Top 10: Books for Readers Who Like The Funny

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

Ten Books For Readers Who Like The Funny

I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

gods behaving badly by Marie Phillips

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Whom God Would Destroy by Commander Pants

Exponential Apocalypse by Eirik Gumeny

Badass by Ben Thompson

Top 10: Favorites From the Past 3 Years

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

Top Ten Books You Would Classify As ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS from the past 3 years

While I don't read near the amount I used to, I still read enough that narrowing down to 10 is rather difficult; however, I have struggled and wavered and this is what I came up with:

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The City and the City by China Mieville

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater and the rest of the series...

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

The Martian by Andy Weir

Top 10: Bookish Problems

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

Ten Book Related Problems I Have

Insanity Due to a Lack of Time to Read

Divorce Due to Obscene Amount of Money Spent on Books

Loss of Friends Due to Diminished Free Time Spent Reading Instead of Socializing

Headaches Due to a Lack of Organization of TBR Pile

Depression Due to End of a Good Book

Boredom with Everyday Life Due to Active Fantasy Life Based on Stories

Anxiety Disorder Due to Waiting on Next Installment in Series coupled with....

Feelings of Inadequacy Due to a TBR List Longer than You Could Read in Three Lifetimes

Isolation Due to No Real Life Friends Who Enjoy Reading

My Number One Problem

Imminent Danger of Suffocation or Death by Blunt Force Trauma Due to Overflowing Bookshelves

Top 10: (Dis)Likes in Book Romances

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Top Ten Things I Like/Dislike When It Comes To Romances In Books

I'm splitting this one into two lists of 5, one for likes and one for dislikes. Let's get the dislikes out of the way. In order from least annoying to full on rage inducing, my dislikes are:

5. Girls Who Fall For Guys That Can't Decide If They Want to Screw or Kill Said Girls
4. Problems That Arise Purely From a Lack of Communication
3. Love Triangles Where There's No Question of Who Should/Will End Up With Whom
2. Romances Where The Guy Has to "Teach" the Girl That She Actually Does Have a Libido
1. Rape

Now onto my likes in order from "makes me kind of happy" to "thrills my soul":

5. Couples Who are Equally Awesome and Confident
4. A Happy Ending (yeah, I'm sappy that way)
3. A Plot Beyond the Romance
2. Love That Comes Slowly After Actual Verbal and Intellectual Interaction
1. Hot Passionate Sex With a Really Great Buildup (yeah, I said it, what? like you don't enjoy hot passionate sex with a really great buildup)

Top 10: Feminist Classics I Want to Read

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Top Ten Books I Can't Believe I Haven't/Want To Read From X Genre: Feminist Classics

Way back in 2011, I participated in A Year of Feminist Classics, and it was AWESOME. I wasn't able to read everything on the list, and I always regretted that. The following list contains some of the books I missed from the 2011 reading list, some from the 2013 list, and some I've just been meaning to read.

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua

Beyond the Veil by Fatema Mernissi

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Top 10 Tuesday: Freebie

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

This week is a FREEBIE, meaning I can do a top 10 of anything I durn well choose; although I assume it should be bookish in nature. :) Both because I think it's an interesting topic and because I think it will help me get organized, my topic is:

Top 10 Series I Need to Freaking Finish

Gregory Maguire's The Wicked Years

1 down, 3 to go

George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire

2 down, 3 to go

Lev Grossman's The Magicians

2 down, 1 to go

Justin Cronin's The Passage

1 down, 2 to go

Bill Willingham's Fables

4 down, approx 13 to go

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman 

4 down, 6 to go

Ally Condie's Matched

1 down, 2 to go

Leigh Bardugo's Grisha

1 down, 2 to go

Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments

5 down, 1 to go

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials

4 down, 1 to go

So which should I finish first?

2014's Reading Report

My Year End Report is rather pitiful as I only managed to read 39 books this year, which is about one-third of my totals pre-Madison. Priorities, they do change. I will say though, that reading 100 less books a year sure does make stats quite easy. Still, I only have a few to report:

Male/Female Author: 13/26
Fiction/Nonfiction: 33/6
Series/Standalone: 20/13
New/Re-read: 23/10

I'm surprised by the male to female ratio, but the other stats are pretty normal. So, most boring year-end report, right? In an effort to make it a bit more interesting, here's some award winners from the year:

Classics Read: Lolita, Letters to a Young Poet, Heart of Darkness, The Turn of the Screw

Best Non-Fiction: Pilgrim's Wilderness

Most Surprising: The Martian I never liked audio but I adored this one.

