Tag Archive for: top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Movies guaranteed to distract me from books

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Movie Freebie — top ten all time favorite movies, top ten foreign films, top ten rom-coms, top ten 90’s movies, top ten action flicks, top ten tear-jerkers, top ten movies your favorite actor/actress is in, top ten movies with PoC leads, etc.)

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I decided to go with what basically amounts to my all time favorite movies.  I adore the movies on this list so much that no matter what I’m in the middle of, including my beloved reading, I will immediately stop whatever I’m doing to watch them if someone else in my house is watching them.  As you’ll notice, my favorites are heavy on classics by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.  I think Spielberg and Lucas are two of the most brilliant filmmakers of all time, and their movies really shaped my childhood and young adult years.

The Star Wars films, the original trilogy, are probably my all time favorite movies. I hardcore shipped Han and Leia for years, loved the Han/Chewy bromance, and really wanted my very own R2-D2 droid.  That said, just like my tastes in reading, my tastes in films are also very eclectic.  I love comedies, dramas, musicals, fantasies, animated films, sports films, and even some science fiction. You’ll also notice that no horror films appear on my list. I’m a big chicken and truly hate to be scared, haha. 🙂

So, anywho, here’s this week’s Top Ten Tuesday!

Ten Movies Guaranteed to Distract Me from Books

 

1. Star Wars – The Original Trilogy

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2. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

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3. The Princess Bride

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4. Dead Poet’s Society

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5. Remember the Titans

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6. Grease

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7. Raiders of the Lost Ark

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8. The Breakfast Club

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9. Pitch Perfect

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10. Beauty and the Beast

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Question:  Are any of these favorites of yours?

Ten Books I’ve Added to my To-Be-Read List Lately

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is  Ten Books I’ve Added to my To-Be-Read List Lately.  This was a pretty easy topic for me since I’m quite literally adding new books to my TBR list pretty much every day.  The ten I have selected made it on to my TBR for a variety of reasons – some are based on blogger reviews I’ve read, others because I’ve received ARCs to review, and still others for random reasons like maybe a gorgeous cover caught my eye.

Ten Books I’ve Added to my To-Be-Read List Lately

1. Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill

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This one made it onto my list because I’ve read several great reviews from bloggers who have read ARCs.  It sounds amazing!

Goodreads Synopsis: Seventeen year-old Britta Flannery is at ease only in the woods with her dagger and bow. She spends her days tracking criminals alongside her father, the legendary bounty hunter for the King of Malam—that is, until her father is murdered. Now outcast and alone and having no rights to her father’s land or inheritance, she seeks refuge where she feels most safe: the Ever Woods. When Britta is caught poaching by the royal guard, instead of facing the noose she is offered a deal: her freedom in exchange for her father’s killer.

However, it’s not so simple.

The alleged killer is none other than Cohen McKay, her father’s former apprentice. The only friend she’s ever known. The boy she once loved who broke her heart. She must go on a dangerous quest in a world of warring kingdoms, mad kings, and dark magic to find the real killer. But Britta wields more power than she knows. And soon she will learn what has always made her different will make her a daunting and dangerous force.  (Read more…)

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2. Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

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This one made it on to my list as part of my birthday haul (which I, note to self, really need to hurry up and do a post on since my birthday was last month).  I saw this on sale and gifted it to myself, mainly because I LOVE the cover.

Goodreads Synopsis:  I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to be some kind of hero. But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado – taking you with it – you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I’ve read the books. I’ve seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little bluebirds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can’t be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There’s still a yellow brick road – but even that’s crumbling.

What happened? Dorothy.

They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

My name is Amy Gumm – and I’m the other girl from Kansas.

I’ve been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.  I’ve been trained to fight.

And I have a mission.   (Read more…)

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3. Timekeeper by Tara Sim

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Another addition to the list based on some great blogger reviews.

Goodreads Synopsis:  Two o’clock was missing.

In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely.

It’s a truth that seventeen-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork, but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors.

And so they assign him to Enfield, a town where the tower seems to be forever plagued with problems. Danny’s new apprentice both annoys and intrigues him, and though the boy is eager to work, he maintains a secretive distance. Danny soon discovers why: he is the tower’s clock spirit, a mythical being that oversees Enfield’s time. Though the boys are drawn together by their loneliness, Danny knows falling in love with a clock spirit is forbidden, and means risking everything he’s fought to achieve.

But when a series of bombings at nearby towers threaten to Stop more cities, Danny must race to prevent Enfield from becoming the next target or he’ll not only lose his father, but the boy he loves, forever.   (Read more…)

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4. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

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A friend from college was telling me about this book and it just sounded so good that I had to add it to my list.

Goodreads Synopsis:  High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a world that is a strange reflection of his own — populated by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book, The Book of Lost Things.

Taking readers on a vivid journey through the loss of innocence into adulthood and beyond, New York Times bestselling author John Connolly tells a dark and compelling tale that reminds us of the enduring power of stories in our lives.   (Read more…)

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5. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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The beautiful cover is what caught my eye on this book, but I have been meaning to read more of Adichie’s books anyway because Americanah was so good.  I also added We Should All Be Feminists and Purple Hibiscus.

Goodreads Synopsis:  With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war. (Read more…)

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6. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker

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Don’t laugh but I added this one to my list after my last Gilmore Girls rewatch. 🙂

Goodsreads Synopsis:  This sublime collection ranges over the verse, stories, essays, and journalism of one of the twentieth century’s most quotable authors. (Read more…)

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7. Iceling by Sasha Stephenson

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This book is on my list because I recently received an e-ARC from the First to Read program.

Goodreads Synopsis:  Lorna’s adopted sister, Callie, is part of a mysterious group of non-lingual teens, Icelings, born on a remote Arctic island, who may not be entirely human. Now Callie wants to go home.

Seventeen-year-old Lorna loves her adoptive sister, Callie. But Callie can’t say “I love you” back. In fact, Callie can’t say anything at all.

Because Callie is an Iceling—one of hundreds of teens who were discovered sixteen years ago on a remote Arctic island, all of them lacking the ability to speak or understand any known human language.

Mysterious and panicked events lead to the two sisters embarking on a journey to the north, and now Lorna starts to see that there’s a lot more to Callie’s origin story than she’d been led to believe. Little does she know what’s in store, and that she’s about to uncover the terrifying secret about who—and what—Callie really is.  (Read more…)

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8. The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson

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I recently received an e-ARC from Netgalley and this one also piqued my interest because of the praise from Anthony Doerr.

