Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is actually supposed to be Books I’d Gladly Throw Into the Ocean, but I honestly couldn’t think of ten books that aroused that kind of negative reaction in me.  Required readings for school came to mind since, by nature, I hate to be told what to read and remember going into every required reading assignment fully expecting to hate the book. (Yeah, I was super mature, haha!)  Instead of sharing the books I hated though, I’d rather share the ones that surprised me because I not only didn’t hate them, but I actually kind of loved them.

 

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Books I Was Required to Read for School But Didn’t Hate

 

     

 

 

1. MACBETH by William Shakespeare – I was one of the few in my English classes who actually got excited when it was time to read a play from Shakespeare.  Macbeth was probably my favorite of the ones we had to read and I chalk it up as an early sign that I would grow up to love witchy reads so much, lol.

2. BELOVED by Toni Morrison – This book was actually one of my first required readings in college and to this day, it’s one of the most haunting I’ve ever read.  I don’t know if enjoy is the right word to use here since the subject matter deals with the horror and brutality of slavery, but it’s a read that has stayed with me for years now.

3. I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS by Maya Angelou – I’ve never been one to read much in the way of nonfiction so I probably groaned out loud when this book was assigned, especially since at the time, I actually had no idea who Maya Angelou was.  Her story blew me away though and led me to read as many of her poems as I could get my hands on.  As one who also never read much poetry, this is a testament to just how incredible writer she is.

4. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen  – This book was my first experience with an enemies to lovers romance and, to this day, it’s still a favorite of mine.

5. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte  – I fell in love with this book as soon as I realized the protagonist was an underdog.  Anyone who follows my blog knows I’m a sucker for a good story that features an underdog.  Add in a mad woman in the attic and this was a riveting read for me.

6. THE TELL-TALE HEART AND OTHER WRITINGS by Edgar Allan Poe – I fully expected to hate everything Poe had written since I’ve never been much of a horror fan, but my goodness, his short stories were absolutely mesmerizing to me as a teen.  The creepy atmospheric quality, the psychological horror, etc.  It’s one of the few units in school where I was truly bummed once it was over.

7. THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin – I had to read this book my senior year in high school and don’t know if this was actually a great read or not, but I remember being fascinated by it, I think in part because, with very rare exception, pretty much all we had been assigned as required reading up to this point were dead white male authors.  The Awakening was probably the first real “feminist” book I had read and it was very eye opening.

8. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee – I always refer to this as the first “grown up” book I ever read.  It was assigned to me as required reading in the 8th grade and as someone who had spent her childhood reading Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, E. B. White, etc., this book was just such a stark contrast with its focus on Scout’s loss of innocence as she witnesses racism at work in her sleepy Southern town. It was another of those reads that just blew me away and that has stuck with me all these years later.

9. THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton – I had to read this one in middle school too and I was just struck by how gritty and moving the story is while at the same time being a story about family, friendship, and brotherhood.

10. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding – This was my first experience with a dystopian novel and I remember being completely glued to the book wondering what was going to happen to these boys if they didn’t make it back to civilization soon.  It was fascinating and terrifying.

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Question:  What were some of your favorite required reads from your school days?

 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Funny Book Titles.  This was surprisingly challenging, I guess because we all don’t think the same things are funny.  That said, I always love a good pun or a clever play on words when it comes to well known titles like Game of Thrones or The Fault in Our Stars so I decided to share some cozy mystery titles that I thought were pretty amusing.

 

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Cozy Mystery Titles That Made Me Chuckle

 

 

1. NACHO AVERAGE MURDER by Maddie Day

2. THE MALT IN OUR STARS (A LITERARY PUB MYSTERY) by Sarah Fox

3. A GAME OF CONES by Abby Collette

4. ARSENIC AND ADOBO by Mia P. Manansala

5. A BREW TO A KILL (A COFFEEHOUSE MYSTERY) by Cleo Coyle

6. DEATH GONE A-RYE (A BREAD SHOP MYSTERY) by Winnie Archer

7. MURDER IN THE COOKBOOK NOOK by Ellery Adams

8. GROUNDS FOR MURDER (A COFFEE LOVER’S MYSTERY) by Tara Lush

9. IT CANNOLI BE MURDER by Catherine Bruns

10. GINGER SNAPPED by Gail Oust

 

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Question:  What’s your idea of a funny book title?  Do you enjoy puns or do they make you roll your eyes?

 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is a Spring Cleaning Freebie (for example, books you’re planning to get rid of for whatever reason, books you’d like to clean off your TBR by either reading them or deciding you’re not interested, books that feel fresh and clean to you after winter is over, etc.).  I decided to focus on book that I have taken off my TBR so far this year.  I guess that’s technically “winter cleaning” but whatever.