Funniest: Dear Committee Members  

Best Series: The Raven Cycle: The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily Lily Blue,

The One(s) That Will Stick with Me: Lolita and 13 Reasons Why 

The Books I'm spending all my time reading right now (and which have severely decreased my for-pleasure reading in December:

These two Lit Theory books, along with Heart of Darkness and Turn of the Screw, are my readings for an Introduction to Literary Theory grad class, and as such, they are what I'm spending my free time with.

As you can see, I didn't list a Best Book of the Year. I've never been able to decide on one favorite of anything, so I'm not even going to try. I would love, however, to hear everyone else's choices for best book read this year!

Top Ten Tuesday: Wish List for Santa

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

Philosophy: An Illustrated History of Thought by Tom Jackson

My Real Children by Jo Walton

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

Spoiled Brats by Simon Rich

The Supernatural Enhancements by Edgar Cantero

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund

The Undertaker's Daughter by Kate Mayfield

To be honest, my list is much longer than this, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed on these 10. And if I don't receive them, I will probably go buy them (more than likely with a bookish gift card as I always - and luckily - seem to receive them).

What books do you hope to receive for the holidays?

Top Ten Tuesday: Best of 2014

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Warrior Women by Jeannine Davis-Kimball

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater: The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily Lily Blue

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Pilgrim's Wilderness by Tom Kizzia

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

The Martian by Andy Weir

Okay, maybe I cheated a bit by including three books and counting them as one, but hey, I tend to think of series as one long book.

What are your favorite books of the year?

Top 10 Tuesday: New Authors in 2014

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

This week's Top Ten is about Authors that were new to me this year. Clearly I'm supposed to list the top 10, but seriously ten is about all I have.....still, I read some good ones! 

Vladimir Nabokov  Read: Lolita     Next Read: Pale Fire

Jeannine Davis-Kimball  Read: Warrior Women     Next Read: This may be her only book.

Jay Asher  Read: 13 Reasons Why     Next Read: The Future of Us

Rainer Maria Rilke  Read: Letters to a Young Poet     Next Read: Sonnets to Orpheus

Maggie Stiefvater  Read: The Raven Boys, Dream Thieves, Blue Lily Lily Blue, The Scorpio Races

Next Read: Advice?

Rainbow Rowell  Read: eleanor & park     Next Read: Advice?

Julie Schumacher  Read: Dear Committee Members     Next Read: The Book of 100 Truths

Andy Weir  Read: The Martian     Next Read: This may be his only book

Robin McKinley  Read: Beauty     Next Read: Deerskin

Tom Kizzia  Read: Pilgrim's Wilderness    Next Read: The Wake of the Unseen Object

Victorian Literature

Ah, Victorian Literature, term so many people know - even complete non-readers. As with all literary modes and traditions, tacking down the time and place of Victorian Literature (hereafter VicLit) is difficult. We are roughly talking about literature written by mainly white people in the mid to late 1800s. To give you an idea, here are a few of the major writers of the Victorian period:

The Brontes, Matthew Arnold, Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lewis Carroll, William Butler Yeats, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Oscar Wilde and honestly the list cold go on forever. Much of the popular classics we read are from this period.

Thematically, VicLit runs the gamut: propriety, morality, social advancement and inequality, civility, gender roles, evolution, colonialism and colonization, industrialization, and on and on. Clearly over such a long time, roughly 70 years, times and tastes and trends change and so did the literature.

I have quite a bit of VicLit on my shelves- roughly 90 books - either waiting to be read or re-read or even re-re-read. Here are a few of the VicLit books I have on the shelves by author:

• Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone, The Woman in White, No Name,
• Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South, Mary Barton, Cranford, Wives and Daughters, Cousin Phyllis,
• Charlotte Bronte - Villette, Jane Eyre,
• George Eliot - Adam Bede; Silas Marner; The Mill on the Floss; Middlemarch; Daniel Deronda, Scenes of a Clerical Life, Romola, Felix Holt,
• Samuel Butler - Erewhon,
• Charles Dickens - Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Martin Chuzzlewit, A Tale of Two Cities,
• Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest
• Bram Stoker - Dracula
• Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Lady Audley's Secret, Aurora Floyd
• William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair
• Arthur Conan Doyle - The Complete Sherlock Holmes
• Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
• Anne Bronte - Agnes Grey
• Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
• Thomas Hardy - Far From the Maddening Crowd
• Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Anthony Trollope - Barchester Towers, Lady Anna, Rachel Ray,
• John Stewart Mill - The Subjection of Women,
• H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau

The ones I have reviews for have links, and the ones I've read but haven't reviewed are italicized. As you can see, I have A LOT of VicLit to choose from if I wish to participate in the Victorian Literature in November event.

