tuesday with The Broke and The Bookish! Today they’ve asked me to list out the ten books I recommend most often. So. Without further ado…

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1. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I have foisted this series upon countless friends. I love to recommend it because it’s got a little bit of something for everyone. It’s one of those rare finds where I’m confident most of my pals will enjoy it. There are few things as awkward as giving someone a book and hearing they hated it, you know? Outlander has a little sci fi, some historical fiction, a touch of steamy romance novel, and, well, Jamie Fraser. (Siiiigh)

2. Harry Potter by JK Rowling. This is kind of a throwaway answer because it’s not like it’s possible for someone to have never heard of Harry Potter. However. Anyone who seems skeptical about the series? I implore them to read it. Like… I’m sincerely concerned about people who don’t enjoy HP. How can you not like MAGIC and WHIMSY and AWESOMENESS?!

My patronus is a penguin. Demetors don't stand a CHANCE against the impossible cutness... And pecking.

My patronus is a penguin. Demetors don’t stand a CHANCE against the impossible cutness… And pecking.

3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. This book is amazing and I think everyone should read it. Everyone. I’ve loaned out my copy on multiple occasions. It’s a cautionary tale for the ages, my friends.

4. Pope Joan by Diana Woolfolk Cross. Some of the best historical fiction I’ve ever read. It’s about an accidental lady Pope. Timely, what with a new Pope being elected and all.

5. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Occasionally, people will ask me for recommendations on classics I really enjoyed. I won’t lie, it’s a long ass book, but it’s totally worth the read. If you’re familiar with the musical already, it gives you a great back story on Fantine, which is fabulous. Oh and did you know that Gavroche and Eponine are siblings? I know. I. KNOW! Crazy right? You need to read this.

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Cosette is still little more than a plot catalyst, though.

6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I try to get people to read this all the time. It’s another one of those that I’ve found is almost universally appealing. This one, of course, requires you to have an entire box of tissues on hand as you engage in the catharsis of bawling your eyes out. Worth it.

7. Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This book tells the most incredible love story. Miller did such a great job of drawing her characters’ personalities that you get completely engrossed in their love story. You follow Achilles and Patroclus from childhood and watch their relationship grow and mature. Just beautiful. And yeah. It’s about two dudes. Which is a nice change of pace from what I normally read, you know? (You probably need tissues for this one too.)

8. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It’s just really well drawn historical fiction. I love it to pieces. It’s another chunkster, but it moves fast. Don’t be intimidated by its length, you’ll enjoy yourself! (And then you’ll be really grateful that you have indoor plumbing and floors that aren’t dirt and stuff, because the Middle Ages were DIRTY, y’all.)

Starz did a mini series based on the book. Eddie Redmayne played Jack. You're welcome. (Image from Oprah.com)

Starz did a mini series based on the book. Eddie Redmayne played Jack. You’re welcome. (Image from Oprah.com)

9. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. No, having seen the movie is NOT the same thing. Not at all. It leaves out Scarlett’s first two children, for heaven’s sake! (That’s really not a spoiler, they aren’t major plot points, and the fact that they aren’t makes Scarlett all the more Scarlett-y.)

10. World War Z by Max Brooks. I don’t read a whole lot of zombie literature, but I thought this book rocked in a big way. I’m a huge fan of The Walking Dead (TV series, I haven’t read the comics) so the zombie lore intrigues me. I thought this book gave an awesome and realistic account of how a zombie apocalypse might go down. You’ll probably have nightmares. Fair warning.

There we are- ten books I recommend to people on the regular. What are some of your favorite titles to pass around?

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Top Ten Tuesday: The Shelf of Shame

Greetings, Bookworms!

You know when you’re in a bookstore, browsing, and you get sucked in by picking up a title in the bargain bin? How about when you have grand intentions of bettering yourself and pick up a pile o’ classics only to watch them collect dust on your shelves? We’ve all got the shelf of shame. And the ladies at the Broke and the Bookish? They want us to own up to it. Today’s Top Ten Tuesday: Stuff I Bought But Never Read.

toptentuesday1. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Sometimes (okay, a lot of times) I get self important and think that I will be able to appreciate even the most highbrow of classics. That’s when I buy things like Madame Bovary and then watch them moulder on my shelves for an eternity. I mean, I SHOULD like this. A doctor’s wife has adulterous affairs? I mean, hello Anna Karenina. How’s it going, Lady Chatterley? Why did I never get down with Madame Bovary? No idea.