Goodreads Synopsis:  A captivating debut novel for readers of Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You and Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth unleashes an unforgettable cast of characters into a realm known for its cruelty and peril: the American high school.

In an idyllic community of wealthy California families, new teacher Molly Nicoll becomes intrigued by the hidden lives of her privileged students. Unknown to Molly, a middle school tragedy in which they were all complicit continues to reverberate for her kids: Nick, the brilliant scam artist; Emma, the gifted dancer and party girl; Dave, the B student who strives to meet his parents expectations; Calista, the hippie outcast who hides her intelligence for reasons of her own. Theirs is a world in which every action may become public postable, shareable, indelible. With the rare talent that transforms teenage dramas into compelling and urgent fiction, Lindsey Lee Johnson makes vivid a modern adolescence lived in the gleam of the virtual, but rich with the sorrow, passion, and beauty of life in any time, and at any age.  (Read more…)

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9. A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

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I loved Orphan Train so when I saw Baker Kline had a new book coming out, it had to go on the list.

Goodreads Synopsis:  From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the smash bestseller Orphan Train, a stunning and atmospheric novel of friendship, passion, and art, inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s mysterious and iconic painting Christina’s World.

“Later he told me that he’d been afraid to show me the painting. He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheatgrass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden.”

To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.

As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.

Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy.  (Read more…)

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10. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

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That creepy cover is what got this book onto my list.

Goodreads Synopsis:  The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming…

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.  It wants the truth. (Read more…)

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Question:  Have you read any of these titles? What have you added to your TBR lately?

Top 10 Books to Read if your Book Club likes Strong Female Characters

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books To Read If Your Book Club Likes ______ (if your book club likes historical fiction, inspiring stories, YA books, non-fiction, controversial books to debate about, or pick a specific book)

Okay, so let me start out by saying that I have FAILED at every book club I have ever tried to join.  At least where I live, it seems that the main staple in every book club is Chick Lit and that’s just not an area of fiction that really interests me at all.  So, inevitably, I join a book club, get bored, and eventually stop showing up.

What does interest me regardless of genre, however, are strong female characters. If I ran a book club, literally every title I selected would feature a badass female protagonist.  Someone who is strong, complex, fierce, stubborn, and someone who is not caught up in love triangles or squares or whatever the latest trend is.  So my top ten list for this week focuses on ten books featuring badass female characters that I would choose for my own book club.  I chose from several different genres and tried to choose books about women who I considered strong for a variety of reasons and whose experiences differ greatly from one another.  There are tons more that I could easily choose, but for this list, I specifically tried to pick titles I imagined would generate interesting discussion at an actual book club meeting.  Enjoy!

Top Ten Book Club Reads Featuring Strong Female Characters

 

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

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Goodreads Synopsis: Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman’s passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally allowed.

With a heroine full of yearning, the dangerous secrets she encounters, and the choices she finally makes, Charlotte Bronte’s innovative and enduring romantic novel continues to engage and provoke readers.  (Read more…)

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2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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Goodreads Synopsis: The nation of Panem, formed from a post-apocalyptic North America, is a country that consists of a wealthy Capitol region surrounded by 12 poorer districts. Early in its history, a rebellion led by a 13th district against the Capitol resulted in its destruction and the creation of an annual televised event known as the Hunger Games. In punishment, and as a reminder of the power and grace of the Capitol, each district must yield one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 through a lottery system to participate in the games. The ‘tributes’ are chosen during the annual Reaping and are forced to fight to the death, leaving only one survivor to claim victory.

When 16-year-old Katniss’s young sister, Prim, is selected as District 12’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives. , she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.   (Read more…)

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3. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

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Goodreads Synopsis:  The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it — from garden seeds to Scripture — is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa..   (Read more…)

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4. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

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Goodreads Synopsis:  It’s first the story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women — of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth, who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder.  (Read more…)

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5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

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Goodreads Synopsis:  The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. It was later adapted into a film and musical of the same name.

Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of women of color in the southern United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence. (Read more…)

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6. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

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Goodsreads Synopsis:  When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death Lauren Olamina, a minister’s young daughter, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny… and the birth of a new faith.  (Read more…)

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7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work “her own darling child” and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.  (Read more…)

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8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there’s always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson’s novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don’t want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.   (Read more…)

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9. Room by Emma Donoghue

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Goodreads Synopsis: To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.  (Read more…)

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10. Cinder by Marissa Myers

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.  (Read more…)

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I realized when I got to the bottom of my list that I didn’t have any nonfiction titles, so I’m throwing in this bonus selection.  I chose Hillary’s autobiography, because love her or hate her, I think everyone will agree that she is the badass of all badasses in the political world!

11. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Hillary Rodham Clinton is known to hundreds of millions of people around the world. Yet few beyond her close friends and family have ever heard her account of her extraordinary journey. She writes with candor, humor and passion about her upbringing in suburban, middle-class America in the 1950s and her transformation from Goldwater Girl to student activist to controversial First Lady.

Living History is her revealing memoir of life through the White House years. It is also her chronicle of living history with Bill Clinton, a thirty-year adventure in love and politics that survives personal betrayal, relentless partisan investigations and constant public scrutiny.

Hillary Rodham Clinton came of age during a time of tumultuous social and political change in America. Like many women of her generation, she grew up with choices and opportunities unknown to her mother or grandmother. She charted her own course through unexplored terrain — responding to the changing times and her own internal compass — and became an emblem for some and a lightning rod for others. Wife, mother, lawyer, advocate and international icon, she has lived through America’s great political wars, from Watergate to Whitewater.

The only First Lady to play a major role in shaping domestic legislation, Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled tirelessly around the country to champion health care, expand economic and educational opportunity and promote the needs of children and families, and she crisscrossed the globe on behalf of women’s rights, human rights and democracy. She redefined the position of First Lady and helped save the presidency from an unconstitutional, politically motivated impeachment. Intimate, powerful and inspiring, Living History captures the essence of one of the most remarkable women of our time and the challenging process by which she came to define herself and find her own voice — as a woman and as a formidable figure in American politics.  (Read more…)

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Question:  Have you read any of these titles? What are your favorite reads that feature strong female characters?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books About Witches

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Halloween Related Freebie:  ten scary books, favorite horror novels, non-scary books to get you in the Halloween/fall mood, bookish halloween costumes, scariest covers), scary books on my TBR, etc.

