Tag Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

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I originally thought this week’s prompt was going to be a hard one, but I ended up finding the full ten answers for it!

Author: Min Jin Lee

What I Want to Read From Them: Pachinko 

Author: Agatha Christie

What I Want to Read From Them: I don’t know yet.

Author: Yaa Gyasi

What I Want to Read From Them: Homegoing 

Author: Noelle Stevenson

What I Want to Read From Them: Nimona 

Author: Rita Dove

What I Want to Read From Them: I don’t know yet.

Author: Allyson Hobbs

What I Want to Read From Them: A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in America

Author: Nelson Mandela

What I Want to Read From Them: Long Walk to Freedom 

Author: Dee Brown

What I Want to Read From Them: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee – An Indian History of the American West 

Author: Art Spiegelman

What I Want to Read From Them: Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)

Author: Nomi Eve

What I Want to Read From Them: Henna House

If you’ve read any of these authors and have other suggestions of good books from them, I’d love to hear about it!

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If you ask me, this is one of the best topics that was ever submitted to Top Ten Tuesday!

Bravo to Lisa of Hopewell for coming up with it. You have a wonderful mind, and I’m so glad Jana chose your idea.

It is about time that books from the 21st century begin to be sorted into various classics lists. I used the plural form because I don’t know that there should ever be one single list that everyone reads or even agrees is the best of the best.

What I find emotionally engaging and appealing might not be necessarily the same list of books that someone else picks for a wide variety of reasons. We all have different tastes and previous life experiences that influence which books leave a lasting impact on it.

Honestly, there are certain books from the lists of classics from earlier centuries that I have never been able to get into, but of course not everyone agrees with my opinions of those books.

With all of that being said, here are some books from this century that I think will be remembered fondly for many years to come.

1.Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Why: It was an immersive story that followed the same group of characters for decades as they matured. The plot itself was also quite interesting, and I could see it being taught in schools.

2. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Why: Neil Gaiman is an amazingly nuanced storyteller who sneaks all sorts of deep themes into his works that you might otherwise expect to be simple entertainment.

3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Why: To be honest, it’s been so long since I read this book that I’ve forgotten many of the plot twists. What I do remember is being astonished by how many layers the author fit into the short life of his main character. That takes skill, and it makes this something I should reread again soon.

4. Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1) by Margaret Atwood

Why: This almost read like it was half of a conversation with an unseen companion who had strong opinions about the world that the author only partially agreed with. Ms. Atwood also had some astute observations to make about 21st century life that I think will appeal to future generations quite a bit.

5. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Why: It had such a sympathetic portrayal of someone who had Alzheimer’s Disease and no hope for a cure. I’ve read other books on similar topics from previous centuries. You can learn so much about a society by looking at how people with incurable illnesses are treated as well as how they react to the news that they’ve reached the end of what medicine and science can offer to them.

6. Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Why: The gorgeous writing makes this a modern classic in my opinion! Do not spoil the storyline for yourself by looking up spoilers in advance. The less you know about it beforehand, the better in my opinion.

7. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Why: This was a challenging read for sure given the many references to war and political upheaval, but it was well worth sticking it out with the characters to see what became of them.

I look forward to see which books everyone else picked! I wonder how much crossover there will be on our lists?

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Let’s see how many books I can think of that fit this prompt!

I know I’ve already mentioned many of the books I enjoyed reading on my site at some point, so it took me a little while to search for all of these titles in my archives to make sure I hadn’t mentioned them before.

Enjoy isn’t exactly the right word for some of these answers because of the serious topics they cover, but they were still excellent books that I’m glad I discovered.

Keep reading to discover my hodgepodge of answers!

They cover so many different genres and topics.

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Why I Enjoyed It: The author had a thought-provoking message about what we should expect out of life and how we should respond if our wishes don’t come true or aren’t fulfilled in the ways we thought they would be. I didn’t understand his point so well when I first read this tale, but it makes a great deal more sense to me now.

2. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Why I Enjoyed It: This story was assigned to my English class many years ago in a time in my life when I was experiencing a lot of bullying.  I found an odd sense of comfort in reading about adults behaving just as poorly a few centuries ago. Some people need to put others down in order to feel better about themselves. That sort of behaviour says a lot about the perpetrator’s character, and not in a complimentary way.

