Top 10 Late Lamented Authors

I've been compiling my list for the Top 10 Tuesday question this week, "Authors you wish would write another book," and it turns out that many of my favorite writers are dead!  I'm not sure what that says about me, or about the current state of publishing--probably nothing that profound, I'm willing to bet--but there it is, all the same.

Without further ado, "Bring out your dead!"

10.  Brian Jacques--the wonderful Redwall series that made us all believe that the characters of Watership Down could go badass in the right authorial hands. Requiescat in pace.

9.  Anne Rice--who is actually still alive, and therefore REALLY needs to write another in her Christ the Lord series.  To be perfectly honest, however, I can live quite handily without her adding to the already over-bloated vampire fiction population.

8.  Jean Plaidy--nom de plume of Eleanor Hibbert.  Oh, my dear, how I would love to see what your take would be on the MODERN royal scandals and sagas of the day, if only you were here to write them!  Requiescat in pace.

7.  Tom Clancy--I honestly don't know whether to consider Tom in the still-alive category or not.  They claim he is, but it's been so many years since he actually WROTE a book that has his name slapped somewhere on its cover that I have my doubts.  I begin to suspect that he's like the Chinese emperor whose body was embalmed and toured the country in a carriage because the government feared there would be too much instability if word got out that he was dead!  Tom, I miss YOUR books.  I'm thoroughly weary of everyone ELSE writing "your" books, though.

6.  Terry Pratchett--is definitely still alive, and very much still writing books, despite a diagnosis of Alzheimers, which kind of makes him my hero.  Seriously.  I include him on this list because, just for me, he needs to concentrate all his writing energies on keeping me supplied with new Nac Mac Feegle books the rest of my life, the darling wee scunners.  Wee Free Men Forever!

5.  L.M. Montgomery--Only in such a truly august company could the creator of my beloved Anne of Green Gables rank so comparatively low on the list.  The world will always need about a dozen more of her books, even if we won't ever get them now.  Requiescat in pace.

4.  Chaim Potok--It seems I'm just going to keep raving about this man on my blog until SOMEONE finally says in the comments, "Okay, I surrender!  I finally took your advice, read one of his books, and it WAS, indeed brilliant."  Anybody going to go ahead and do that on behalf of all the rest of my readers?  Because I promise you, the man was a genius, and the world has lost a great soul.  Requiescat in pace.

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3.  Sir John Mortimer--Nothing short of the death of his inventor, the final putting down of the pen, could make the incorrigible Horace Rumpole, barrister at law, stop appearing before the Old Bailey bench or the Uxbridge Magistrates' Court in defence of the Timson clan who were his bread and butter for some forty years.  We miss you, Sir John; you were an original, and a fine citizen of the human race.  Here's to "the Golden Thread that runs through British justice".  May I see genuine liberty revived in my lifetime.  Requiescat in pace.

2.  Jane Austen--Unbelievable that Jane is the runner-up here, I know, but still I must eulogize her a bit.  She was the first to teach the English-speaking world what strong, intelligent women could be, to decide for herself where her destiny lay, to prove to the world that a woman's mind could be the equal of any male writer's anywhere, and to lead the charge for staying single rather than settling for Mr. Wrong or Mr. "Eh".  To her we owe every strong female character from Josephine March to Miss Marple.  Without Jane Austen, there is no Hermione Granger, and we are all her spiritual daughters.  Requiescat in pace.

1. J.K. Rowling--She's the only author in the world who could beat out Jane Austen for the top spot, and I can give her no higher praise than that.  Ms. Rowling, the world is crying out for more of your extraordinary gift.  Even if you have no more Harry to give, it would be a travesty of epic proportions to never again use the astonishing talent you've been given to entertain, educate and inspire your fellow man.  Humanity needs your words, and I've never yet known a writer who could actually STOP writing.  Please, miss, may we have some more?

Top 10 Xmas Wishlist

This week, in the final countdown to Christmas, we join the gang at The Broke and The Bookish in declaring the 10 books we would most like Santa to leave in our stockings.  To be perfectly honest, this isn't so much a "hope" list as a "wish" list for me, because Christmas present buying is a rather odd arrangement in this family.  As the mommy and appointed chancellor of the exchequer, I buy the Christmas presents for everybody, including myself, so I already know which books "Santa" has in store for me, books being relatively inexpensive enough items that I tend to buy my own.  The only real surprises I get for Christmas come from my wonderful mother-in-law, who is excellent at picking out gifts for me, let me tell you, but when she asks me for a list of things from which she can choose and surprise me, I don't often put books on it.  I've asked her for a couple, but not many.

Neither is this list my ULTIMATE book wishlist, a mental list I keep with me always, as I'm sure we all do, of the books I would love to own but would never spend that much money at one time on myself.  This list includes a few Egyptology tomes that cost around $100 each, an encyclopedia of British royal history that's about $90, and a gorgeous book about ecclesiastical heraldry that costs $130.  I'd love to have all of them.  Unless we somehow win a lottery even though we don't normally play, it'll be a cold day in Hell before I actually plunk down that kind of cash to get any of them!  So, what follows is just a list of books I hope to buy for myself in the New Year, I suppose, though Santa or any other kind spirit who is listening is more than welcome to make them show up on my doorstep for Christmas.

10. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs--It just looks fascinating, if rather creepy.

9.  Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong by Jen Yates

8.  Wreck the Halls: Cake Wrecks Gets "Festive" (also) by Jen Yates--All hail my beloved Jen Yates, Queen of the Geek Peoples!