2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This is always on smart people’s lists of favorite books. I’m highly susceptible to peer pressure whilst making decisions inside the Barnes and Noble… Amazon doesn’t judge me the way a hipster cashier would!

3. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. I bought this because Tess of the d’Urbervilles was so fantastic. However… The lack of female main character and/or the really unappealing portrait of what I assume to be the “mayor” on the cover has kept me from actually bending the spine of this one.

4. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I really do want to read this… It’s just so THICK. I’m not easily intimidated by big books, but this sucker is the size of Les Miserables, but lacks a magnificent soundtrack to play in my head… And no Gavroche.

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The Classics… Of Shame.

5. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig. It’s historical fiction with a pretty cover. I couldn’t be expected to resist the purchase, and yet… Still unread.

6. Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer. It’s historical fiction about, uh, Shakespeare’s wife. You know. Anne Hathaway. The one that didn’t win an Oscar. I found it in a bargain bin. I really loved the movie Shakespeare in Love, so perhaps I just don’t want to hear the sad tale of the wife who was left behind when the dashing Joseph Fiennes fell for a not-yet-openly-pretentious Gwyneth Paltrow. Siiigh.

7. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox. I bought this because it’s historical fiction. I’ve been putting off reading it because it’s about a Victorian era murderer. I’m not big on crime novels, even historical ones. I frequently question my bargain bin judgement.

You can see the bargain stickers!

You can see the bargain stickers!

8. Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. I bought this with Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant because I thought they sounded smart and fabulous. I read Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant and didn’t love it, so I didn’t bother with the other one on the shelf.

9. A Taxonomy of Barnacles by Galt Niederhoffer. Yeah. I bought this solely for the AWESOME title. I didn’t even read the abstract. Maybe I should. Maybe I will. Who knows?

10. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. There was an Oprah sticker, and I am not immune to the influence of The Oprah. I don’t know why I haven’t read it. STOP JUDGING ME, OPRAH!

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Haven’t read these. Scandalous.

Alright, Bookworms. You know you’ve got some of these bad boys on your shelves. I want to hear about them so I don’t feel so alone. Spill it!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Springing Forward

Howdy Bookworms!

If you’re in an area that gleefully flouts Daylight Savings Time, everyone else in the world is mad at you right now. We are all still recovering from the hour of “lost” sleep due to the time shift. Truth be told, most of the time I look forward to springing forward because I LOVE having excess daylight after work. Unfortunately, this spring has started off with a whiny whimper and nary a ray of sunshine has been seen. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic (thanks to The Broke and the Bookish) is our Top Ten 2013 Spring TBR (to be read, in case you don’t speak fluent Book Blogger.) I’m not great about paying attention to new releases unless it’s something that I’ve been really looking forward to (cough cough OUTLANDER) so, I’m just going to list off stuff I’m planning to read next-ish, because I’m still waiting for a burst of springtime energy.

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1. Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. I’m in the middle of this right now. TECHNICALLY it is Wine and Whining’s (one of the two In-Real-Life book clubs I belong to) selection for May, but it was only swapped to that position after I’d acquired it digitally from the library. If your library is anything like mine, the good downloadable titles are hard to come by- I wasn’t going to return it and hope it came available again. I figured I’d just read it early. And so I am.

2. The Round House by Louise Erdrich. This is the March selection for the My Neighbors Are Better Than Your Neighbors Book Club. Sadly (or not sadly, because I totally have awesome plans) the March meeting falls on the 22nd, and if you didn’t know already, THAT’S MY BIRTHDAY! Now, if it were any old birthday, I’d probably consider an evening at book club a great way to spend it, but it’s a banner year y’all. 30. (After much internal debate I’ve decided to embrace my oldness and not refer to myself as perpetually 29..) Anyway. Just because I won’t be at this meeting doesn’t mean I want to be out of the book loop. So. I’ll be reading it anyway.

3. The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani. This was meant to be the Wine and Whining selection for May, but we swapped it out for April, and I totally got it for a song during an Amazon sale. It’s historical fiction (wahoo!)

4. Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. Perhaps I should have titled this post “Spring Cleaning,” because I’ve got several titles waiting around on my kindle that I bought when prices were good knowing I’d get around to them. Now is the time to be getting around to them, yes?