As it stands, I have so many books going right now, and I'm participating in Nonfiction November, so I'm not sure I will get around to any of these. Fingers crossed though.

If I do decide to pick one up, which one do you recommend?

The Search for Fairy Tales (Experts)

Week 2's Nonfiction November prompt is hosted by Leslie at Regular Rumination. Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

While my original "Expert" post for this week focused on Freak Shows, I also have long been fascinated with Fairy Tales, so I thought I would take this opportunity to research some books which will:

1. Provide me with the ORIGINAL iterations of fairy tales
2. Compare the originals with the "softer" versions we have today and hopefully expound upon the socio-cultural shifts which necessitated those changes
3. Analyze the importance and effect of fairy tales on both children and adults

This was most definitely not as easy as I thought it would be. Trying to find a collection of original fairy tales - which are actually the originals - is proving quite difficult. The Grimm Brothers certainly collected the original tales; however they had to tone down the tales they collected for their entirely unintended young audience. As such, some of the anthologies claiming to be the "original" stories are actually just the first sanitized versions.

Charles Perrault, the Grimm Brothers predecessor, never, I believe, sanitized the tales he told, so it's quite possible that books by him, like Perrault's Fairy Tales, do have the originals. If any of you have read books that are the actual original fairy tales, please let me know in the comments!

For information on the differences between the original tales and their current versions, there's a ton of articles and sites you can find online. For example, we have a Huffington Post article about the real life origins of some of our most famous fairy tales, and here's another from Huffington about the original iterations of a handful of fairy tales. In the Books section of the UK's Stylist, we have an article listing the 8 Darkest Fairy Tales along with their original authors. Any other online sources you find useful on this topic?

Fairy tales themselves are classified as nonfiction, but I wanted some secondary sources as well, and these are the most interesting sounding ones I have found so far (summaries from GoodReads):

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers by Marina Warner: In this landmark study of the history and meaning of fairy tales, the celebrated cultural critic Marina Warner looks at storytelling in art and legend-from the prophesying enchantress who lures men to a false paradise, to jolly Mother Goose with her masqueraders in the real world. Why are storytellers so often women, and how does that affect the status of fairy tales?

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales by Kate Bernheimer: A collection of original essays by leading women writers, including Margaret Atwood, Anne Beattie, Julia Alvarez, Joyce Carol Oates, A. S. Byatt, Rosellen Brown, and many others, explores the various fairy tales that have shaped their lives and their work.

The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim: The famous child psychologist, explains how fairy tales educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children.

The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meanings of Fairy Tales by Sheldon Cashdan: In The Witch Must Die, Sheldon Cashdan explores how fairy tales help children deal with psychological conflicts by projecting their own internal struggles between good and evil onto the battles enacted by the characters in the stories.

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know!

Nonfiction November 2: A Freak Show Expert

Week 2's Nonfiction November prompt is hosted by Leslie at Regular Rumination. Freak Shows are about to (re)become remarkably popular due to the release of the newest American Horror Story - Freak Show. I am no exception. No matter the "correctness" of it, I am fascinated, and so for Nonfiction November's Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert I thought I would look up - and hopefully read - some of the top books on Freak Shows.

First, the prompt:

Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

I started an Essentials List on Barnes and Noble for all the books I found. Here are a few of the most promising, whether due to subject matter or price (it's crazy how expensive some of these books are!):

Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
Robert Bodgan, 1990
Robert Bogdan's fascinating social history brings to life the world of the freak show and explores the culture that nurtured and, later, abandoned it. In uncovering this neglected chapter of show business, he describes in detail the flimflam artistry behind the shows, the promoters and the audiences, and the gradual evolution of public opinion from awe to embarrassment. I read this one last month and put up my review last week.

Jay's Journals of Anomalies
Ricky Jay, 2003
The multitalented Ricky Jay (sleight-of-hand artist, actor, author, and scholar of the unusual) wrote and published a unique and beautifully designed quarterly called Jay's Journal of Anomalies. Already coveted collector's items, the sixteen issues are now gathered here in a complete set, with significant new material and illustrations. A brilliant excursion into the history of bizarre entertainments, the journal was described inThe New York Times as "beautiful and elegant...a combination of rigorous scholarship and personal rumination."

