Top Ten Tuesday: Shortest Books I've Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week's subject is technically books we've read in one sitting, but I don't tend to read that way...I pick up books and put them down pretty frequently throughout the day. So I'm focusing instead on short books that really grabbed my attention, even if they took me more than one sitting to finish. 

Civilization and Its Discontents: Breaking the rules here almost immediately, as this isn't really a "one-sitting" kind of book despite being very short. If you've heard of Freud and have an opinion on his theories but have never actually read his work, this is a totally fascinating exploration of the tension between society and the individual.

Men Explain Things to Me: The concept behind the title essay in this collection has become widely recognizable as "mansplaining", but that doesn't mean the essay itself isn't worth reading, along with the others that touch on various aspects of the experience of being a woman in the world.

Number the Stars: A childhood favorite, I recently revisited this story about a Danish girl and the Jewish friend whose family her family helps to escape on audio and honestly I think it holds up.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: The "life-changing teacher" is a stock character in media, but this book explores a much darker side of a charismatic educator influencing young minds. 

Lord of the Flies: A lot of people have hated this since they read it in school and had to analyze the obvious symbolism, and while there is certainly room to disagree with its premise, I found it a really interesting examination of the evolution of power dynamics. 

The Sense of an Ending: The story in this novel is the kind that some authors would have indulged themselves padding out to 350 pages, but the sparseness really makes it work.

A Clockwork Orange: Deliberately meant to be hard to get into because of the use of words from its own invented language but once you do get into it, it's great!

Exit West: This one I did come very close to reading in one sitting. The story of immigrants Nadia and Saeed just flew by.

Breakfast at Tiffany's: I love the movie, it's wonderful. The original novella is different...darker, and sadder, and just an incredible piece of writing.

The Awakening: This is one that has hung with me since high school...short, but elegant and powerful.

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Top Ten Tuesday: Shortest Books I've Read

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Colors In Their Titles

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we're looking at books with colors in their titles. This was a hard one to do without repeating ones, and I had to cheat a little bit too.

The Scarlet Letter: I almost went for The Red Tent here, but I've talked enough about that book on these lists so decided to highlight this classic, which a lot of people did not like but I actually think is really good!

A Clockwork Orange: The title is actually referring to the fruit and not the color per se, but it's my list and I make the rules!

James and the Giant Peach: Another fruit-not-color, but peach also works as a color and I don't talk about this book very much although it was one of my favorites as a kid!

The Golden Compass: I'm lucky they changed the name for the American release of one of my all-time most frequently re-read books! 

Green Girl: I read this book a couple years back and while it wasn't especially good, I think about it every so often. There was an appealing rawness to it. 

Olive Kitteridge: Last one where it was definitely not meant to refer to the color but I'm taking it that way anyway! Olive is the name of woman who inspired some mixed feelings in me (as did the book as a while)

Island of the Blue Dolphins: I loved this book so much as a kid and still remember doing a book report on it in elementary school!

The Color Purple: This was the easiest one to think of! I haven't read this book since AP English in high school and loved it, so I hope to be able to revisit it someday soon.

Black Beauty: I like the book, of course (like every little girl who loved horses), but the movie was one of my absolute favorites as a kid!

The White Tiger: This is a sharp, funny satire and more people should read it.

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Colors In Their Titles

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Great Titles

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we're talking about book titles. Specifically, good ones! I'm only human, and as susceptible to the pull of a great title as anyone. So here are ten that got my attention!

A Clockwork Orange: I remember reading one that Burgess wanted to contrast the idea of mechanics/clockwork with the most alive thing he could think of, and came up with the juicy burst of an orange. I loved the book, and the title is captivating in its own right.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: I understand why this wouldn't have worked as the title of a movie, but it's so much better than Blade Runner.

The Color Purple: Every time I think about the title, I remember the central tenet of the book...which is effective for a title to do!

Exit West: This one just immediately suggests questions you have to read the book to find the answers to, like who's doing the exiting, and west of where?

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: This title is a spoiler for its own book! But it promises an interesting story, and it delivers.