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Who doesn’t want to ride a bear into battle? I mean, that’s significantly more awesome than a horse. Less awesome than a unicorn, though…

5. Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. I bought these in December when I was making New Year’s Resolutions and I’m STILL procrastinating. I need to just get to Middle Earth and read them already. This is getting ridiculous.

6. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel has been chilling on my kindle for a while now too. I started it, but it was slow going. I just haven’t had the attention span for something so meaty in a while. It’s really meaty, y’all. Not in a bad way. Just in an “I need all of my neurons to be firing so I don’t lose track of what’s going on” sort of way. My neurons are pissed right now and hibernating. Still.

7. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have a confession to make. I quit the Little House books after they hit the prairie. As much as I dug the pioneer girl thing, there were all kinds of dramatized serials about ballerinas and girls at summer camp filling the library shelves distracting my childish attention… Anyway, I’ve been told that I must read this book in particular to revel in the greatest love story of our time. Or, uh, pioneer time. The turn of phrase “you will die of happiness” was involved in me getting this recommendation- I really cannot be expected to ignore that. (Side note: this is apparently set in South Dakota. Remember back a few Top Ten Tuesdays ago when I claimed North Dakota was an under represented setting? It still is. But we’re getting closer, aren’t we?)

Dude. North Dakota cannot win. It's even got a boring shape.

Dude. North Dakota cannot win. It’s even got a boring shape.

8. Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue. I haven’t bought this yet, but yeah. Emma Donoghue writing about historical prostitution is the sort of thing I need to be reading. For real.

That’s it. Technically I’m including the entire LOTR trilogy in #5, so that makes 10 books. I might be a cutting corners, but I’m blaming the LOST HOUR OF SLEEP. And the abysmal grayness that’s refused to lift for the last couple of weeks. Shoo, winter! Get on out of here! Katie needs some SUNSHINE if she’s going to cope with her advancing age!

So. Bookworms. What have you got in the hopper? Big plans for reading? Spring cleaning your bookshelves? Angry at Daylight Savings Time? Let’s chat.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Series Edition

Hi Bookworms!

For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, the ladies at The Broke and The Bookish have asked a very important question. What are the top ten series you’d like to start that you haven’t yet? Admittedly, I had a tough time with this category. Most series that I’m interested in, I’ve already started and/or finished. Luckily, I have fabulous friends who don’t mind me whining to them when I can’t think of anything to blog about. I shall dedicate this post to Lauren and Chrissy for helping me compile this GLORIOUS post… Allow me to direct you to THE LIST!

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1. Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. Oh yeah. I’m procrastinating. I know I should start it, I just can’t get my head into that fantasy space. It was a New Year’s Resolution. It’s only March. Plenty of time still. (Yes Chrissy. I know. I know I should just get on with it. Now shoosh.)

2. Divergent by Veronica Roth. What can I tell you? I cannot get enough dystopian teen fiction. I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is more cowbell post apocalyptic teen angst!

3. The Passage by Justin Cronin. Zombies meet vampires in a tale of human devastation?! Sign me up! But… I’m going to wait until after Daylight Savings Time because I prefer to read about terrifying things with natural light. You can’t be too careful!

Creepy!

Creepy!

4. The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman. I love the show so much I really should read the comics. I know they’re very different from the show, so it’ll be a whole new way for me to appreciate the zombie apocalypse. Zombies are indifferent to light and dark, so DST won’t save me here.

5. Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. Witches and vampires and such? I can get down with that. Actually, I’ve heard a lot of good things about these books, so I’m intrigued.

6. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Westerns aren’t normally my thing, but I really like historical fiction, and Lauren swears by the Lonesome Dove books. If it turns out I hate them, I’ll hold her completely responsible, stand beneath her window in the night, and yodel in retribution. (I can’t yodel. It will be very punishing.)

7. The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Obviously I’m in the mood for supernatural hijinks. But the last book I read about magicians was so dang MAGICAL. I mean, hello, The Night Circus!

8. North & South by John Jakes. Civil War drama! I’m guessing sort of like Gone With The Wind minus Scarlet, which is awesome, because I spent an awful lot of time wanting to punch Scarlet. All good books have someone you love to hate in them, though, so I’m sure this will be no exception. I look forward to meeting my next favorite frustrating character!