3. The World According to Garp by John Irving

Why I Enjoyed It: Most of the characters were rather selfish and unkind, but they were often witty and creative as well. While I wouldn’t want them to be a permanent part of my life by any means, I would be amused by listening to their stories over dinner for an evening. It takes a lot of talent to create deeply unlikeable characters that still draw a reader into their lives, flaws and all.

4. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Why I Enjoyed It: Ms. Morrison has a poetic writing style that’s always wonderful to read.

5. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Why I Enjoyed It: It told the stories of so many different groups of people who were rarely if ever mentioned in the history classes taught when I was in elementary, middle, and high school.

6. The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg

Why I Enjoyed It: Anyone who has followed this blog for a while might remember how much I enjoy stories about Neanderthals. This was a good one.

7. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

Why I Enjoyed It: Okay, so enjoy is definitely not the right term for this book. Let’s say that I was educated by it instead. Reading it was the first time I’d been exposed to the idea that the prison industry could be compared to the Jim Crow era.

8. Ash by Malinda Lo

Why I Enjoyed It: It was the first Cinderella retelling I read, and I thought it was well done.

9. Warm Bodies (Warm Bodies, #1) by Isaac Marion

Why I Enjoyed It: I used to enjoy zombie fiction and was flabbergasted at the thought of anyone turning those creatures into a love interest. This took a very interesting take on the subject for sure!

10. The World According to Mr. Rogers: Important Things to Remember by Fred Rogers

Why I Enjoyed It: Mr. Rogers was a wonderful human being who made the world a better place. He was so full of wisdom, love, and grace!

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This week’s prompt made me pause and think for a little while. My first reaction to it was that I don’t read many books with dynamic duos, but I think that impression wasn’t entirely correct now that I’ve had a chance to ponder it further and dig deeply into my bookish past.

Here are some of my favourite duos in fiction.

1. Sam and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. Travis and Old Yeller in Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

3. George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

4.   Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

There weren’t many of them, and oddly enough they were all about white men (or hobbits). I’ll be eagerly reading all of your answers to diversify my list as I hadn’t realized I had this blind spot!

Honestly, I think being able to pick each other’s minds like that and expand all of our horizons is one of the best parts of Top Ten Tuesday.

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This isn’t my dog, but don’t they look happy?

My comments on certain blogs do not seem to be going through for reasons I haven’t been able to ascertain. If you don’t see reciprocal comments on your site, that is why. I am doing my best each week to say hello to everyone! 

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it’s rare for me to love a book so much that I can’t review it properly.

I’ve been reviewing books for so many years now that I can write my way out of nearly any dilemma, from figuring out diplomatic ways to word constructive criticisms to gushing about a story for paragraphs on end without giving away any important plot twists.

There are a myriad of ways to discuss most books with kindness and without spoilers.

With that being said, there has been one recent exception to this rule.

It’s a novella I’ve wholeheartedly recommended to everyone I know who has ever so much as glanced in the direction of speculative fiction.

The storytelling was so tightly woven that I didn’t even mind the fact that it seems to be the beginning of a serial.

Normally, I strictly avoid tales that drop off at exciting moments and make you wait for the next instalment to see what happens next.

This one figured out how to pack so much world building and character development into the first instalment that I don’t mind waiting for the sequel, especially since it has had such a hopeful vision of what humanity’s future might look like.

“A Psalm for the Wild-Built” by Becky Chambers couldn’t have been better.

I adored the protagonist, a non-binary tea monk who was so restless and dissatisfied with their life they decided to leave the safe zone where humans had lived for generations to see what they might find in the wild forests that covered all of the places humanity had abandoned.

The world they lived in was such a safe, harmonious place. There was no more war or environmental destruction. Everyone lived simply and no one went without what they needed to survive.

I spent the entire novella wondering what the main character would find on their journey. I yearned for it to be something wonderful that they could bring back to show everyone.

There are so many other things I wish I could say about this novella, but I really do have to be careful about giving away thrilling plot twists to anyone who hasn’t read it yet.

Maybe someday soon I’ll figure out a way to discuss this short work in greater detail and properly review it before the sequel comes out this summer!