7.  The Legend of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching by Demi--I love the Tao Te Ching, and I REALLY love Demi's indescribably gorgeous picture books.  These book are not just intended for kids, in my opinion, though I hope to get her entire corpus eventually and read them to the SuperToddler regularly, once she becomes a SuperSomethingElse (still haven't figured out what I'm going to call her when she gets older).

6.  Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem by Simon Singh--I like Simon Singh's explanatory scientific writing.  He makes me feel like I'm learning something valid without also making me feel stupid.  And if you're a ST:TNG fan, I don't have to tell you why I'd be interested in Fermat--or what ST:TNG stands for.

5.  Half of the Human Race by Anthony Quinn--I've spotted this one on several blogs and on Goodreads, it looks interesting, and I'm still not sure whether I can lay my hands on a copy of it here in the US.

4.  Penguin By Design: A Cover Story by Phil Baines--Ooo, I've been dying to read this one for ages.  I hope it lives up to my expectations of it when I finally do!

3.  The Blue Shoe: A Tale of Thievery, Villainy, Sorcery and Shoes by Roderick Townley and Illustrated by Mary GrandPre--This book just LOOKS gorgeous!  Anything with that much blue on the cover belongs in my library.  Besides, Townley's The Great Good Thing was pretty good, so I expect this one will be, too.

2.  Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary--Late as it may be to start these now, I want to finally be able to say that I've read them.  At least, I want to give them a try.

1.  The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall--I can't BELIEVE I still haven't gotten around to this book yet, especially considering that I absolutely adore the Penderwicks, even the animals that would make my allergies go insane if they were real.  I MUST read this book!

Top 10 Giftable Books

I've been playing catch-up all week, since my wonderful Good Man Michael and I took a weekend trip together (post coming as soon as I get some pictures pulled together).  Meanwhile, though it is barely still Tuesday--and isn't still Tuesday at all in some parts of the world--here is my contribution to this week's Top 10 Most Giftable Books on The Broke and the Bookish.

10. Big Bang by Simon Singh--I bought this book as a Christmas present for myself this year.  In many ways, my science education throughout all my years of schooling was WOEFULLY inadequate, due in large part to the fact that I was raised in a fire-breathing Pentecostal household, and most Pentecostals are terrified of science, all its pomp and all its works.  Ergo, I am attempting to educate myself by filling in the gaps I missed.  I wish I could buy copies of it for all my family members who are still Pentecostal.  But then, I don't really see a point in giving all my relatives something with which they would immediately build one giant, communal bonfire.

9. Olivia Claus by Kama Einhorn and illustrated by Jared Osterhold--This isn't exactly a long-beloved children's classic or anything, but my SuperToddler LOVES Olivia and the book is very cute, so I got it for her.  She was thrilled with it when I surprised her with it the morning after I bought it.  I believe that Christmas-themed gifts should be given BEFORE Christmas, don't you?  Otherwise, you don't have any time to really enjoy them before the season is over for another year!

8. If I could, I would buy my brother the entire Harry Potter series in the most beautiful collector's edition available.  There are two reasons why I can't.  First, those special editions cost a fortune per book, let alone buying them all in one go.  Second, he firmly believes that Harry Potter is of the devil and is a satanic plot to surreptitiously teach children witchcraft under their parents' very noses.  (I can't judge him too harshly; I used to believe exactly the same thing.)  However, I think he could really get into them and we could have some AWESOME conversations together, if he'd just read them, especially since he's completely nuts for some video games that happen to use magic heavily.

7.  Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach and illustrated by Ricardo Cortes--I would buy this book for anyone I know who can tolerate the full range of the English language and has a child anywhere between ages 2 and 10.  I LOVE the fact that this book is a fully-illustrated, hardback picture book, just like any juvenile literature you see in the library, with the one major exception that it is written to be read ONLY by parents (or those who babysit a lot).  This book is hilarious, and I cannot recommend it highly enough for those days when you feel like you are slipping slowly into toddler-induced madness.

6. The Bible--If I sat down and figured it for a while, I'd probably find very few years during which I didn't either give or receive a Bible.  What type of Bible depends on a number of factors; one year, Mom wanted a really reliable translation.  Another, she wanted to examine the Septuagint more thoroughly.  This year, I would be buying for a young friend of mine, a girl my mother and I used to babysit and practically helped raise for the first few years of her life.  She's half American and half Brazilian, and is headed to spend a year of her teen-aged life in the South American paradise.  She's trying to learn Portuguese in preparation, and I can only say that whenever I've been studying a language, I've always found a Bible to be an ideal study tool--a text with which I am already familiar helps me catch important vocabulary points and idiomatic expressions.

5. The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall--For years, my mom read to me and my brother when we were kids, and around the time I started college, my parents and I began to experience a role reversal.  My dad's advancing diabetes and heart disease, overall deteriorating health, led to his partial blindness.  When he could no longer read for himself, I began occasionally reading books aloud to both of them when I was home on vacations.  Mom and I were still working our way through the first Penderwicks book when she died.  I'd love to be able to read the latest one to her.

4. Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF by April Winchell--In the world of handmade crafts, I guess I'm an all-around traitor.  I crochet, I'm trying to learn to knit, I make jewelry, I make rosaries--and yet, I love both Etsy AND Regretsy.  Apparently, that paradox demonstrates some heinous flaw in my character, but there it is.  I was browsing on Amazon one night a few months ago, when I stumbled across this book and laughed so hard I nearly fainted.  I'd love to buy copies of it for all my crafty friends, except I'm not sure they would all take it in the spirit in which it was intended.  I would give it for fun, but some of them might think I was insinuating something.  (For the ones who still crochet toilet paper covers, that's exactly what I'd been doing.  Which is why I won't be giving these as gifts, though I really want to.)

3. The Unknown Book--Did you ever read a book in childhood, LOVE it, promptly forget what the title was when you returned it to the library or lost it while moving house, and long to own a new copy of it or give it to someone else as a gift for basically the rest of your life?  I have several of these.  One was a boardbook I owned and simply adored when I was really young, about a kid looking outside his window to watch the seasons changing outside.  Another was a library book about a family who got conned into buying some swamp land, only to find out it was the most magically fertile farming land on Earth, and would grow entire forests overnight and crazy stuff like that.  My greatest loss, though, was a children's book about a boy who took a simple cardboard box and piece of string and created forts and castles and all sorts of amazing, imaginary adventures for himself.  If you can identify any of these books by the snips I've been able to remember about them, you'll make one book blogger very happy this Christmas!

2. Wreck the Halls: Cake Wrecks Gets "Festive" by Jen Yates--Okay, I think purchasing this book as a Christmas gift definitely wins me the daughter-in-law of the year award.  For about two years now, Michael and I have been sharing tidbits from the riotously catastrophic world of Cake Wrecks with his parents, but they've never actually visited the website themselves and still have only a vague idea who we're talking about when we mention Jen and John Yates.  How timely, then, that Jen released a book of winter holiday wreckage in time for the Christmas shopping season this year.  My in-laws are getting a copy of this book, and whether they enjoy it or not, I think they'll be finer people just for owning such awesome geekery.  (In case you're wondering, they don't read my blog, though it would be my luck if they finally start reading it today!)

1. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien--This isn't a book I'm giving or would like to give this year, but is instead an account of my greatest book-giving Christmas triumph to date.  By miraculous good fortune, I managed to find the above photograph of the actual edition in question on Goodreads, so when I tell you that a decade ago, I bought my brother a beautiful, slip-covered copy of The Hobbit with runes embossed on the cover, you can see exactly what I'm talking about.  My brother has loved Tolkien's Middle Earth for years.  He also has the well-deserved reputation of being the best in our entire family and circle of friends at picking exactly the right gift for people.  You can imagine my sense of gratification, then, when he was thrilled and floored when he opened THIS present!  He was even more shocked when I read the runes on the cover to him.  He thought they were one of Tolkien's invented languages, like Quenya.  Turns out, Tolkien used the good old Futhark (or actually, the Anglo-Saxon "Futhorc") for his dwarvish written language.  I shouldn't have said so, though; to outsiders it would just make one a bigger dork, but among fellow geeks, it practically gives you geek god status if you actually read and speak artificial languages!  Qapla'!

Top 10 Best Childhood Memories

Oooo, this week's Top 10 Tuesday is a fun one, excellent for a nostalgic time like Christmas.  Our friends at The Broke and The Bookish shared with us their 10 favorite books from childhood, and have asked each of us to do the same.  I'll tell you a secret little story about my absurd, childhood self.  When I was four (which is about where my memories begin), I first began to notice how much of her spare time my mother spent reading.  She just seemed to enjoy it so much, and I was desperate to figure out what was the illusive joy of all the squiggles in the books.  I remember so vividly the small bookcase that sat in her bedroom, with her boxed set of Laura Ingalls Wilder sitting in the place of honor on it.  I actually went to her once, crying because I wanted so badly to learn to read, but convinced that I'd never manage it.  Reading just seemed like some magical, exalted art that was surely beyond my young mind!  She assured me that I would learn, and as in so many other things, she was right.

10.  The Little Green Frog by Beth Combe Harris--Maybe 200 people on this entire planet have heard of this book, and there's a reason for that.  I do not look back on this one with unmixed pleasure, because it was part of the curriculum in my radically conservative, fundamentalist Christian school.  Those people made my family look like pot-smoking, free-loving, dirt-worshipping tree-huggers (and believe me, we WEREN'T)!  Still, this was one of my favorite books as a child, so I've included it as a tribute to my 9-year-old self, who didn't know that she was being obnoxious in the way she expressed some fairly odious opinions.  Usually.

9.  Little Pilgrim's Progress by Helen Taylor--I LOVED this book, and though it was also included in the aforementioned curriculum, it was a much better book all round (largely because it was just a simplified retelling of the ORIGINAL Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan).  It made a book that would've been nearly impossible for a little kid much easier to understand, and I really enjoyed it.  (I haven't read it in years, though; it might just annoy me today.  Just caveat emptor, there.)

8.  Blue Willow by Doris Gates--I adored this book so much when I was young that I made my Mom look through the dishes with me in every thrift store we entered, in the hope of finding something that looked like a Blue Willow Ware plate.  I'll confess to you that I don't even remember what it's about now--something to add to my re-read pile!  Yay!

7.  The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes, illustrated by Louis Slobodkin--Trust me, the information about who illustrated this book is quite important; together, words and images left me in a rapture of joy and a blubbing mess simultaneously when I reached the end of this poignant story.  I don't want to give spoilers, but let's just say that I spent a lot of time dreaming of owning things I could never afford when I was a little girl.

