Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because they are particularly fond of lists over at The Broke and the Bookish. I'm sure they'd love to share your lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten list.
Top Ten Books of 2011 (Part the First)
1.The Paris Wife - McLain - The story of Hadley Richardson, Hemingway's first wife and mother of his eldest son is incredible. It's life in the 20's in Paris, it's the Fitzgerald's fighting in the background and it's Hemingway writing and running with the bulls and generally showing signs of the complete bad ass he is going to become. Also, there is no suicide, which is nice, only divorce. Oops, I guess that's a spoiler, but if you picked up The Paris Wife without knowing there were many other wives to come you kind of deserve it.
2. Exit the Actress - Parmar - The story of an Oyster girl turned Orange girl turned Actress turned Kings Mistress set during the mid 1600's is equal parts funny and informative. If you're into historical fiction it's definitely one to check out. Plus Nell Gwyn is hilarious as a historical figure, and she isn't a character you'll see on every cover. *cough cough Anne Boyle cough*
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling - My favorite book in the series seems to change with each read through, this year it's Deathly Hallows. Maybe it's Harry growing up that gets me, or Neville turning into a hero, or Snape being...well, Snape, but I just wept through Deathly Hallows like no one would let me read Rowling ever again. It was an situation. There were tissues everywhere and I kept saying things like "Harry no!" to no one in particular, and then I watched all of the movies again. Hello, I'm Sarah, I like books and I'm a Potterphile, if you know of any support groups please sent them my way.
4. Pride & Prejudice - Austen - I think Kate at Hark! a vagrant put it best -
5. The Alchemist - Coelho - I'm a little late on The Alchemist bandwagon, but it's a great little fable. It totally made me feel like I could go out and do whatever I wanted with my life. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but since I'm a recent college drag searching for job prospect and reading depressing books I'm going to pretend that it's the best thing ever.
6. The Magicians - Grossman - If you'll remember from #3 I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan. I needed a fix so I tried this "Potter for Adults" book about a magical college and a land that resembles Narnia. It was great. Two whole Universes created in under 400 pages. I was impressed. While it wasn't really Harry for the older readers it is a good story about Wizards.
7. The Ghost Orchid - Goodman - I've read to much Goodman this year to not put her on this list, and this was my favorite of the three books of hers I read. Set at an artists retreat in upstate New York it has love, murder, psychics and a swamp. Also, secret tunnels. Really, tunnels!
8. A Game of Thrones - Martin - I've been wanting to start the A Song of Ice and Fire series for over a year but had always been intimidated by the page length and it's incomplete status but A Game of Thrones is totally awesome. I was definitely missing out by waiting. I wasn't a huge fan of all of the child POV characters (except Jon Snow. he seems like a BAMF) but overall I think I've found a new series to obsess over. On to A Clash of Kings!
9. Tree of Codes - Foer - Not really a book as much as an Art project, or Artist Book, Foer took his favorite book, Street of Crocidiles and cut it to pieces to make his own unique story out of Schulz original work. The story is almost secondary to the reading process, which with being able to see the pages is definitely a process (I started by using a sheet of paper behind each page but when that was taking to much time I just held the page up so it wasn't flat against the rest of the book), but was completely worth the trouble.
10. The Secret Lives of Dresses - McLean - I finished this last night. While it wasn't the most creative of stories or the best written novel it still gave me warm butterflies and an urge to go shopping. Both things are good in my book. So are Vintage clothing stores, coffee shops and shirt dresses, which this book has in spades!
3 comments:
I felt the same way when I re-read HP7. It gets better each time. I bought Tree of Codes about a month ago and I can't wait to read it! I've also been tempted to add The PAris Wife to my kindle and I think this post might have pushed me over the edge. I loved A Moveable Feast so I've been really curious about that one.
That fan fiction comic was ridiculous/hilarious. And I like that your favorite HP book changes with each series reading.
I am really interested in both Paris Wife and Tree of Codes. Great list.
Come check ot my list for this week
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