I love Halloween so I really love this week’s topic! Next to Christmas, Halloween is probably my favorite holiday.  I loved dressing up and trick-or-treating when I was a kid, and as an adult, I love taking my son out trick-or-treating and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters who come to our door.  My birthday is also in late October and so my parties were often Halloween-themed.  Just thinking about Halloween therefore brings back lots of fun memories.

For my top ten list, I decided to share 10 of my favorite books that feature witches.  Some are scary, some are funny, and some are geared towards children, while others are clearly not.  Some are about good witches, while others are about wicked ones. And while it goes without saying that the Harry Potter series features some of my favorite witches of all time,  since I’ve featured that series in several of my recent top 10 lists, I’ve decided to share some books that I haven’t shared before. Enjoy!

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Top Ten Books About Witches

1. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

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Goodreads Synopsis:  The bestselling author of Second Nature, Illumination Night and Turtle Moon now offers her most fascinating and tantalizingly accomplished novel yet — a winning tale that amply confirms Alice Hoffman’s reputation not only as a genius of the vivid scene and unforgettable character but as one of America’s most captivating storytellers.

When the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts’ mysterious and sometimes frightening powers — and as their own powers begin to surface — the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into “normal” society.

But both find that they cannot elude their magic-filled past. And when trouble strikes — in the form of a menacing backyard ghost — the sisters must not only reunite three generations of Owens women but embrace their magic as a gift — and their key to a future of love and passion. Funny, haunting, and shamelessly romantic, Practical Magic is bewitching entertainment — Alice Hoffman at her spectacular best.  (Read more…)

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2. The Witches by Roald Dahl

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Goodreads Synopsis:  This is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES. Real witches don’t ride around on broomsticks. They don’t even wear black cloaks and hats. They are vile, cunning, detestable creatures who disguise themselves as nice, ordinary ladies. So how can you tell when you’re face to face with one? Well, if you don’t know yet you’d better find out quickly-because there’s nothing a witch loathes quite as much as children and she’ll wield all kinds of terrifying powers to get rid of them. Ronald Dahl has done it again! Winner of the 1983 Whitbread Award, the judges’ decision was unanimous: “funny, wise, deliciously disgusting, a real book for children. From the first paragraph to the last, we felt we were in the hands of a master”.   (Read more…)

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3. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.   (Read more…)

 

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4. A Discovery of Witches (from The All Souls Trilogy) by Deborah Harkness

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Goodreads Synopsis:  A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.  (Read more…)

 

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5. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

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Goodreads Synopsis:  “I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history,” Arthur Miller wrote of his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller’s drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town’s most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence.

Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “witch-hunts” in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing, “Political opposition… is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence.”  (Read more…)

 

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6. Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz

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Goodsreads Synopsis:  From the author of the highly addictive and bestselling Blue Bloods series, with almost 3 million copies sold, comes a new novel, Melissa de la Cruz’s first for adults, featuring a family of formidable and beguiling witches.

The three Beauchamp women-Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid-live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. Their beautiful, mist-shrouded town seems almost stuck in time, and all three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret-they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. Joanna can resurrect people from the dead and heal the most serious of injuries. Ingrid, her bookish daughter, has the ability to predict the future and weave knots that can solve anything from infertility to infidelity. And finally, there’s Freya, the wild child, who has a charm or a potion that can cure most any heartache.

For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret. Soon Ingrid and Joanna confront similar dilemmas, and the Beauchamp women realize they can no longer conceal their true selves. They unearth their wands from the attic, dust off their broomsticks, and begin casting spells on the townspeople. It all seems like a bit of good-natured, innocent magic, but then mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town. When a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it’s time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them.  (Read more…)

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7. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

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Goodreads Synopsis:  On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking. And the witching hour begins…

Demonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches – a family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being.

A hypnotic novel of witchcraft and the occult across four centuries, by the spellbinding, bestselling author of The Vampire Chronicles.  (Read more…)

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8. Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Daughters of the Witching Hill brings history to life in a vivid and wrenching account of a family sustained by love as they try to survive the hysteria of a witch-hunt.

Bess Southerns, an impoverished widow living in Pendle Forest, is haunted by visions and gains a reputation as a cunning woman. Drawing on the Catholic folk magic of her youth, Bess heals the sick and foretells the future. As she ages, she instructs her granddaughter, Alizon, in her craft, as well as her best friend, who ultimately turns to dark magic.  When a peddler suffers a stroke after exchanging harsh words with Alizon, a local magistrate, eager to make his name as a witch finder, plays neighbors and family members against one another until suspicion and paranoia reach frenzied heights.

Sharratt interweaves well-researched historical details of the 1612 Pendle witch-hunt with a beautifully imagined story of strong women, family, and betrayal. Daughters of the Witching Hillis a powerful novel of intrigue and revelation.   (Read more…)

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9. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives’ stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit’s friendship with the “witch” is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!  (Read more…)

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10. The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Mildred Hubble is a trainee witch at Miss Cackle’s Academy, and she’s making an awful mess of it. She’s always getting her spells wrong and she can’t even ride a broomstick without crashing it. Will she ever make a real witch?  (Read more…)

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Question:  Do you have any favorite reads about witches?   Have you read any of these? What’s your favorite thing about Halloween?

halloween

 

Top Ten Characters I’d Name a Pet After

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Characters I’d Name A Child/Dog/Cat/Car/Etc. After.  I decided to to go with pets even though the topic is bittersweet for me since my 13-year old beloved Golden Retriever passed away last year.  I’m still heartbroken about the loss, but I’m a huge dog person — truly can’t imagine not having one in my home — so I hope to get another dog someday, hopefully sooner than later.

I’m a cat person too though so meet Ninja.  (I guess you can tell from how he got his name based on how hard it was for me to get a photo of his whole face, haha!)

Anyway, on to my list! I then to think of these names only in terms of cats and dogs since those are the only types of pets I ever own, but feel free to think of them in terms of your pet of choice 🙂

    cat-01   cat-02   cat-03

Top Ten Characters I’d Name a Pet After

 

1. Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird

I think it would be quite fitting to name a pet after my favorite character from my all-time favorite book.  I think it would make for a great dog name.  If I ever get another Golden Retriever pup, I would seriously consider naming it Scout.  Come to think of it, Atticus would be a pretty cool name for a cat or dog too.  Or maybe I should change Ninja’s name to Boo Radley? I’m kind of kidding on that one, but this book has some great possibilities. 🙂

2. Simon from Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

I think Simon would be a cool name for either a cat or a dog.  If I had read this book before Ninja came into my life, I probably would have named him Simon.

3. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff is another of my favorite literary characters, plus I also love the Heathcliff the Cat cartoons.  I actually even remember having a Heathcliff lunchbox when I was in elementary school, so needless to say, I’d be cool with naming a cat or dog after Heathcliff.

4. Minerva (after Minerva McGonagall from the Harry Potter series)

I think naming a cat Minerva would be a fabulous way to pay homage to one of my favorite characters from the Harry Potter series.

5. Sansa (after Sansa Stark from “A Song of Fire and Ice” – the Game of Thrones series)

If I get a new dog and it’s a girl, I think Sansa would be a lovely name.

6. Rhett after Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind

I have no idea why, but I always picture this as a perfect dog name for an Irish Setter.  The mind works in mysterious ways…

7. Oliver from Oliver Twist

Another of my favorite characters and I could see this being a great name for a dog or cat, although I imagine we would all end up calling him Ollie for short.

8. Levi from Fangirl

I think this would be a great name for dog and, if memory serves, I think Cath even occasionally described Levi as being like a Golden Retriever.

9. Emma from Jane Austen’s Emma

I can’t decide if this would be a better name for a cat or a dog, but I love the character and the name.

10. Dickens after Charles Dickens

Yes, I’m cheating on the last one and going with a favorite author because I seem to have forgotten nearly all of the names of the characters in every book I’ve ever read. I think Dickens would be a fantastic name for a new kitten.

 

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Question:  So what fictional characters would you consider naming a pet after?  Would any of my choices make your list?  I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten Books I’m Planning to Read this Fall

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books on my Fall TBR List.  My list is a mix of books that I already own and need to finally get off of my TBR pile, plus some upcoming releases that I’m planning to acquire and read as well.  My goal is to get the five older books off my list first and then reward myself with the five new releases, but we’ll see how that goes. 😉

Top Ten Books I’m Planning to Read This Fall 

 

1. Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple

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I’m a huge fan of Maria Semple and her novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette so I was thrilled to hear that she has a new book coming out in October.  Her writing is just so fresh and fun and this will certainly be a book that I’ll read as soon as I can get my hands on it!

Goodreads Synopsis: The new novel from Maria Semple, author of bestselling Where’d You Go, Bernadette and writer for hit US TV shows Ellen and Saturday Night Live. Meet Eleanor Flood, who wakes up one day determined to be her best self.

Eleanor Flood is going to clean up her act, only change into yoga clothes for yoga, which today she will actually attend, and be a better version of herself. But then, as it always does, life happens. Eleanor’s husband is missing, and their son, Timby, is wearing eye shadow to school and getting into fashion battles on the playground. (It’s true that it’s Eleanor’s fault: She did put makeup in his Christmas stocking.) Just when it seems like things can’t get weirder or more in the way of Eleanor’s personal transformation, a graphic memoir called The Flood Sisters surfaces, and the dramatic story it tells reveals long-buried secrets and a sister to whom Eleanor never speaks.

With all the artistic madness, genius plotting, and bold social observation that made Bernadette a hit, TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a hilarious and heart filled day-in-the-life romp filtered through Maria Semple’s brilliant eyes.   (Read more…)

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2. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

born-to-run

As I shared in last week’s Top Ten Tuesday, I am a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, and while I don’t typically read much in the way of celebrity memoirs, there’s just something about Springsteen that makes me want to read about his life in his own words.  Born to Run actually comes out today, so I’m asking for it as a birthday gift because my birthday is next month. 🙂

Goodreads Synopsis:  “Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.”
—Bruce Springsteen, from the pages of Born to Run

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.  Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as “The Big Bang”: seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song “Born to Run” reveals more than we previously realized.

Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.  (Read more…)

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3. Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven

holding up the universe

I fell in love with Jennifer Niven’s writing and storytelling abilities when I read All the Bright Places, so I am so looking forward to the release of her latest book Holding Up the Universe, which sounds just as fantastic.

Goodreads Synopsis: From the author of the New York Times bestseller All the Bright Places comes a heart-wrenching story about what it means to see someone—and love someone—for who they truly are.

Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed “America’s Fattest Teen.” But no one’s taken the time to look past her weight to get to know who she really is. Following her mom’s death, she’s been picking up the pieces in the privacy of her home, dealing with her heartbroken father and her own grief. Now, Libby’s ready: for high school, for new friends, for love, and for EVERY POSSIBILITY LIFE HAS TO OFFER. In that moment, I know the part I want to play here at MVB High. I want to be the girl who can do anything.

Everyone thinks they know Jack Masselin, too. Yes, he’s got swagger, but he’s also mastered the impossible art of giving people what they want, of fitting in. What no one knows is that Jack has a newly acquired secret: he can’t recognize faces. Even his own brothers are strangers to him. He’s the guy who can re-engineer and rebuild anything in new and bad-ass ways, but he can’t understand what’s going on with the inner workings of his brain. So he tells himself to play it cool: Be charming. Be hilarious. Don’t get too close to anyone.

Until he meets Libby. When the two get tangled up in a cruel high school game—which lands them in group counseling and community service—Libby and Jack are both pissed, and then surprised. Because the more time they spend together, the less alone they feel. . . . Because sometimes when you meet someone, it changes the world, theirs and yours.

Jennifer Niven delivers another poignant, exhilarating love story about finding that person who sees you for who you are—and seeing them right back..  (Read more…)

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4. Swing Time by Zadie Smith

swing time

Doesn’t this book sound amazing? I would be excited to read it even if I wasn’t already a big fan of Zadie Smith.  This one comes out on November 15th, so I’m hoping to have knocked  out a few of my older reads and reward myself with Swing Time.

Goodreads Synopsis:  An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty.

Two brown girls dream of being dancers – but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It’s a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either…

Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them. Moving from North-West London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time.   (Read more…)

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5. Transcendent by Katelyn Detweiler

transcendent

I just received a copy of this book from the publisher and am really looking forward to reading it. I have to admit I’m a little nervous about the bombing Disney World part since that’s one of my favorite places in the world, but it still sounds like a powerful read so we’ll see how it goes.

Goodreads Synopsis:  A beautiful work of magical realism, a story about a girl in the real world who is called upon to be a hero.

When terrorists bomb Disney World, seventeen-year-old Iris Spero is as horrified as anyone else. Then a stranger shows up on her stoop in Brooklyn, revealing a secret about the mysterious circumstances surrounding Iris’s birth, and throwing her entire identity into question. Everything she thought she knew about her parents, and about herself, is a lie.

Suddenly, the press is confronting Iris with the wild notion that she might be “special.” More than just special: she could be the miracle the world now so desperately needs. Families all across the grieving nation are pinning their hopes on Iris like she is some kind of saint or savior. She’s no longer sure whom she can trust—except for Zane, a homeless boy who long ago abandoned any kind of hope. She knows she can’t possibly be the glorified person everyone wants her to be… but she also can’t go back to being safe and anonymous. When nobody knows her but they all want a piece of her, who is Iris Spero now? And how can she—one teenage girl—possibly heal a broken world? (Read more…)

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6. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

sweetbitter

Sweetbitter was on a lot of the must-read book lists earlier this year and it sounded pretty interesting and is set in NYC, my favorite city in the world, so I had picked it up with the intention of reading it this summer.  I got distracted by other books though, as we bookworms often do, and forgot I even had it until recently. I started it last night actually and so far it’s a good read.

Goodsreads Synopsis:  A lush, raw, thrilling novel of the senses about a year in the life of a uniquely beguiling young woman, set in the wild, alluring world of a famous downtown New York restaurant.

“Let’s say I was born when I came over the George Washington Bridge…”

This is how we meet unforgettable Tess, the twenty-two-year-old at the heart of this stunning first novel. Shot from a mundane, provincial past, she’s come to New York to look for a life she can’t define, except as a burning drive to become someone, to belong somewhere. After she stumbles into a coveted job at a renowned Union Square restaurant, we spend the year with her as she learns the chaotic, punishing, privileged life of a “backwaiter,” on duty and off. Her appetites—for food, wine, knowledge, and every kind of experience—are awakened. And she’s pulled into the magnetic thrall of two other servers—a handsome bartender she falls hard for, and an older woman she latches onto with an orphan’s ardor.

These two and their enigmatic connection to each other will prove to be Tess’s hardest lesson of all. Sweetbitter is a story of discovery, enchantment, and the power of what remains after disillusionment. . (Read more…)

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7. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

cinder

Over the summer, I picked up The Lunar Chronicles cheap at a local book fair.  I haven’t started reading them yet because I had a few ARCs I needed to get through first for review purposes, but I really can’t wait to start this series. It sounds so cool. Plus, once I get through them, I plan to reward myself with Melissa’s newest release, Heartless, which sounds absolutely amazing!

Goodreads Synopsis:  Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.   (Read more…)

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8. Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow

girl in pieces

I just picked this book up a week or so ago and am trying to hold off until I get a few of the older books on my TBR taken care of, but I REALLY want to read it soon. It just sounds like it’s going to be such a powerful and moving read.

Goodreads Synopsis:  Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.   Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.

A deeply moving portrait of a teenage girl on the verge of losing herself and the journey she must take to survive in her own skin, Kathleen Glasgow’s debut is heartbreakingly real and unflinchingly honest. It’s a story you won’t be able to look away from.  (Read more…)

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9. My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand

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I keep hearing that this is a hilarious read, so I’m planning to read it once I get through Girl in Pieces since that one sounds like it’s going to be so gut-wrenching.

Goodreads Synopsis:  The comical, fantastical, romantical, (not) entirely true story of Lady Jane Grey. In My Lady Jane, coauthors Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows have created a one-of-a-kind fantasy in the tradition of The Princess Bride, featuring a reluctant king, an even more reluctant queen, a noble steed, and only a passing resemblance to actual history—because sometimes history needs a little help.

At sixteen, Lady Jane Grey is about to be married off to a stranger and caught up in a conspiracy to rob her cousin, King Edward, of his throne. But those trifling problems aren’t for Jane to worry about. Jane is about to become the Queen of England.  (Read more…)

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10. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

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This bad boy has been on my TBR pile for far too long.  I adore this series but the books are so huge that I just keep shoving them aside in favor of shorter, less daunting reads.  I may not make it by fall, but winter is coming!  (Yes, I went there, haha).  Anyway, I am determined to finish this book before the end of the year.

Goodreads Synopsis:  Here is the third volume in George R.R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Together, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, victim of the sorceress who holds him in her thrall. Young Robb still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. And as opposing forces manoeuver for the final showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost limits of civilization, accompanied by a horde of mythical Others—a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords.  (Read more…)

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Question:  So what books are you looking forward to reading this fall?   Are yours all new releases or are you looking to clean out some oldies as well?  I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Fantasy Reads

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Books Of X Genre.  I had a hard time with this topic because I have an impossible time trying to narrow down to my all-time favorites when it comes to books.  I decided to go with Fantasy mainly because that’s the genre I’m just really getting into which meant fewer titles for me to waffle back and forth between, haha! I’ve not tried to divide this out into subgenres or anything fancy like that. Maybe I’ll do that some day when I have more titles under my belt to choose from.

As of this moment, this is my Top 10 All Time Favorite Fantasy Reads.  Quite a few of these are favorites from when I was a kid that have really stuck with me over the years, but there are also several  newer favorites though as I’ve been delving more and more into Fantasy lately.  If you have some MUST READ fantasy titles you think I might like, post them in the comments below because I’m always looking for new fantasy novels to read and you guys always give me the BEST recs. 🙂

Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Fantasy Reads 

1. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

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Goodreads Synopsis: Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy. He lives with his Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley, who are mean to him and make him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. (Dudley, however, has two bedrooms, one to sleep in and one for all his toys and games.) Then Harry starts receiving mysterious letters and his life is changed forever. He is whisked away by a beetle-eyed giant of a man and enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The reason: Harry Potter is a wizard!   (Read more…)

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2. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

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Goodreads Synopsis:  ‘They say Aslan is on the move. Perhaps he has already landed,’ whispered the Beaver. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delightful strain of music had just floated by. And Lucy got that feeling when you realize it’s the beginning of summer. So, deep in the bewitched land of Narnia, the adventure begins.