6.  Black Beauty by Anna Sewell--"The first place that I can well remember..."  Those are the opening words of this book, and when you hear it performed on audio cassette by Haley Mills, the true Britishness of the work leaves an indelible mark on your impressionable young mind.  Like Uncle Tom's Cabin and other great books intended to prick the conscience of their readership, this book is not for the faint of heart, and now that I think back on it, I'm really surprised that this is considered a children's book, because in many ways, it is not at all.  It was meant to illuminate the appalling conditions under which many working animals lived in Britain at the time, and it certainly did a good job!  Still, I loved the stories of proud Black Beauty and sweet, patient little Merrylegs.  If you're such a great animal lover that you think you wouldn't be able to bear to read this one, just think of it this way--read it and constantly think to yourself how glad you are this stuff doesn't go on that much anymore!

5.  Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie--I first encountered this childhood classic by means of the audiobook, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though some of its Victorian English puzzled me at times.  I could still appreciate adventures and dangers and sword fights and pretend games.  I remain determined to read the rest of them some day.  (Oh!  You didn't KNOW there was more than one Peter Pan book by Barrie?  Well, there are; check 'em out!)

4.  Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers--I was a little older when I read this series, in my teens, but I lapped up every word just the same.  When P.L. Travers left the theater after attending the world premiere of Walt Disney's film adaptation of her books, a reporter asked her what she thought of it, and she said with a rather sardonic smile, "Oh, let me be silent."  I was a bit taken aback the first time I heard about that, but after reading the books, I felt I understood her reticence a lot better.  As if this needs to be said again--the books are ALWAYS better!

3.  Joseph by Joyce Landorf--A truly odd one thrown in the mix here, yet the first time I read this book, I was eleven, and I think it really helped fan the flames of my obsession with Egyptology.  My mother would absolutely have fainted if she had known about the steamier scenes in this book!  I have to laugh to think back about it now.  It really wasn't anything more than, "Boy and girl admit they are heterosexual, and therefore attracted to each other.  Extended kissing.  Fade to curtains blowing in window on a lovely summer's evening."  Still--I was ELEVEN!  This was major-league action to my young mind!  Believe it or not, that was NOT the main attraction for me, though.  (I know; you don't believe it.)  It's true!  This is actually a pretty well-crafted story.  And it brought ancient Egypt alive for me in a way that nothing ever had before at that young age.  I include it on this list because it demonstrates that I've ALWAYS been eclectic, and that "age-appropriate" has always been one of my LEAST favorite phrases.

2.  Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery--*Sigh* OMG, what is there to say about my beloved ANNE?!  She was the heroine of my childhood, the first time I discovered that there were other girls like me in the world--you know, nerdy girls who like to read more than they like to play with dolls, and who occasionally act like outlandish tomboys instead of prim young ladies.  I never COULD get the hang of being a "young lady."  I was too busy arguing with boys and playing with Hot Wheels.  Anne was proof positive that you could do all those things, and still get married and have a bigillion kids.  She rocked then, and she rocks now--the 19th-century Hermione Granger.

1.  Charlotte's Web by E.B. White--It really is hard to believe that any book could outrank Anne for the coveted spot of 1st place, but for me, this was "the one that started it all," as they say.  My second grade teacher read it aloud to us, and I completely fell in love with the story of Fern--another tomboy--and her most unlikely pet.  I borrowed my brother's copy of it, re-read it so many times that the cover fell off, and never did give it back to him.  (I think I still owe you a copy of Charlotte's Web, brother of mine, if you'd like me to buy you one.)  It was one of the first books that I ever managed to read by myself, and I read it about once every six months for the next five years or so.  It launched a life of reading; the teacher who read it to me launched a life of teaching.  Books can do amazing things.

Top 10 Winter Reads

Top 10 Tuesday once again--how the week just flies when you're enjoying a holiday!--and this time, those brilliant folks at The Broke and The Bookish have asked what's on my winter TBR pile.  To be perfectly honest, the list mostly consists of books required for a challenge, so they've been mentioned in previous posts, but I figure, recording them all in one place for everyone to see like this keeeps me accountable to get through them, you know?  Well, that's the theory, anyway.

Books for The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge:

10.  A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens--I've already finished.  Click to read the review.  5 Stars--big surprise, right?

9.  The Chimes by Charles Dickens

8.  The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens--I originally only signed up to read two of these three books, but I enjoyed the first so much that I've decided to take three--they're short.


Books for The Regency and Victorian Reads Challenge (several of which I've already finished, so I've only listed the ones I have left):

7.  Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

6. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen--I'm determined to finally read the last two Jane Austen books that I've never gotten to yet.


Other stuff, some for challenges, some just for fun:

5.  The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle--What better to do on a long winter evening than curl up in my recliner with some Sherlock Holmes adventures?

4.  At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon--I am determined to finally plant this book in my Victory Garden.  I have started it TWICE before and never gotten through it yet.

3. Village Christmas by Miss Read

2.  Christmas Mouse by Miss Read--which, of course, is not the author's real name.  Have you ever read any of the Miss Read books?  Delightful accounts of the adventures of a British schoolmarm of yesteryear, with enough piercing insights into human behavior to make them anything but sappy, I assure you.  I've read one of her Christmas books.  This winter seems an excellent time to get to the others.

1.  Harry Potter and the (Fill in the Blank) by J.K. Rowling--When am I NOT reading the Harry Potter series YET AGAIN?  Right now, I'm into Half-Blood Prince, so I've almost finished them for the 7th(?) time.  Seriously, my motto in life is pretty much, "When in doubt, re-read Harry Potter."

