Top Ten List – Books I Haven’t Given Enough Attention To

In my internet/blogging travels, I stumbled across The Broke and the Bookish (which is a fantastic blog name, btw) and their awesome Top Ten Tuesday bloghop.  Who doesn’t love lists.

Today’s theme: Ten Books I Really Love But Feel Like I Haven’t Talked About Enough

This will be a tough one in some ways, not so tough in others.  I don’t really talk about books much, so I have a lengthy list of books that I love but have never talked about to choose from.  Let’s begin.

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

This was the novel that began my love affair with werewolves.  It was the first story I’d read about a werewolf who was born a werewolf, and wasn’t fighting to rid herself of a curse.  Not only are the characters great, the worldbuilding is top-notch.  Klause builds a very realistic, very unique society.  The werewolves are similar to humans, but still have very different outlooks on life, and Klause doesn’t shy away from the implications of that.  If you like werewolves, this is worth a read.

 

Hogfather by Terry Prachet

This was the first novel I ever read by the late and wonderful Sir Terry Prachet.  I’ve certainly never read a book of his that I didn’t like, but this one holds a special place in my heart that still believes in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.  And the Hogfather, of course.

 

Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

This one is a little darker than the previous two.  The relationships between the female characters are complex, twisted and in many ways, all kinds of messed up.  But they’re also loving, nurturing and compelling, and the story pulls you right in with the depth of character building and scene setting.  If you like dramatic women’s fiction, I can’t recommend this enough.

 

The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce

Okay, cheating a bit since a quartet is four books, but you can’t recommend one Lioness book without the rest.  This was the series that started my love of fantasy.  You get to watch the characters grow from children to young adults, which, as a teenager, was my favorite part.  It made the characters amazingly real to me, and their adventures were a lot of fun.

 

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

I love epic, decade, if not century, spanning stories.  This one has that in spades.  The premise is simple.  What if the Black Death epidemic of the 14th century had wiped out 99% of Europe’s population?  The novel follows a handful of souls throughout their various lives as they travel through a beautifully developed alternate history.  Robinson also changes up the writing to fit with the styles popular with each culture that’s being explored, so every section feels unique.

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

I read a lot of nonfiction for research, and there are a lot of books that I like.  But there aren’t many that I love, and this is one of the few.  Linguistics is one of my major interests, but it can be a very dense subject.  Pinker describes it in a way that’s down-to-earth, very informative, but also very entertaining.  Worth a read if you have any interest in linguistics, or just generally like non-fiction.

Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx

Low and behold, another nonfiction book.  Well, I might hesitate to call this nonfiction, since I think I lot was embellished and even outright made up for the sake of comedy and story.  But I still love it.  I developed a fascination for the Marx brothers sometime in high school, probably as a knee jerk reaction to disliking the Three Stooges.  The internet had also just become a common place thing, so I was able to research info about the Marxes and found out a lot of interesting things about their lives.  Harpo was always my favorite, and his autobiography is a fun read.

Wicked:  The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

I so loved this book, which is odd, because I never read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and I’m also not a huge fan of the movie.  Of course, since neither one gives much insight into the Wicked Witch, maybe that’s why.  As evidenced by several books on my list, I love seeing a character grow up.  At the same time, because Maguire uses other character’s POV to tell the story, Elphaba is still a mystery.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Let’s just pretend a certain sequel never existed, and Atticus Finch can continue to be my hero.  I will also continue to imagine that Scout Finch grew up to become a famous journalist/writer, married Dill and had three rambunctious, precocious kids with him, that she named Jem, Scout and Boo, because why not.

 

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Moon Called will always be my favorite of the Mercy Thompson series.  My copy, one of the last paperback books I ever bought, is thoroughly dog-eared from being read over and over again.  I still pick it up now and then, to re-read my favorite parts.  Thank you, Patty Briggs, for an amazing werewolf series to make up for the fact that I never got a sequel to Blood and Chocolate.  And so, we come full circle

Make sure to pop over to The Broke and The Bookish and visit the other blogs on the linky.

Cheers everyone,

Sound off in the comments; what are some books you feel like you don’t talk about enough.