They opened a door and entered a world–Narnia–the land beyond the wardrobe, the secret country known only to Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. Lucy is the first to stumble through the back of the enormous wardrobe in the professor’s mysterious old country house, discovering the magic world beyond. At first, no one believes her. But soon Edmund, Peter and Susan, too, discover the magic and meet Aslan, the Great Lion, for themselves. And in the blink of an eye, they are changed forever.  (Read more…)

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3. The Once and Future King by T. H. White

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Once upon a time, a young boy called “Wart” was tutored by a magician named Merlyn in preparation for a future he couldn’t possibly imagine. A future in which he would ally himself with the greatest knights, love a legendary queen and unite a country dedicated to chivalrous values. A future that would see him crowned and known for all time as Arthur, King of the Britons.

During Arthur’s reign, the kingdom of Camelot was founded to cast enlightenment on the Dark Ages, while the knights of the Round Table embarked on many a noble quest. But Merlyn foresaw the treachery that awaited his liege: the forbidden love between Queen Guinevere and Lancelot, the wicked plots of Arthur’s half-sister Morgause, and the hatred she fostered in Mordred that would bring an end to the king’s dreams for Britain–and to the king himself.  (Read more…)

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4. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R. Tolkien

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Frodo Baggins knew the Ringwraiths were searching for him—and the Ring of Power he bore that would enable Sauron to destroy all that was good in Middle-earth. Now it was up to Frodo and his faithful servant Sam to carry the Ring to where it could be destroyed—in the very center of Sauron’s dark kingdom.   (Read more…)

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5. Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

game of thrones

Goodreads Synopsis: Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty.

The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne. (Read more…)

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6. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

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Goodsreads Synopsis: The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices plastered on lampposts and billboards. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

Within these nocturnal black-and-white striped tents awaits an utterly unique, a feast for the senses, where one can get lost in a maze of clouds, meander through a lush garden made of ice, stare in wonderment as the tattooed contortionist folds herself into a small glass box, and become deliciously tipsy from the scents of caramel and cinnamon that waft through the air.

Welcome to Le Cirque des Rêves.

Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is under way–a contest between two young illusionists, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in a “game” to which they have been irrevocably bound by their mercurial masters. Unbeknownst to the players, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will.

As the circus travels around the world, the feats of magic gain fantastical new heights with every stop. The game is well under way and the lives of all those involved–the eccentric circus owner, the elusive contortionist, the mystical fortune-teller, and a pair of red-headed twins born backstage among them–are swept up in a wake of spells and charms.

But when Celia discovers that Marco is her adversary, they begin to think of the game not as a competition but as a wonderful collaboration. With no knowledge of how the game must end, they innocently tumble headfirst into love. A deep, passionate, and magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

Their masters still pull the strings, however, and this unforeseen occurrence forces them to intervene with dangerous consequences, leaving the lives of everyone from the performers to the patrons hanging in the balance.

Both playful and seductive, The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern’s spell-casting debut, is a mesmerizing love story for the ages. (Read more…)

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7. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Kell is one of the last Antari, a rare magician who can travel between parallel worlds: hopping from Grey London — dirty, boring, lacking magic, and ruled by mad King George — to Red London — where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire — to White London — ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne, where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back — and back, but never Black London, because traveling to Black London is forbidden and no one speaks of it now.

Officially, Kell is the personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell smuggles for those willing to pay for even a glimpse of a world they’ll never see, and it is this dangerous hobby that sets him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a dangerous enemy, then forces him to take her with him for her proper adventure.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save both his London and the others, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive — a feat trickier than they hoped.   (Read more…)

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8. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. Its narrative course and structure, characters and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.  (Read more…)

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9. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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Goodreads Synopsis:  The nation of Panem, formed from a post-apocalyptic North America, is a country that consists of a wealthy Capitol region surrounded by 12 poorer districts. Early in its history, a rebellion led by a 13th district against the Capitol resulted in its destruction and the creation of an annual televised event known as the Hunger Games. In punishment, and as a reminder of the power and grace of the Capitol, each district must yield one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 through a lottery system to participate in the games. The ‘tributes’ are chosen during the annual Reaping and are forced to fight to the death, leaving only one survivor to claim victory.

When 16-year-old Katniss’s young sister, Prim, is selected as District 12’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives. , she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.  (Read more…)

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10. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

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Goodreads Synopsis:  When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow over the faerie lands is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.  (Read more…)

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Question:  Are any of these fantasy reads your favorites too?   What was your TTT topic this week?  I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Top Ten TV Series that will make me choose TV over Books

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top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is a celebration of the return of fall television:  “In honor of Fall TV, do a TV-themed topic! Top ten favorite TV shows of all time, ten new shows coming out this Fall that are on my radar, TV shows I wish never got cancelled, TV shows I would recommend to book characters, books I wish would be TV shows, ten favorite shows from the late 90’s or early 2000’s, ten TV shows for every fantasy lover, etc.”

I actually don’t watch TV nearly as much as I used to. I think I’ve gotten burned out on all of the spinoffs, reboots, etc. that seem to flood the networks these days.  There are, however, several TV series that I do adore, so much so that even if I’m in the middle of reading a great book, if I happen to see that any of these shows are on TV (and OMG, especially if there’s a marathon!), I’ll drop the book I’m reading like a hot potato and will sit and binge watch for hours.

So, without further ado, I bring you…

Top Ten TV Series that will make me choose TV over Books 

 

1. CSI:  Crime Scene Investigation

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I’m a forensics junkie and also a huge fan of Marg Helgenberger, so this series (well, the first 12 seasons anyway) has always been TV gold for me.  I can follow the evidence and binge watch this series for hours on end. And to be clear, I’m talking about the original CSI here, not the spinoffs.  I had little to no interest in those.

IMDB Synopsis: An elite team of police forensic evidence investigation experts work their cases in Las Vegas.  (Read more…)

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2. China Beach

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I honestly think this series about the Vietnam War is one of the best written TV series of all time. Plus it’s filled with strong female characters, led by the stellar Dana Delany and Marg Helgenbeger.

IMDB Synopsis:  A drama series set at an American base during the Vietnam War. Rather than focusing on the battle scenes that made up most other portrayals of the war, this show looked at the everyday lives of the people sent to serve their country. The doctors, nurses, soldiers and even USO entertainers stationed at the base must try to come to terms with the horrors and stresses of the war around them. Not all of them succeed..  (Read more…)

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3. Parenthood

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Such a wonderful and relatable show about family. It tugged at my heartstrings every week and usually left me in tears because the episodes were so powerful.  I was heartbroken when the series ended.