It's a "Silent Night...All is calm" kind of list, I know.  I don't go in for anything too hard-core at the best of times, but when I'm still on the pre-Christmas side of winter, I pretty much like to stick to books that are soft, pretty and gentle on the nerves, like a freshly-falling snow.

Top 10 Thanksgiving Guests

For this week's Top 10 Tuesday, the gang at The Broke and The Bookish have asked us which authors we would like to invite to our Thanksgiving dinner.  An interesting question, and certainly one I hadn't given any thought to until they mentioned it.  I thought it would take me longer than it actually did to come up with 10 names, but once I got started, the ideas flowed pretty freely.  To invite most on my list to a dinner, I would have to turn the meal into a seance, complete with medium and Ouija board, but since we're dreaming, lets dream on a COLOSSAL scale, shall we?  I'm completely astounded at myself that I DIDN'T think of Jane Austen until I read Tahleen's list, but I didn't, and my list is already full, so we will carry on with it as I originally compiled it.

10.  Stephen Fry--I just watched a documentary special he did for the BBC called Stephen Fry in America, in which he visited all 50 states and observed us wacky Americans in our native habitat for the benefit of his compatriots.  He discussed us with a great deal of patient and bemused sympathy, and I know that he makes a witty, pleasant Thanksgiving dinner guest, because he actually went to such a dinner while on his travels.

9.  Michael Palin--The Python who pioneered the sort of tongue-in-cheek travel documentary that I described above is also hilarious, a very intelligent and entertaining writer, and would no doubt lighten up the tension wonderfully if any family holiday drama broke out.  Besides, I'm just aching to meet a Python before they all drop off the twig!

8.  Fr. Alexander Schmemann--From the ridiculous to the sublime.  Schmemann was one of the greatest Eastern Orthodox theologians of the 20th century, and it was his writings, in part, which helped me through the process of conversion.  However, it is for a simpler and more beautiful reason that I would particularly like to have him visit for Thanksgiving.  He gave his last homily on Thanksgiving day, in the chapel at St. Vladimir's Seminary (from which I graduated), and it is a sermon which echoes the overpowering voice of God in its spare, elegant phrases.  The homilist is obviously a man who knows he will soon die and can honestly say, "It is well with my soul."  I read that sermon aloud every year when we pray over the meal, but I'd love it if Fr. Schmemann could be here to read it himself just once.

7.  St. Gregory the Theologian--Known in the Western church as St. Gregory of Nazianzus, this partiarch of Constantinople could write a festal oration like nobody else in the history of Christianity.  I would love to hear the homily he would write for the occasion if he could be present at a modern Thanksgiving celebration!  (Although, he'd probably rip the metaphorical flesh off our figurative hides with a blistering indictment of commercialism, consumerism and over-indulgence, and that would likely put quite a damper on things.)

6.  Douglas Adams--Whatever else you can or cannot say about the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, he certainly would make one lively conversationalist over a good meal, and could easily fill any awkward silences with something worth hearing.

5.  Ellen Raskin--The Westing Game has been one of my all-time favorite books since I first discovered it at the age of 10 (by which time the author was already the LATE Ellen Raskin).  I would've loved to have just one evening's conversation with the woman, who had a fascinating mind and knew how to keep me spell-bound with everything of hers that I've ever read.

4.  Chaim Potok--With so many great writers to choose from, I know just how bold this statement is, but if I could resurrect any one modern author and meet him or her, I would probably choose Chaim Potok.  The profound impact this man's books have had on my life--at least, on my internal/mental life--can hardly be overstated.  He was an extraordinary writer, with an almost supernatural power to his words.  If you've never read My Name is Asher Lev and its sequel The Gift of Asher Lev, you must read them once before you die.  It will be time well-spent, I promise.

3.  Nathaniel Hawthorne--I must confess, the author of The Scarlet Letter is basically on the list for two reasons: 1) He knew enough about his Puritan ancestry to be able to entertain us with some interesting stories about the "first Thanksgiving".  2) This knowledge he had was also extensive enough that it led to his famous disgust with and guilt feelings over the religious behavior of his forebears.  He could set my Fundamentalist in-laws straight if they wax rhapsodic about the "good old days" of Puritans building their "shining city on a hill" and colonizing the New World in order to flee religious persecution.

2.  J.K. Rowling--Is there ever a time when you DON'T want to meet J.K. Rowling?  (Except maybe if you've just gotten accidentally covered in mimbulus mimbletonia juice.)  Don't we all want to have a one-on-one chat with her for a while?

1.  Charles Dickens--For my holiday reading this year, I've chosen a couple of Dickens' famous Christmas Books.  Given that he had a reputation during his lifetime as an awesome vocal performer of his own works, what better way could there be to celebrate Thanksgiving and kick off the Christmas season than by listening to Charles Dickens give a recitation of A Christmas Carol?

Top 10 Absurdities on My Shelves

Photo courtesy of Number10

Top 10 Tuesday

Not that I'm claiming the books themselves are absurd.  How would I know?  I haven't read them!  Rather, this list is about my ridiculous behavior in owning books without ever reading them.  A few of these I've owned for nearly 30 years!  And I'm only 34!  It's really time to either read them or start letting them see other people, don't you think?  Anyway, here goes.

10.  The Adventure of English, by Melvyn Bragg--owned about 8 years. It really is ridiculous that a woman who holds an MA in Linguistics has not read this book yet. It's a popular-level history written by a novelist, for heaven's sake. You'd think I'd be able to handle it.

9.  The Isles: A History, by Norman Davies--nearly 10 years.  Considering that this book is nearly 1,300 pages long, I think you can understand why I've been a bit intimidated about taking it on, and how easily life got in the way the few times I tried.  I'm determined to do it someday, though, like the die-hard Anglophile that I am.

8.  The Story of My Experiments with Truth, by Mohandas K. Gandhi--approximately 13 years.  I have no idea what has kept me from reading this book, and once again, I have actually tried and it beat me.  No clue what the problem is on this one.

7.  Cancer Ward, by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn--also about 13 years.  It's just kind of depressing, the premise of this book.  I really do think it's probably an awesome read.  Maybe now that I'm no longer dealing with loved ones who are terminally ill, I'll be able to read this without that depressive feeling being quite so strong.

6.  The Fields of Bannockburn, by Donna Fletcher Crow--15 years.  I bought this and started reading it to my parents the summer before I started college; at that point, I'd never yet read a 700-page book.  When summer ended, we were only about 1/3 of the way through.  They finished it without me.  I still haven't read it all.

5.  Demons, by Fyodor Dostoevsky--15 years.  The cover art for the version of this book that I have is certainly thrilling.  I bought my copy during my undergraduate days, and when my mom came to visit and saw it on the shelf in my dorm room, she nearly had a heart attack.  She was terrified of what these godless heathens might be teaching me in my literature classes.

5.  The Walking Drum, by Louis L'Amour--at least 20 years.  To be perfectly honest, I haven't checked on my shelves for so long that I'm not sure I even still own this book, but to the best of my recollection, I do have a copy of it.  I have really enjoyed many of Louis L'Amour's books.  I don't know what ails me that I haven't just picked this one up and read it by now.

4.  The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas--20 years.  I got my first copy of this book when I was in high school.  I can attest from repeated experience that the first 5 pages are very humorous, and bring you right into the action from the get-go.  Beyond that point, I know nothing.

3.  Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen--15 years.  It is RIDICULOUS that such a fire-breathing Jane Austen fan as I am has never finished reading Jane's original canon of novels.  Utterly ridiculous.

2.  Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen--15 years.  See everything I just said about Northanger Abbey.

1.  THE BIBLE--30 years.  I have owned countless copies, versions and editions of this book, or collection of books.  I am finally reading it all the way through, though I must say, I'm making abysmally slow work of it.  It's been about a year and a half since I started, and I still haven't finished the Old Testament.

Top Awkward 10

It's Top 10 Tuesday again! This time, we're discussing books that required us to step out of our comfort zone to even pick them up and inspect their cover, whether because of genre, author, or subject matter. I must say, I started life as the rabidly Fundamentalist Pentecostal daughter of a Pentecostal pastor and his wife, so pretty much every book I read that wasn't overtly Christian took me out of my comfort zone to some extent until I changed churches. However, a few examples really stand out in my mind. I push myself to leave my comfort zone more often these days.

10. A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

I've loved mysteries since about 5th grade, but I had never really gone in for the classic, hard-bitten, "It was a dark and stormy whatever in the city by the fill-in-the-blank" type, so this was my first attempt at the fringes of that subgenre. Let's just say I wasn't enamored.

9. Loves Music, Loves to Dance by Mary Higgins Clark

Once again, I tend more toward cozies than the whole "joys of writing grisly mysteries about lunatic serial killers" thing, but I liked this one moderately well.

8. The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber

Hate most romances with a searing, fire-breathing passion that is hotter than the flame of 1,000 suns. That's pretty much all there is to say, and surely it reveals why I was reticent to take on Debbie Macomber. I LOVE Blossom Street, however, and all its denizens. And I can't really even knit! (I try to knit occasionally, but I'm really a crocheter.)

7. Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson

If you read my previous statement about romance novels, you're probably REALLY surprised that THIS one is on my list. But I adore the story of Robin Hood almost as much as I hate romances, so I decided to make an exception to my rule and give this one a try. Besides, I needed a thick book to help me finish a library summer reading challenge. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. Life goes on.

6. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

I just had a feeling from the first time I glanced at the cover of this book that it wouldn't really be my cup of tea, but eventually I gave in, because I just had to know what all the hubbub was about. And my reaction? It wasn't really my cup of tea.

5. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Ridiculous true story about me and this book. My tiny little Fundamentalist Christian school decided when I was in 8th grade that they would start a reading club for all us bookish types, and they chose this book for their first selection. I was simply appalled! Witches?! Telepathy?!? Flying centaurs?!?! This book was clearly rife with pagan witchcraft! What could the administration be THINKING? I made the kind of stink about it that I had been taught was somehow a Christian act of mercy in such circumstances, as I'd been brought up to believe that it was my responsibility to try to show everyone else that they were doing something wrong. (Yeah, I used to be one of those obnoxious "BAN HARRY POTTER!" people, too. Mea culpa. Seriously. I was an annoying little pissant.) Some fifteen years later, I finally read this series. I thought the bad guy at the end of this first one was a stupid choice on the author's part, but otherwise, I really liked them.

4. The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice

If Wrinkle in Time set off my sirens and red flags, you can only IMAGINE how I viewed Anne Rice, all her pomp and all her works. When I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and stopped believing that 4/5 of humanity was going to Hell in a handbasket, I penanced myself to read this book as a way to stop being such a pontificating, pedantic prick. I thought the book sucked and generally insulted my intelligence, but I don't think it endangered my soul.

3. The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession by Andrea Wulf

The reason this book required me to step outside my comfort zone is that I typically find botany a very dull subject. Still, I'm a complete and total Anglophile (as if my regular readers don't know that!), I knew the "Empire" referred to in the subtitle was the Brits, and the cover was pretty, so when I saw it on display at the library, I picked it up. And loved it. The author is a bit too rabid in how she states her atheism to suit me, but other than that, it was wonderful.

2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

This was my first experience with a true horror novel, but after a couple of years to recover, I've decided not to allow it to prejudice me against the entire genre.

1. Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The ultimate nightmare book for a Fundamentalist Pentecostal to be assigned to read in a college literature class, but that's exactly what happened to me. (For those who may be unaware, many Pentecostals believe that you really can sell your soul to Satan if you're stupidly determined enough to do so. Therefore, this novel utterly terrified me.) I remember hating it, but I don't know if that was entirely about religious prejudices, or if there was some evaluation of its literary merit mixed up in that, as well. I doubt I'll ever try it again to find out, though, because it was damn depressing, either way.

Well, I just read back over this post. Cheerful little number, isn't it? Here's some sweetness and light to make you smile on your way to the next site.

My SuperToddler

Top 10 Outbursts!!

It is Top 10 Tuesday, and though this post is likely to be shorter than usual because I'm still sick, I do want to weigh in on today's topic, Top 10 Books that engendered strong emotions in me, whether positive or not.

10.  "Oops!", by Bill Myers.  Considering I gave it a one-star review and made it the first recipient of my infamous Dorothy Parker Award, I think you can probably guess that my emotional response to this book was quite negative.

9.  Persuasion, by Jane Austen.  If you need a book to carry you through the pain of an unrequited love, this is it.  This book contains perhaps the best summation of the difference between how men and women love that was ever penned.

8.  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling.  The ending of this book made me SO MAD!!!!!!!!!!!  If you've read it, you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't, you REALLY don't want me to spoil it, in case you ever decide to.  Just let me say that I had a hard time believing Rowling did what she did, and an even harder time forgiving her for it.  I did, though--eventually.

7.  The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes.  An extremely powerful little book.  I recommend it to any one of any age.

Image by Jeff Dahl

6.  The Falcon at the Portal, by Elizabeth Peters.  AAaaggghhh!!!  This book absolutely made me want to throw things!  Sorry if this is a spoiler, but the "boy loses girl" phase of the classic romance progression--you know, "boy meets girl, BOY LOSES GIRL, boy gets girl"--is often one of the stupidest, most infuriating, and most pointless plot devices in the history of books, as far as I'm concerned.  Just once, try writing something that ends up as it OUGHT to.  See if plenty of people won't still enjoy and buy the damn book.

5.  Go the F**k to Sleep, by Adam Mansbach.  Laughed my a** off.  This is a bedtime story for you, not for the little ones.  If you have a child who is 2 or over, you need this b**k.

4.  Letters, by St. Ignatius of Antioch.  Talk about an emotional response!  I actually changed my religion!  Not ENTIRELY due to these letters, but they were a MAJOR contributing factor.

3.  Little Princesses: The Intimate Story of HRH Princess Elizabeth and HRH Princess Margaret as Told by Their Governess, by Marion Crawford.  People who work in the British royal household DON'T sell their stories, and are forever branded as traitors--though not legally, thank God--if they do.  And yet, as a teenager reading this book, I couldn't help but "ooh!" and "aah!" and *sigh* at the tales of the sweet little princesses, and be grateful that the author betrayed their confidences to me, anyway.  I loved this book, and most royal watchers would, too.

2.  The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum.  I HATED this book.  Passionately.  Ruined the franchise for me, and now I just stick to the movie and the first book exclusively.  This was book #2 in the series, and it is horribly sexist, horribly annoying, and horrible generally.

1.  The Catholic Church: A Short History, by Hans Kung.  After reading this book, I am baffled as to why Hans Kung ever became a Catholic priest, and why he insisted upon remaining one.  His criticisms of the Pope and the Catholic Church, though sometimes fueled more by vendetta than fact, were often accurate, and did not bother me nearly as much as his insistence that all of Christianity's problems began with Pope St. Gregory the Great, and his claims that Christianity could really make something of itself if Christians didn't insist on doing absurd things like revering the saints and believing in miracles.  I can't imagine why a pope banned Hans Kung from teaching theology in a classroom, can you?  *rolling eyes*

10 Hallowe'en Reads

Predictably, this week's Top 10 Tuesday prompt asked for our recommendations for books with that spooky Hallowe'en feel to them.  Less predictably, you would NOT BELIEVE how long and hard I had to rack my brain to come up with a full 10 for this list!  Talk about finding out where your comfort zones are, and how infrequently you stray outside of them!  Clearly, this is an area where I could afford to keep a slightly more open mind when making my reading selections.  I could think of several books off the top of my head that I could blythely suggest, but I felt I should stick to books I've ACTUALLY READ personally, so that narrowed it down almost to nothingness.  I also included a couple that I personally couldn't stand, because (1) they fit the genre, and (2) I obviously have a certain prejudice against this genre, so maybe I need to work on that.  Anyway, here is my list, such as it is.

10.  The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin--The scene in which the mystery in this book begins is set near Hallowe'en, with characters trying to scare each other by telling ghost stories.  Very fitting.

