Tag Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

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I used to be much more willing to read the hottest new books even if they weren’t from genres I typically enjoy.

What I’ve learned over time is that my tastes generally do not overlap very much with the latest hyped titles. While there are certainly exceptions to this rule, especially in the speculative fiction genre where I spend so much of my reading time,  there tends to be an inverse relationship between how much fanfare is being created over a new book and how much it will appeal to me personally.

This is in no way a criticism of wildly popular stories or the people who read them. I’m sure there are many incredible books being released right now that also happen to be hyped up. They’re simply not my cup of tea, and that’s perfectly okay.

Here are some of the titles in this category that did not work for me for a wide variety of reasons but might be the ideal read for someone else.

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

2.The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

3. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

4. Wilder Girls by Rory Power

5. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

6. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

7. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

8. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

9. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

10.The Host by Stephenie Meyer

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Thank you to Deanna @ A Novel Glimpse for submitting the theme Ten Characters Authors Surprisingly Redeemed. I will be tweaking it a little as it trickier than I thought it would be!

I tend to DNF stories about characters who are really unpleasant, so I had to do a lot of brainstorming to come up with examples.

Redemption is probably  too strong of a word for some of these characters. They have a long way to go before they reach that point in most cases.  What I can say is that I enjoyed reading about them despite their terrible behaviour and I could see how each of them could be redeemed with some more introspection,  remorse over their actions, and attempts to make things right.

Is that close enough to the original theme? I hope so!

Here are my answers:

1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Holden Caulfield, the angsty protagonist

2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Heathcliff, the controlling and moody love interest

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

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Everybody. Or at least the main human characters.

4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Juniper Song, the deceptive protagonist.

5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: John, the confused protagonist

6. Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Logan-6, the brave but impressionable protagonist.

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Thank you to Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext and Hopewell’s Public Library of Life for submitting this topic. 

I’m narrowing this week’s topic down to nonfiction books involving food history.

There is something really cool learning about the history, science, sociology, and/or cultural meaning of various types of food.

I could read about that sort of stuff all day!

1. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

2.Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser

3. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

4. A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain

5. Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond

6. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink

7. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

8. Diet for a Small Planet: The Book That Started a Revolution in the Way Americans Eat by Frances Moore Lappé

9. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

10. Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner

11.The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson

12. The Book of Tea by Kakuzō Okakura

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If only it were possible to meet all of them!

1. Enzo from The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

2. Wilbur and Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web
by E.B. White

3. All of the friendly rabbits from Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams

4. The Velveteen Rabbit from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco

5. Mole, Water Rat, Badger, and maybe even Toad from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

6. Bambi from Bambi (Bambi, #1) by Felix Salten

As some of these answers included multiple characters, I think this will suffice.

Which fictional animals would you want to meet?

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Thank you to Cathy @ What Cathy Read Next for this topic idea. I’m narrowing down “Planes, Trains & Automobiles/Books Featuring Travel” to just books about trains as I think travelling by train is just about the nicest ways to get around. 

Canada doesn’t have as much train service as I wish we had, but you can still travel between most of the larger cities this way. It’s so relaxing to sit in a soft, comfortable seat and surf the Internet, eat some tasty food, or watch the countryside fly by. I much prefer it to driving or flying!

Here are some books about trains. Interestingly enough, they are all for children.

1. The Boxcar Children (The Boxcar Children, #1) by Gertrude Chandler Warner

2.The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

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Thank you to A Hot Cup of Pleasure for submitting this theme!

Here are ten of my favourite books from series I’ve read. I had to dig deeply to come up with a sufficient number of answers because I almost never read series these days and only read them occasionally when I was younger.

That is to say, most of these titles were published many years ago.

For the sheer fun of it, I will include a brief, spoiler-free description of why I picked each one in this post.

1. The Giver (The Giver, #1) by Lois Lowry

Why: The world-building left readers plenty of room to come up with our own theories about what happened next.

2. The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1) by M.R. Carey

Why: There is a fantastic twist in this book that takes a little while to fully reveal itself to the readers.

3. Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1) by V.C. Andrews

Why: This series begins with a wild premise that I will allow other readers to discover for themselves. I thought it worked best when it was first introduced because of how unusual it was.

4. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Why: There are a lot of Easter eggs here about things that were discussed in books #1-5 – especially The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – so that is why I strongly recommend reading this series in publication order instead of chronologically. You need that previous knowledge to fully understand why certain scenes are so thrilling.  This is my favourite Narnia story because of its beautiful descriptions of how Narnia was created and how many different ways characters could find themselves in that magical land.

5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Why: It worked perfectly nicely as a standalone story, but it also sets up and foreshadows so many important elements of the Lord of the Rings trilogies. I also thought the pacing in this one was much stronger than later instalments in this series.

6. Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1) by Charlaine Harris

Why: Look, I adored Sookie and though this was a fun universe…but she also tended to make the same mistakes over and over again. This became repetitive later on, but it was endearing when I first met her. If you’re in the market for vampire romance novels, the first few books in this universe are the best ones.

7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Why: It was such a zany introduction to these characters!

8. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Why: This was a period of Anne’s life when so many of her dreams began coming true. I loved seeing her finally have the chance to attend college and enjoy her youth.

I’d say eight answers is pretty good considering my strong preference for standalone novels!

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One of the interesting ways my reading habits have changed since I was a kid or a teenager is that I’m much less interesting in reading long books these days. If something is more than 200 to maybe 250 pages, it generally needs to be a story I think will be a five-star read for me in order for me to finish it.

I’m glad I read much longer books when I was younger and had more time for such doorstoppers as some of them did have excellent storylines, but I can also see the value in trimming down side quests and lengthy descriptive passages in order to make the reading experience a faster one.

Here are some books that I think would have been better if they were shorter. Some of them are classics as books from roughly 100+ years ago were often more verbose than what is published today due to how English has evolved since then.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (as well as the sequels, of course!)

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

3. The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) by Ken Follett

4. The Stand by Stephen King

5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

7. The House of the Seven Gables  by Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

9. Paradise Lost by John Milton

10. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson