Top Ten Tuesday – Top 10 Favorite Albums of All Time
Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is an All About Audio freebie — aka top ten audiobooks you should listen to, 10 books I want to listen to on audio, 10 bands you should check out, 10 podcasts you should be listening to, 10 of my all time favorite albums, 10 songs I love, really whatever you can come up with.
I have to confess that I almost didn’t do this week’s topics since I couldn’t really come up with a bookish angle, as I don’t really do audiobooks or podcasts. But once I read the topic in more detail and saw the musical options, I decided I could easily go that route since after books, music is my next biggest passion. And just as with my taste in books, my taste in music is quite eclectic. I’ve listed my top 10 favorite albums of all time this week, and they seem to be mostly classic rock, pop, and alternative hits, but I also very much enjoy R&B, a little rap, and even a few country and classic albums. Aside from listing them and talking about why I love them, I’ve also included links to Amazon for each. If you click those links and scroll down, you can sample tracks from each album. 🙂
My Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Albums
1. Bruce Springsteen – Greatest Hits
Why I love it: He’s the Boss, enough said, haha! Seriously though, I just love everything about Bruce Springsteen. He plays a mean guitar, writes incredible lyrics, and probably puts on the best concert out there. I saw him perform live when he was 62 years old and couldn’t believe his energy and stamina. 3 1/2 hours of nothing but Bruce and the E. Street Band. It was musical heaven! I love every song he’s ever written so I just had to go with the Greatest Hits Album. It’s hard to pick favorites but if I have to, I’d go with My Hometown, Hungry Heart, The River, Thunder Road, and Secret Garden. (Listen to The Boss…)
* * * * *
2. Best of Bowie
Why I love it: David Bowie was pure genius, truly one of the most innovative artists in all of music. His death this year really broke my heart because I just know he had so much more music in him to share with the world. Again, it’s so hard to pick favorites so I had to go with a greatest hits album. Some of my favorites are Changes, Young Americans, Rebel Rebel, China Girl, Modern Love, and Let’s Dance. (Listen to Bowie…)
* * * * *
3. The Lumineers
Why I love it: I love The Lumineers because I think they have such a fresh yet simple sound, and I love the acoustic vibe. My favorite songs on this album are Stubborn Love, Flowers in Your Hair, and Ho Hey. (Listen to The Lumineers…)
* * * * *
4. The Essential Heart
Why I love it: Just as I love strong female protagonists in the books I read, I also love badass female musicians and it doesn’t get much more badass than Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. If you’ve never heard them before, check out tunes like Barricuda, Magic Man, and Crazy on You for a small taste of just how amazing these ladies are. (Listen to Heart…)
* * * * *
5. Dave Matthews Band – Under the Table and Dreaming
Why I love it: I got into the Dave Matthews Band originally because they are from my home state of Virginia and they come back home all the time to perform. This album is my favorite of theirs, so far anyway, because of awesome songs like Ants Marching, What Would You Say, and Typical Situation. I love these guys so much! (Listen to Dave Matthews Band…)
* * * * *
6. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat the Devil’s Tattoo
Why I love it: B.R.M.C. is just a fabulous rock band with a classic sound. My favorite tracks on this album are the title track, River Styx, and Long Way Down. (Listen to B.R.M.C…)
* * * * *
7. The Cure – Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
Why I love it: This one is a sentimental favorite because it was the first alternative record that I purchased for myself and the first record I purchased when I went off to college, so aside from it being chock full of amazing tunes, it also brings on waves of nostalgia every time I hear it. My favorite tracks are Just Like Heaven, Why Can’t I Be You?, and One More Time. (Listen to The Cure…)
* * * * *
8. Tracy Chapman – Greatest Hits
Why I love it: I just love Tracy Chapman’s gorgeous vocal and her moving lyrics. My favorite tracks are Fast Car, Give Me One Reason, and Talkin’ Bout a Revolution. (Listen to Tracy Chapman…)
* * * * *
9. The Very Best of Prince
Why I love it: I’ve loved Prince since I was 14 years old and first listened to the Purple Rain album. I adored him so much that I even had a huge Purple Rain poster hanging over my bed when I was in high school. I believe that Prince was truly one of the most unique and gifted artists of our time. His untimely death earlier this year was such a tremendous loss. I love absolutely every track on this greatest hits album. (Listen to Prince…)
* * * * *
10. Imagine Dragons – Night Visions
Why I love it: I just love their sound and I think they put on such an amazing live show. My favorite tracks off this album are Radioactive, Demons, On Top of the World, and It’s Time. (Listen to Imagine Dragons…)
* * * * * *
Question: Are you a music fan too? Do we share any favorite musicians or albums? What was your TTT topic this week? I’d love to hear from you 🙂
ARC Review: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue Also by this author: Room, Akin
on September 20th 2016
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 304
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Goodreads Synopsis: In Emma Donoghue’s latest masterpiece, an English nurse brought to a small Irish village to observe what appears to be a miracle-a girl said to have survived without food for months-soon finds herself fighting to save the child’s life. Tourists flock to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O’Donnell, who believes herself to be living off manna from heaven, and a journalist is sent to cover the sensation. Lib Wright, a veteran of Florence Nightingale’s Crimean campaign, is hired to keep watch over the girl.
Written with all the propulsive tension that made Room a huge bestseller, THE WONDER works beautifully on many levels–a tale of two strangers who transform each other’s lives, a powerful psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.
* * * * *
My Review:
Emma Donoghue is fast becoming one of my all-time favorite authors. She is such a master of weaving together compelling stories that ask tough questions and that you won’t be able to stop thinking about for days, even weeks, after you’ve finished reading them. I first fell in love with Donoghue’s writing style and storytelling abilities when I read her immensely popular novel, Room. Even though it has been nearly six months since I read and reviewed Room, Donoghue’s writing is so powerful that I still think about that story all the time and it’s probably one of the books that I most often suggest to anyone who asks me to recommend a good book.
Needless to say, when I heard she had a new book coming out this fall, The Wonder, I immediately rushed over to Netgalley to request a review copy. Thanks so much to Netgalley, Little, Brown and Company, and of course Emma Donoghue for granting my request and allowing me to preview The Wonder for my blog. I’m thrilled to say that upon reading The Wonder, my love for Emma Donoghue and her gorgeous writing has only continued to grow.
* * * * *
So, what did I love about The Wonder?
First of all, I loved that it features a strong female protagonist. I was immediately drawn to Donoghue’s protagonist, Englishwoman Lib Wright. Widowed at the age of 25, Lib decides to become a Nightingale Nurse. We learn that she actually trained with the famous Florence Nightingale and worked alongside her caring for soldiers during the Crimean War. When she returns home after the Crimean campaign, Lib expects that her career as a nurse will take off but instead finds herself relegated to doing little more than menial work at the local hospital. Dissatisfied, Lib jumps at what sounds like an exciting opportunity to travel to Ireland to provide care at a private residence for two weeks. I felt sympathetic towards Lib right from the start, both for the loss of her husband at such a young age and for the frustration she was experiencing in her career. At the same time, however, I greatly admired Lib’s sense of independence and her determination to find more fulfilling work even if it meant packing up and traveling to another country to do so.
When Lib arrives in Ireland, she learns that she and another nurse, Sister Michael, have been hired to watch eleven year old Anna O’Donnell around the clock for two weeks. Anna is said to not have taken a bite of food for four months, but yet appears to be remarkably healthy. While there are many in her devout Roman Catholic town who believe she is a miracle child, there are some who believe it is a hoax. So Lib and Sister Michael are to observe Anna and document whether or not Anna actually eats any food. Because of her background in science and medicine, Lib is very skeptical of Anna and makes it her mission, so that this trip is not a complete waste of her time, to find proof Anna and her family are frauds. I particularly loved the fierceness Lib displays as she basically dismantles Anna’s room looking for any place where food could possibly be hidden.
Mystery and Suspense. You wouldn’t think a book that is primarily about sitting and watching a young girl to see if she is eating would be such an exciting read, but by having Lib so determined to get to the bottom of what is actually going on, Donoghue successfully weaves a sense of mystery and suspense into her tale. We follow Lib each shift as she attends to Anna and as she continues to search for any clues that Anna and her family are perpetuating a grand hoax. With each passing day that no evidence is found, however, more and more questions arise, both for Lib and for the reader by extension. Is Anna eating or is she not? If she is eating, why can’t any proof be found? If she’s not, how is that even possible and how long can it possibly go on? Is she really a miracle or are these seemingly simple people really somehow managing to outsmart everyone around them?
Conflicts and Tension. Even though the bulk of the story takes place in Anna’s tiny bedroom, Donoghue infuses the story with several major conflicts – that of England vs. Ireland, Protestantism vs. Roman Catholicism, and Science and Medicine vs. Religion and Local Superstition. These conflicts not only add weight to the overall story, but they also create momentum by effectively ratcheting up both the tension and the drama as we move further into the two-week observation of Anna. Because Lib is English and a Protestant, she is perceived as an outsider and the O’Donnells and the townspeople do little more than tolerate her presence in their lives. When she then expresses skepticism of their religious convictions and of the strange superstitions that many in the village seem to embrace (a belief in fairies, for example), their opinion of her only goes downhill from there and thus any scientific arguments Lib uses to express her concern that Anna is harming herself by not eating are immediately rejected as ‘You just don’t understand the way we live here.’
It’s especially frustrating, not just for Lib, but for the reader as well, that not even Anna’s parents seem to have their daughter’s best interest at heart, which leads to what is perhaps the primary conflict of the novel: the moral and ethical dilemma that faces Lib — how can she just sit back and simply observe Anna starve herself as she has been hired to do when every fiber of her being is screaming at her to take care of this child and get her the nourishment she needs, even if she has to resort to force to do so? Donoghue does a phenomenal job of portraying the frustration that Lib feels as this decision weighs on her mind every time she looks at Anna.
The Bond between Lib and Anna. In a novel that is oftentimes disturbing because of the way everyone just sits back and lets Anna refuse food, there is a lovely and moving element to the story as well and that is the bond of friendship that forms between Lib and Anna. At first Lib is filled with dislike and distrust for Anna because she’s so convinced the girl is a fraud, but Anna quickly wins her over with her kind spirit, her piety, and her quick wit. As we move through the novel, Lib grows more and more fond of Anna, and often comes across as more of a parent to Anna than Anna’s own mother and father do. There’s what I would call a healing or restorative quality to their relationship and both Anna and Lib benefit from their interactions.
* * * * *
Anything I Didn’t Like?
I liked the overall pacing of the novel and the slow buildup of tension and suspense, but I have to say there were a few moments just over the halfway point where my interest started to wane a bit. Thankfully after a few more pages, the action really started to pick up and I sailed right through to the end. Other than that minor lull in the story, I thought everything else about it was beautifully done.
* * * * *
Who Would I Recommend The Wonder to?
If you’re looking for a light and fluffy read, this is definitely not the book for you. However, if you like a compelling read that will make you think and that poses tough questions when it comes to ethics and morality , then The Wonder might be a good fit for you.
Rating: 4.5 stars
Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder is due out on September 20, 2016.
About Emma Donoghue
Emma is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue. She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin, and in 1997 a PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. Since the age of 23, Donoghue has earned her living as a full-time writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their son and daughter.
Need a Good Laugh? Here are 10 Reads to Tickle Your Funny Bone
* * * * *
I don’t know about you, but all my life I have considered books to be my therapy. There are certain books that I go to when I’m feeling happy, certain books I turn to when I’m feeling sad, or even if I need a good cry. I’m definitely what you would call a mood reader and, fortunately, there are plenty of books out there to fit pretty much any mood I happen to be in.
Since I’m sure I’m not the only mood reader out there and definitely not the only one out there who enjoys a humorous read, I thought it would be nice to share my go-to list of books for when I need a good laugh to cheer me up. Some of these, like the Stephanie Plum series, are just pure comedic gems with guaranteed laughs from start to finish, while others like The Help tackle serious issues but still manage to infuse their stories with plenty of humor so that the overall impact is very uplifting. I even threw in a Roald Dahl book, The B.F.G., because its pure whimsy is guaranteed to make you smile no matter how old you are.
Ten Reads That Will Tickle Your Funny Bone
1. The Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich
Goodreads Synopsis: Pestered by her close New Jersey family, Stephanie Plum offers to catch high-school crush Joe Morelli, cop turned bail jumper, for her cousin Vinnie’s company. She questions “working girls” to find the missing girlfriend of vicious prizefighter Benito Ramirez while Joe secretly watches her back. Ranger mentors her and supplies vehicles when hers explode. (Read more…)
* * * * *
2. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Goodreads Synopsis: Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world. (Read more…)
* * * * *
3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Goodreads Synopsis: Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women–mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends–view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope,The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t. (Read more…)
* * * * *
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Goodreads Synopsis: Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide (“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”) and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox–the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod’s girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. (Read more…)
* * * * *
5. My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Goodreads Synopsis: Who can forget our beloved gentleman’s personal gentleman, Jeeves, who ever comes to the rescue when the hapless Bertie Wooster falls into trouble. My Man Jeeves is sure to please anyone with a taste for pithy buffoonery, moronic misunderstandings, gaffes, and aristocratic slapstick. (Read more…)
* * * * *
6. The B.F.G. by Roald Dahl
Goodsreads Synopsis: Captured by a giant! The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It’s lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the Bonecruncher, or any of the other giants-rather than the BFG-she would have soon become breakfast.
When Sophie hears that they are flush-bunking off in England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her! (Read more…)
* * * * *
7. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Goodreads Synopsis: Winner of the 1933 Femina Vie Heureuse Prize, COLD COMFORT FARM is a wickedly funny portrait of British rural life in the 1930’s. Flora Poste, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, and becomes enmeshed in a web of violent emotions, despair, and scheming, until Flora manages to set things right. (Read more…)
* * * * *
8. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Goodreads Synopsis: Meet Bridget Jones—a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could:
a. lose 7 pounds
b. stop smoking
c. develop Inner Poise
“123 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)…”
Bridget Jones’ Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget’s permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement — a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult, and learn to program the VCR.
Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and — like millions of readers the world round — you’ll find yourself shouting, “Bridget Jones is me!” (Read more…)
* * * * *
9. High Fidelity by Nick Hornsby
Goodreads Synopsis: It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby’s narrator is an early-thirty-something English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way-on vinyl-and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music. (Read more…)
* * * * *
10. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Goodreads Synopsis: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken. (Read more…)
* * * * * *