9.  I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett--The latest Tiffany Aching book, or as I prefer to think of them, the latest WEE FREE MEN book.  (I love those little blue nut jobs!)  Witches, lynch mobs, fires, the landed gentry--what more do you need?

8.  Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis--This may seem an odd choice, but I found the hero's duel of wits with the Devil plenty creepy, thank you very much.

7.  The Mummy, by Anne Rice--I found this book to be a collossal disappointment.  What it did have, however, was plenty of mummies, the undead, inexplicable magical events, that sort of stuff.  If you like a nice yuck! factor in your sex scenes, you'll especially enjoy this one.

6.  The Haunted Mesa, by Louis L'Amour--Famous for his Westerns, of course, Louis L'Amour didn't do a lot fantasy, paranormal type writing.  When he DID decide to do weird, though, he clearly felt that anything worth doing is worth going to the mattresses for.  Mondo bizzarro!

5.  A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle--Although I didn't like the ending of this book as well as those for each of the other books in the series, I think it would make a great Hallowe'en night read-aloud, with its stormy, windy nights, witches and unicorns and all kinds of cool stuff.  Boo!

4.  Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley--Once again, this is really not a favorite of mine generally speaking, but honestly, it's one of the classics of semi-horror, after all.  What better to read for Hallowe'en?

3.  The Deeds of the Disturber, by Elizabeth Peters--Oh, I do LOVE a good Amelia Peabody mystery!  Hell, I even enjoy the mediocre Amelia Peabody mysteries, which do happen occasionally.  Since I just adore Egyptology, this installment of the series is not my favorite (not much Egypt time).  But for sheer fun and overall Hallowe'en deliciousness, complete with curses, corpses and culprits, you can't beat it.

2.  The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allen Poe--All I have to say--and I say it from experience--is do yourself a favor, and don't read Poe after midnight.

1.  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling--C'mon, you had to have seen this one coming (and I'm sure I'm not the only one that included Harry on this list).  Nobody throws a Hallowe'en party like Hogwarts, complete with TROLLS!

Cover Art on Top 10 Tuesday

This week on our Top 10 Tuesday list, brought to you by those delightful folks at The Broke and The Bookish, we all have confessions to make.  We are freely announcing to the world books we bought with reckless abandon, completely heedless of what the contents might be, because of the stunning cover art or the unbearably clever title.  On top of which, I have to confess also that I had to wrack my brain to come up with ten of these, because I almost NEVER do that!  I'm far too much of a control freak to let my buying wend its way along like that.  I like to know what I'm getting into BEFORE I plunk down any coin of the realm.  But, I did manage to think of the requisite ten that basically fit the requirements, after soul-searching and combing through my Goodreads shelves.

10.  Demons, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dostoyevsky is hardly an unknown--I've been promising myself since Middle School that I would read The Brothers Karamazov one day; I'm deteremined to do it in 2012 or perish in the attempt.  So when I came across another work of his with such a provocative title and spell-binding cover, I had to have it.  I'm deteremined to read it someday, too.

9.  Arabic Script, by Gabriel Mandel Khan

Do you see the picture of this book's cover up there?  Add to that the fact that I was an Arabic language student at the time.  Enough said.

8.  Gandhi, an Autobiography: the Story of My Experiments with Truth, by Mohandas K. Gandhi

Great photograph of a great man, and a title that wouldn't let me walk away.  I have never finished it yet--college assigned readings kept getting in the way--but based on the bit I've managed to read thus far, it looks pretty good.

7.  The Apostolic Fathers: Volume I

This was a Loeb Classical Library edition.  At the time I bought it, I didn't even really care what it contained that much; I just love the Loeb Classical Library.  These days, I also dearly love the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, so that turned out to be a win-win situation.

Holy Icons
by Matthew Garrett

6.  Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell

I always figured I would eventually get around to reading this book someday--clearly, it wasn't high on the priority list--until it was released as a Penguin Hardback Classic.  That moved it very quickly up my must-have list.  They're just so beautifully designed, aren't they?

5.  Beowulf

Again, a well-known title.  It was the release of a new translation that made me buy it, but primarily because of the awesome, shiny representation of chain mail armor on the cover, more than any scholarly reasons!

4.  Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison

I don't find the cover of this book that captivating, especially since it features the main character's cat so prominently and I am terribly allergic to felines.  But that title!  How could you walk away from that title, especially if you're a YA fan like me?

3.  The Penderwicks: a Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, by Jeanne Birdsall

This one had awesome title AND delicious-looking cover going for it, so it had to be mine.  I adore it; in my opinion, it is the Little Women of my generation.

2.  Celestial Gallery, by Romio Shrestha

Beautiful.  Absolutely gorgeous.  From what I understand, this book is not terribly indicative of classical Tibetan Buddhist art, as the author felt free to reinterpret the classic forms whenever he chose.  Still, his work is breathtaking, the colors mezmerizing, and I fell in love at first glance.

1.  Anne of Green Gables (100th Anniversary Edition), by L. M. Montgomery

To clarify, I did not buy my FIRST copy of this book for aesthetic reasons.  Actually, I didn't buy my first copy at all; my parents did.  No, some twenty years after I first discovered my beloved Anne, this 100th anniversary edition was released, featuring a facsimile of the ORIGINAL cover, and I knew I had to own one.  I honestly don't know how many copies of this book I have floating around my house, but I do know it's more than one, and I do know that it's getting ridiculous.