As most who follow me know, one of my big goals for the year is to read more of the books I own and another is to finish up (or at least make some progress) on some series that have been lingering on my TBR for years.  I’ve gotten off to a pretty good start on these two goals.  I’ve read 19 books from my bookshelves and 5 of those are books from series I’ve been way behind on.  Not only have I read a lot of my own books, but I’ve also made some hard decisions regarding some series have been lingering on my shelves for years now and decided to purge them from my TBR.  It was hard because my heart is telling me that I’ve invested time in the series and should continue, but the more practical side of me says that if I haven’t read book 2 five years after reading book 1, I’m just not that into it and need to move on.  In most cases, I can’t even remember the basic premise of the series or the names of any characters and just don’t have any interest in re-reading the first book to re-familiarize myself with it.

 

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Spring Cleaning My TBR

 

What I Read

1. THE ROSE & THE DAGGER by Renee Ahdieh

2. DARKDAWN by Jay Kristoff

3. A COURT OF FROST AND STARLIGHT  by Sarah J. Maas

4. A REAPER AT THE GATES by Sabaa Tahir

5. THE TOLL by Neal Shusterman

 

What I Purged

6. GOLDEN SON by Pierce Brown

7. BLOOD OF A THOUSAND STARS by Rhoda Belleza

8. THE INFINITE SEA by Rick Yancey

9. EVER THE BRAVE by Erin Summerill

10. LINGER by Maggie Stiefvater

 

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Question:  Have you read any of these?  Am I missing out if I give up on those five series?

 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Books That Made Me Laugh Out Loud.  At first I was going to skip this week’s topic since I know I’ve done at least one post recently about funny books, but then I decided that with this depressing pandemic lingering, you can never have too many recs when it comes to books that will make you laugh these days.  Some of the ones I’m sharing are truly LOL funny, while others have some serious moments mixed in with the humor.  Guaranteed that they’ll all leave you with a smile on your face though. 🙂

 

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Books That Made Me Laugh Out Loud

 

   

   

 

1. IN A HOLIDAZE by Christina Lauren

2. THE WEDDING GAME by Meghan Quinn

3. TAKE A HINT, DANI BROWN by Talia Hibbert

4. THE EX TALK by Rachel Lynn Solomon

5. YOU LUCKY DOG by Julia London

6. BRINGING DOWN THE DUKE by Evie Dunmore

7. MUCH ADO ABOUT YOU by Samantha Young

8. THE DATING PLAN by Sara Desai

9. UNDERCOVER BROMANCE by Lyssa Kay Adams

10. HOW TO FAIL AT FLIRTING by Denise Williams

 

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Question:  Do you enjoy humorous reads?  Can you recommend any other funny books I might enjoy?

 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is  Books Written Before I Was Born.  This was actually a really hard topic for me because up until about ten years ago, I was very much into reading classics. I guess it was an extension of my college and grad school studies but I read most of the well known classics and then branched out and read a lot of more obscure titles as well.  That said, I was still able to come up with 10 titles that were published before I was born that I haven’t read yet but would like to at some point.

 

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10 Books Older Than Me That I Want to Read

 

     

     

 

1. THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD by Agatha Christie

Even though I selected this title, I’d actually really like to read everything by Agatha Christie. So far I’ve only read And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express and I loved both of them.

 

2. I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith

I’m always up for a good coming of age story and this one has received lots of high marks from reviewers I trust.

 

3. REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier

As much as I enjoy Gothic stories, I’m surprised I haven’t gotten around to this one yet.

 

4. THE GODFATHER by Mario Puzo

I actually haven’t read the books or seen the films.

 

5. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene

I took a course on 20th Century British Literature when I was in grad school and we read several of Greene’s novels.  I really enjoyed his writing style and read a couple more of his after I graduated.  Somehow I never got around to this one though, even though it’s probably one of his better known novels.

 

6. THE BIBLE

This might seem like an odd choice, but I’ve honestly never been a big Bible reader.  I remember reading a few passages here and there back when I used to attend Sunday School but that’s about it.  I remember wanting to take a course called “The Bible as Literature” when I was in college but it was so popular that in all four years, I was never able to get into the class.  One of these days I would like to do some kind of a Bible study, whether it’s as literature or a more traditional study.

 

7. INFERNO by Dante Alighieri

This is another where I’ve read various passages here and there, usually in order to understand references to it in other works of literature.  One of these days I would like to read it in its entirety, mainly just so I can say I did it, haha.

 

8. FRANNY AND ZOOEY by J.D. Salinger

I’ve re and re-read The Catcher in the Rye but somehow Franny and Zooey slipped through the cracks and I have yet to read it.

 

9. THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins

Like Rebecca, I’m actually surprised I haven’t picked this one up yet since I usually love those 19th century gothic reads.  I remember this one being mentioned a lot in class and that all of my professors loved it so someday I’d like to read it.

 

10. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak

I think the only reason I haven’t read this yet is because the subject matter sounds a bit daunting with its extensive focus on Russian history, particularly the Russian Revolution.

Have you read any of these oldies but goodies?