Skinny Legs and All: Tom Robbins has a way with eye-catching titles.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: I read this book because a college roommate liked it, but I would have 100% picked it up based on the title alone anyways.

Thank You For Smoking: There words in this order is so unexpected to see that it immediately grabs your attention.

Pride and Prejudice: The alliteration on this one just gets it stuck in your head. And it has a nice rhythm to it when you say it out loud!

Gone Girl: More alliterative goodness. The single syllables here give it a distinctive ring as well.

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Great Titles

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Antiheroes

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week is actually a villain freebie, so I decided to make a list of the best heroes-of-the-book that are actually the villains (which to be honest, usually means they're more interesting).

Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair): Becky is an unapologetic relentless social climber who thinks nothing of manipulating wealthy men to get their affection and is about a billion times more compelling than her sweet-natured friend Amelia.

Amy Dunne (Gone Girl): She and her husband Nick are both awful people, but honestly I'm always glad that Amy gets away with it.

Jaime Lannister (A Storm of Swords): Jaime was a fairly straightforward villain in the first two books, but when we start getting his perspective in the third one...he's still terrible but he's much more sympathetic.

Nick Naylor (Thank You For Smoking): The gleeful amorality with which this tobacco lobbyist/spokeman plies his trade is delightful.

Humbert Humbert (Lolita): He preys on a child and actively seeks to isolate her so he can continue to take advantage of her. But there's something captivating about him, a testament to Nabokov's skill as a writer.

Hannibal Lector (The Silence of the Lambs): He's suave and sophisticated and totally brilliant and eats people. Shame about the last.

Lisbeth Salander (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo): Lisbeth is violent and doesn't care about most people. She's amazing and terrifying and enthralling.

Thomas Cromwell (Wolf Hall): He's basically the male version of Becky Sharp in his eagerness to throw morality aside to climb the ladder and then stay at the top, except he's real and since he's a dude he doesn't have to play the marriage game to get power.

Henry Winter (The Secret History): He's rich, obscenely smart, and dynamic, and it's easy to see him through Richard's enchanted eyes and forget that he killed a person accidentally and then killed his own friend when he thought he might have to face consequences for the first death.

Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange): Alex so enjoys his life of rampaging around fulfilling every cruel urge he has that you almost feel a little sad when he's brainwashed into being unable to do it anymore. 

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Antiheroes

Top Ten Tuesday: Unique Book Titles

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week, we're looking at books with interesting titles. At first I could only think of a couple and despaired at coming up with ten, but as I looked over my list of books I've read, it turns out there are a lot of titles that seem, well...kind of weird.

Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?: This is also known as the book that inspired Blade Runner, which is a cool movie but a very different (and very good!) experience as a book.

A Clockwork Orange: Also the inspiration for a famous movie, which is a more-but-not-entirely faithful adaptation of the book. This book has its own invented slang, which is a fun challenge to try to figure out as you read along, and is generally a very interesting read.

Me Talk Pretty One Day: The title of this book is also the title of one of the funniest essays inside it, in which David Sedaris recounts his very frustrating attempts to learn French.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: The first collection of Oliver Sacks case studies I ever read, including the one that gave the book its name...Sacks has a real gift for neurological case studies and this volume is fascinating and highly recommended.

Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: Honestly, this book of myths told like a modern teenager might re-tell them gets old pretty fast, but the title is delightful and accurate!

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: This book of Chuck Klosterman's insightful, funny writing about pop culture was a recommendation from a college roommate and is still on my shelves to this day.

My Booky Wook: Russell Brand's memoir is hysterically funny. Miss the second one, though, it wasn't anything special.

Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging: I loved this whole series about a British teenage girl, and all of them have amazing titles, this is just the first one.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test: This was also a recommendation, from the same college roommate who recommended the Klosterman, but this was much less successful. It's quite a title, but it's mostly about hippies doing a ton of drugs and I HATED it.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: It's false advertising (for my money, anyways...I did not enjoy reading it at all), but it's a killer title.

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Top Ten Tuesday: Unique Book Titles