9. The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis. Don’t get your undies in a twist. I have read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Twice even. I also read The Magician’s Nephew. I ran into trouble when I hit The Horse and His Boy. I got halfway through that bad boy and decided to take a break from Narnia… I’ve yet to return.

Oh. In case you were wondering. Turkish Delight is NOT delicious. It's quite repulsive, actually. If you find yourself in the UK, stick to Cadbury.

Oh. In case you were wondering. Turkish Delight is NOT delicious. “Turkish” in UK candy means “gross gelatinous substance that is icky.”

10. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I read and enjoyed Ender’s Game (well, I DID have some trouble with my crappy spacial reasoning skills imagining all the interplanetary zero gravity training scenarios… But that’s minor.) I just haven’t delved into the 80 thousand sequels/parallel series.

What about you, Bookworms? Do you enjoy reading series? Do you prefer your books to stand alone? I’m interested. Talk to me!

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Top Ten Tuesday: My Favorite Characters in… Historical Fiction!

Greetings, Bookworms.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “OMG I have been waiting ALL WEEK to read another LIST written by Katie at the behest of The Broke and The Bookish!” I live to serve, my friends. This week we got to pick our top ten characters from any genre. I decided to go with Historical Fiction because I love it so so so much. Also, I’ve read a lot of it, so I have a lot of character options. Ready? Let’s do this.

1. Belle from Tracy Chevalier’s The Last Runaway. Remember a few weeks back when I was discussing locales I’d like to see featured in more books? And one of my choices was a HAT STORE?! BELLE RUNS A HAT STORE! She also takes Honor in when she’s got no place to go, makes her a pretty (yet Quaker friendly) bonnet, and is awesome. Oh yeah, and she totally helps escaping slaves in the Underground Railroad. Let’s recap shall we? Badass lady habberdasher and abolitionist who takes in the less fortunate. Yeah.

lastrunaway

2. Fergus from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Fergus shows up in Dragonfly in Amber as a street urchin who has grown up in a brothel. I don’t know if you noticed or not (I’m about to brag in a big way)… But I’ve got a fondness for street urchins. You may or may not have seen my post on the Insatiable Booksluts last week… Oh you hadn’t? Yes go check it out.

3. Jack from Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. It’s hard to not like Jack. He’s got spirit, he’s smart, he is singularly motivated by his love for Aliena. It doesn’t hurt at all that in the Starz miniseries, Jack was played by Eddie Redmayne. Swoonsville.

Pillars-Of-The-Earth

4. Francie Nolan from Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Oh Francie! I love this girl. She loves to read, and it’s her escape from the mean streets of Brooklyn. She loves her father in spite of his alcoholism. She is met with disappointment after disappointment in her life and comes through it all to make a life for herself. I just want to hug her.

5. Dinah from Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent. I really just want to make this girl a t-shirt that says “My Brother Got An Award-Winning Musical And All I Got Was This (AWESOME) Book.” Uh, if that statement doesn’t make sense to you, you ought to go read that post. Dinah is Joseph’s (as in the Technicolor Dreamcoat) sister. Those jerk brothers that sold him into slavery also slaughtered her husband’s entire village. Jerks.

The woman on the cover reminds me of the Statue of Liberty for some reason. I have issues.

6. Idgy from Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes. I absolutely adore Idgy. She’s spunky and feeds the hungry and helps out her friends. She’s also completely in love with her best friend, but respects Ruth’s boundaries and gets her lady love elsewhere. (This is why you should read the books, people. They always de-Lesbian Hollywood scripts. More’s the pity- it added so much depth to the character…)

7. Hannah from Philippa Gregory’s The Queen’s Fool. Hannah’s got a lot on her plate. She’s accidentally psychic and as such is recruited by the Tudor court. Being a royal fool to Mary I poses its own set of challenges… Hannah is secretly Jewish and in the court of a Catholic Queen so staunch in her beliefs that she orders the execution of all sorts of Protestants in England. Dicey time to be a religious dissenter, especially given Mary’s father’s penchant for beheadings.

8. Rudy from Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. Rudy was such a great character. I mean, the kid is Jesse Owens’ biggest fan- growing up in Nazi Germany. My favorite scene is when Rudy smears himself in soot and imagines his career as an Olympic runner. Little kids don’t know that blackface is offensive (and really, in Nazi Germany, the fact that he was idolizing a black athlete at all was more controversial than the potentially offensive choice of makeup.) I love him for going against the grain, even though it’s dangerous. He’s got a good heart that even the Nazis can’t kill.