IMDB Synopsis: A family tree with Zeek (Craig T. Nelson) and Camille Braverman (Bonnie Bedelia) serving as the patriarch and matriarch. After forty-six years of marriage, they’ve managed to keep their foundation intact by burying their problems underneath the surface for the sake of their now-adult children. Adam (Peter Krause) is the first-born and the ripest apple the tree has to offer. He runs a shoe company, has a supportive wife, two children (boy and girl) and a beautiful home to share with them. He’s a dog short of “The American Dream”. Sarah (Lauren Graham), is the unstable daughter returning home at thirty-eight years of age with her rebellious daughter and sensitive son to live with Zeek and Camille. Crosby (Dax Shepard), is a happy-go-lucky bachelor living in the now, on a docked boat. He has no idea that his frivolous life is about to change tremendously. Then there is Julia (Erika Christensen). She is the bread-winning shot-calling lawyer, whose husband mans the stay-at-home-dad duties….  (Read more…)

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4. Gilmore Girls

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OMG, I can’t even express how much I love this show.  As can be seen by my choice of Parenthood above, I’m obviously a big Lauren Graham fan, but it’s Rory who steals my heart in this series.  Rory, the uber bookworm, is probably the TV character that I best relate to out of all of the shows I’ve ever watched. I love all of the secondary characters like Luke, Sookie, Jackson, and Lane.  And Stars Hollow is just the cutest little town ever.  Just thinking about this show make me smile.

IMDB Synopsis:  A drama centering around the relationship between a thirtysomething single mother and her teen daughter living in Stars Hollow, Connecticut.   (Read more…)

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5. Lost

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I was so completely obsessed with this show when it was on the air. Every episode was just such a mind blowing experience and I loved sitting there like “OMG, WTF just happened?!”  Plus, I am a huge Josh Holloway fan so the fact that his character was a roguish bookworm definitely helped feed my addiction.

IMDB Synopsis: Life is laid bare as a group of plane crash survivors find themselves stranded on a remote Pacific island. The trauma of the crash soon becomes overshadowed by the island itself, where unseen creatures stalk the jungle, paranormal happenings abound and astonishing coincidences reveal themselves. In this unique environment emotions swell as the survivors battle their inner and outer demons, and strive to live together – so that they won’t die alone.  (Read more…)

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6. Friends

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Do I even need to say anything here?  Is there anyone out there who doesn’t love this show?  Just as I am a sucker for a great book about friendships, I am equally a sucker for a great TV show about friendships.

IMDB Synopsis: Rachel Green, Ross Geller, Monica Geller, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing and Phoebe Buffay are all friends, living off of one another in the heart of New York City. Over the course of ten years, this average group of buddies goes through massive mayhem, family trouble, past and future romances, fights, laughs, tears and surprises as they learn what it really means to be a friend.  (Read more…)

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7. Golden Girls

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Truly one of the best comedy shows ever written.  I’d liken it to Sex and the City but with senior citizens.  Just one of those shows that will make you laugh until you have tears rolling down your face.

IMDB Synopsis:  The Golden Girls is based on the lives and interactions of four older women whom have all been divorced/widowed, and are now roommates. Dorothy’s main goal during the series is to find a companion she can relate to while her mother Sophia adds her comical outlook and frequents “Picture This” stories. Rose’s St. Olaf-ness makes her a little corny but lovable. One thing that changes nearly every episode is whom Blanche is courting.  (Read more…)

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8. Once Upon a Time

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My love for this one has waned a bit in recent season as some of my favorite characters have either taken a backseat to an endless progression of guest stars or else have been abruptly killed off, but the early season of Once Upon a Time are still definitely some of my favorite TV moments to watch.

IMDB Synopsis:  For Emma Swan, life has been anything but a happy ending. But when she’s reunited with Henry – the son she gave up for adoption ten years ago – on the night of her 28th birthday, everything changes. The now 10-year-old Henry is in desperate need of Emma’s help because he believes from reading a book of fairytales that she’s the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming – who sent her away from the Enchanted Forest to be protected from a curse that was enacted by the Evil Queen. Emma initially refuses to believe a word of Henry’s story but soon finds that his hometown of Storybrooke, Maine is more than it seems. Because it’s in Storybrooke that all of the classic characters we know are frozen in time with no memories of their former selves – except for the Evil Queen, who is Storybrooke’s mayor and Henry’s adoptive mother Regina Mills. Now, as the epic “Final Battle” for the future of both worlds approaches, Emma will have to accept her destiny and uncover the mystery behind a place … (Read more…)

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9. Game of Thrones

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Seriously one of the most epic shows ever to have been put on TV and deserving of all of the numerous awards it has won over the years.  I’m always half afraid to like any of the characters since they get whacked so often, but I still do have some favorites since the show is full of kick ass women like Aria and Sansa Stark, Cersei Lannister, and Brienne of Tarth.

IMDB Synopsis: In the mythical continent of Westeros, several powerful families fight for control of the Seven Kingdoms. As conflict erupts in the kingdoms of men, an ancient enemy rises once again to threaten them all. Meanwhile, the last heirs of a recently usurped dynasty plot to take back their homeland from across the Narrow Sea. (Read more…)

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10. Orange is the New Black

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God bless Netflix and this show!  OITNB offers a raw and often hilarious, although sometimes heart-breakingly serious, look at life in a women’s prison. I truly can’t get enough of the show and am currently on pins and needles waiting for the new season after the huge cliffhanger we were left with at the end of the last season.  Write fast, film fast, Netflix!

IMDB Synopsis:  The story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money to her drug-dealing girlfriend.  (Read more…)

I’m throwing in 2 extra shows because these are two shows I’ve just started watching but instantly became infatuated with.  Consider them honorable mentions on my top 10 list 🙂

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11. Pretty Little Liars

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This show is such a guilty pleasure of mine. I spend half the time I’m watching it complaining about how lame and over the top it is, and yet I faithfully tune in for every episode and was so sad to hear that Season 7 will be its last.  Go figure, haha.

IMDB Synopsis:  Set in the fictional town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, the series follows the lives of four girls, Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, and Spencer Hastings, whose clique falls apart after the disappearance of their leader, Alison DiLaurentis. One year later, the estranged friends are reunited as they begin receiving messages from a mysterious figure named “A”, who threatens to expose their deepest secrets, including ones they thought only Alison knew. At first, they think it’s Alison herself, but after her body is found, the girls realize that someone else is planning on ruining their perfect lives.  (Read more…)

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12. The 100

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This show is a fairly new obsession of mine. I’ve never read the books but have heard that this is one of those rare cases where the TV show might actually be better than the books. I’ll read them some day and make my own determination on that, but I do love this show. Another one filled with kickass female characters.