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9. Suora Zuana from Sarah Dunant’s Sacred Hearts. Suora Zuana is admitted to a convent against her will, but finds herself a place there where she is prized for her books and her knowledge of healing. I love a girl who can’t be parted from her books! She’s also a bit of a rebel and pulls a Shakespearean style stunt. Fantastic.

10. Joan from Diana Woolfolk Cross’s Pope Joan. Talk about ballsy. This lady wants to learn so badly that she dresses like a man and joins a monastery. She’s also a great healer and sort of accidentally gets elected Pope. I know. It’s nuts. In the best possible way.

There we have it. My Top Ten Historical Fiction Characters. What do you think? Any you would add?

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Top Ten Tuesday: The Language of Romance

Hola, Gusanos de Libros!

I just spoke SPANISH. Badly probably. Whatever. Today is Tuesday which means… TOP TEN TUESDAY with The Broke and The Bookish!

TTT3W

Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, today’s theme is, appropriately, Top Ten Romances (ooh la la!) <— See that?! FRENCH! Without further ado, I shall list for you the Top Ten Greatest Romances in the History of Literature… And Time Eternal. (I have a flair for the dramatic.)

1. Jamie and Claire of Diana Gabaldon’s impossibly wonderful Outlander series. If this were a contest, they’d have out romanced everyone else on this list because no time warp, monarchy, bodily attack, war, illness, or kidnapping can conquer them! (They are remarkably difficult to kill off, I must admit.)

2. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that this is one of the greatest love stories ever written. It’s like the loose premise for 90% of romantic comedies for a REASON, people!

3. Gus and Hazel of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Go ahead. Try to read this story about teen love and cancer and not cry. I dare you!

fault in our stars

4. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from (obviously) JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. You know you were transported back to your high school days when Ron didn’t ask Hermione to the Yule Ball. You know you loved their breakup and reunion in The Deathly Hallows. You know you completely dug every millisecond of their happily ever after. Hermione, the idol of every bookish girl. Ron, the ultimate underdog. It’s a thing of beauty.

5. Jane Eyre & Mr. Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Yes. I KNOW Mr. Rochester kept his crazy wife in the attic. I KNOW he was an attempted bigamist. But I also KNOW that he loved Jane, and she had a big enough heart to forgive him… Eventually. Talk about overcoming obstacles y’all. I bet you never had to deal with a crazy wife in the attic!

6. Achilles and Patroclus of Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles. There was so much beauty in the love story of Achilles and Patroclus! Achilles’ mean ass sea nymph mother didn’t approve of his loving another dude, but that didn’t stop them. My heart shattered into millions of pieces at the end of this book (that’s so not a spoiler, it’s Greek mythology y’all.) Great romance. Seriously.

song of achilles

7. Jacob and Marlena of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants. Marlena was married to the violent and mentally ill August, so for a time, she and Jacob admired each other at arm’s length. August’s violent behavior drives Marlena out of his arms and into Jacob’s. The only thing that could make this romance better would be a murder mystery where the perpetrator was an elephant. Oh, wait…

8. Henry and Claire of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. Be still my heart! How can you compete with love that transcends time?!?! How? You can only beat it if your love ALSO transcends time, plus a bunch of other crazy circumstances (cough cough Outlander.) So basically? This is awesome.

9. Bridget and Mark of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary. A (very) thinly veiled homage to Pride and Prejudice, Bridget’s awkwardness is impossibly endearing. Every girl who has ever been single and/or done something embarrassing can relate. Every man who has ever worn bumblebee socks at the behest of his overbearing mother can also relate. I’m not sure that last part happens that often, but still.

10. Celia and Marco from Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. Marco and Celia aren’t just star-crossed lovers, they’re MAGICALLY star crossed lovers. They’re locked into a battle neither of them chose. Little do they know, as their love progresses, that the only end to their “feud” is that one of them must perish. Ah! It is so sad! And yet, it is so magical. It conjures up all the lovey feelings one can feel!

night circus

So, Ratas de Biblioteca (PORTUGUESE!), what are some of your favorite romances? Hearts and candies and flowers and sappiness! Tell me all about it!