IMDB Synopsis:  The series is set 97 years after a devastating nuclear war wiped out almost all life on Earth. The only known survivors are the residents of twelve space stations in Earth’s orbit prior to the war. The space stations banded together to form a single massive station named “The Ark”, where about 2,400 people live. Resources are scarce and all crimes no matter their nature or severity are punishable by death (“floating”) unless the perpetrator is under 18 years of age. After the Ark’s life support systems are found to be critically failing, one hundred juvenile prisoners are declared “expendable” and sent to the surface in a last ditch attempt to determine if Earth is habitable again. The teens arrive on a beautiful planet they’ve only seen from space. Confronting the dangers of this rugged new world, they struggle to form a tentative community. However they discover that not all humanity was wiped out. There are people on Earth who survived the war, called “grounders” by the 100.  (Read more…)

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Question:  Are any of these shows favorites of yours?  What shows will actually make you put your books down and binge watch TV?  What was your TTT topic this week?  I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Top 10 Books that have been on my TBR pile for way too long

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top ten tuesday

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Ten Books That Have Been On Your Shelf (Or TBR) From Before You Started Blogging That You STILL Haven’t Read Yet.

Oh boy, this one is embarrassing.  Not that I have been blogging for all that long, but I will confess now that some of these books have been in my TBR pile for a LONG time.  I’m talking years!  I actually keep looking at a few of them thinking I should just ditch them and thin out the TBR, but they have such great reviews that I don’t want to miss out.  I don’t really even have a good excuse as to why I haven’t tackled them yet except that I keep getting distracted by newer purchases and these just keep getting shifted further and further down the pile.

Now, on to my list…

Ten Books That Have Been On My Shelf (Or TBR) From Before I Started Blogging That I STILL Haven’t Read Yet

 

1. Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Hall #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

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Goodreads Synopsis:  For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without.  Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human… until the cold makes him shift back again.  Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.  (Read more…)

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2. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire #3) by George R. R. Martin

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King’s Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. . . .

But as opposing forces maneuver for the final titanic showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost line of civilization. In their vanguard is a horde of mythical Others–a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords.  (Read more…)

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3. IQ84 by Haruki Murakami

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Goodreads Synopsis:  The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.  A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.  As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s — 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.  (Read more…)

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4. The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

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Goodreads Synopsis:  An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master’s Son follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.  Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.  Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”

Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master’s Son is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary achievement, The Orphan Master’s Son ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today’s greatest writers.   (Read more…)

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5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Shadow is a man with a past. But now he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she’s been killed in a terrible accident.  Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, a strange man in the seat next to him introduces himself. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and he knows more about Shadow than is possible.  He warns Shadow that a far bigger storm is coming. And from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same. (Read more…)

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6. The Giver by Lois Lowry

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Goodreads Synopsis:  The Giver, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community.  (Read more…)

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7. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

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Goodreads Synopsis:  “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, drama, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.  (Read more…)

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8. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

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Goodreads Synopsis: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.  (Read more…)

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9. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.  Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill-prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.   (Read more…)

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10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

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Goodreads Synopsis: “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal.”  So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.  (Read more…)

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Question:  Have you read any of these aging titles in my TBR pile?  Are they worth hanging on to or should I purge the pile?  And what books have been in your TBR pile for way too long?    I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Top 10 Books Set in New York City

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take a walk

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books With X Setting (top ten books set near the beach, top ten book set in boarding school, top ten books set in England, etc).  I selected for my ‘X Setting’ my favorite city in the whole world, NEW YORK CITY! Oh, the sights, the sounds, the diversity, the endless possibilities for entertainment and culture!  I don’t even have the words to convey how much I adore New York City, but if I were ever to win the lottery, one of the first things I would do is get myself an apartment in the Big Apple.

To tie my love of NYC to books, let me just say that I have been known to buy books that I know absolutely NOTHING about aside from the fact that they are set in New York.  That said, below is my current list of Top 10 Favorite Books Set in NYC, subject to change as I have several potentially amazing books in my TBR that are also set in New York.

My Top Ten Favorite Books Set in New York City

 

1. Jazz by Toni Morrison

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Goodreads Synopsis:  In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This passionate, profound story of love and obsession brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of black urban life.

Jazz is the story of a triangle of passion, jealousy, murder, and redemption, of sex and spirituality, of slavery and liberation, of country and city, of being male and female, African American, and above all of being human. Like the music of its title, it is a dazzlingly lyric play on elemental themes, as soaring and daring as a Charlie Parker solo, as heartbreakingly powerful as the blues. It is Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison at her best.  (Read more…)

2. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952.  A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century.  The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood”, and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.  The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.  (Read more…)

 

3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

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Goodreads Synopsis:  A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life … If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience … It is a poignant and deeply understanding story of childhood and family relationships. The Nolans lived in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn from 1902 until 1919 … Their daughter Francie and their son Neely knew more than their fair share of the privations and sufferings that are the lot of a great city’s poor. Primarily this is Francie’s book. She is a superb feat of characterization, an imaginative, alert, resourceful child. And Francie’s growing up and beginnings of wisdom are the substance of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  (Read more…)

 

4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Goodreads Synopsis:  The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.  The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.   (Read more…)

 

5. The Chosen by Chaim Potok

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Goodreads Synopsis: It is the now-classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual brother, and a link to an unexplored world that neither had ever considered before. In effect, they exchange places, and find the peace that neither will ever retreat from again….  (Read more…)

 

6.  Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

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Goodreads Synopsis:  It’s New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany’s. And nice girls don’t, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irrepressibly ‘top banana in the shock department’, and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.  (Read more…)

7. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

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Goodreads Synopsis:  It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.  As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch combines vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher’s calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.  (Read more…)

8. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and he works on Wall Street, he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to head-on collision with America’s greatest dream—and its worst nightmare—American Psycho is bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.  (Read more…)

9. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

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Goodreads Synopsis:  Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.  (Read more…)

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

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Goodreads Synopsis:  “…the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with “cynical adolescent.” Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he’s been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.  (Read more…)

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Do you have any favorite books that are set in New York City?

 If so, I’d love to hear from you, especially since I’m always looking for new NYC-based reads 🙂