Circus and Carnival Ballyhoo: Sideshow Freaks, Jabbers and Blade Box Queens
A.W. Stencell, 2010
Here is the history of the North American side show at circuses and carnivals, along with the stories of freaks and other side show acts in other venues such as dime museums, store front shows, in vaudeville, on movie theatre stages — and even at touring whale shows. The book follows the development of the circus side show with interviews and stories from side show workers that explain the role of freaks, working acts, managers, and talkers — and explores how important grift was to circuses and how it became located inside the side show.

Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body
Rosamarie Garland Thomson, 1996
The book's essays fall into four main categories: historical explorations of American freak shows in the era of P.T. Barnum; the articulation of the freak in literary and textual discourses; contemporary relocations of freak shows; and theoretical analyses of freak culture. Essays address such diverse topics as American colonialism and public presentations of natives; laughing gas demonstrations in the 1840's; Shirley Temple and Tom Thumb; Todd Browning's landmark movie Freaks; bodybuilders as postmodern freaks; freaks in Star Trek; Michael Jackson's identification with the Elephant Man; and the modern talk show as a reconfiguration of the freak show. I'm reading this one right now. 

Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others
Daniel P. Mannix, 1999
Another long out of print classic book based on Mannix's personal acquaintance with sideshow stars. Read all about the notorious love affairs of midgets; the amazing story of the elephant boy; the unusual amours of Jolly Daisy; the fat woman; the famous pinhead who inspired Verdi's "Rigoletto"; the tragedy of Betty Lou Williams and her parasitic twin; the black midget, only 34 inches tall, who was happily married to a 264-pound wife; the human torso who could sew, crochet and type; and bizarre accounts of normal humans turned into freaks-either voluntarily or by evil design!

I also have a few online resources if you are interested:

• Freakshows in the United States - Disability Social History
• Freakshows - National Fairground Archive
• Freakshow Gallery - British Library
• Very Informative Article - things said and done blog
• The Human Marvels - actual discussions
• Cult of Weird - quick bios of some of the most popular "attractions"

There is, of course, A LOT more out there on this fascinating, taboo, socially and culturally relevant topic. I highly recommend reading about this controversial piece of history.

I couldn't settle on one topic for this prompt, so tomorrow I have a post going up about the original fairy tales; be sure to check it out!

Top Ten Books I Want to Re-Read

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

Ten Books I Want to Re-Read: I am a massive re-reader. I love it. I love the comfort of it, the new discoveries, the simplicity, so picking 10 is difficult for me.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Good Omens is a must read for anyone who likes to laugh and doesn't mind off-the-wall irreverent humor. (would be my fourth reading)

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber - An insightful look at the lives of Agnes and Sugar, the wife and the mistress of William Rackham, this book addresses issues of gender and sexuality in Victorian England. (would be my second reading)

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis - The entire story is just such a wonderful surprise as the three stories rather effortlessly flow in and out of each other, each one sensationally Gothic in nature.  (would be my second reading)

The Night Circus by Emily Morganstern - While the characters in this novel - of which there are many - are some of the most unique, intriguing, complex, and eccentric characters I have ever read, what really steals the show in this novel is the setting. (would be my second reading)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - This one made the list primarily because of all the positive reviews of Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer and my strong desire to do a paired reading of these two books. (would be my third reading)

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson - These twenty-two stories, each focused on a character, explore the isolation and loneliness that permeates this fictional town. (would be my third reading)

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides - This is an amazing journey through one family's history as told by and reflected upon by Cal/Calliope, an intersex man who was born with female characteristics due to a recessive genetic condition. (would be my second reading)

Go Ask Alice by (pretty sure) Beatrice Sparks  - The "diary" of a 15 year old girl who is addicted to drugs, this (we think) fictional story was an eye-opener for me in my early teen years when I found it in the midst of a crapton of books in my grandparents' attic. Remarkably explicit, painful, revealing, and profound, this is a difficult but important book for teenagers to read. (would be, I think, my fourth reading)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - Funny is the first word that comes to mind. Clever is the second. Throughout the book there are neat little statements, concepts, and ideas that are both ridiculous and oddly infused with Truth. (would be at minimum my eighth read)

Every YA series I've loved...from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter to Gregor the Overlander to The Raven Cycle to the Chaos Walking series and on and on and on. Totally a cheat, I know, but I needed to get them all in as not only do I want to re-read them, I already do quite regularly.

Top 10 Halloweeny Books or Movies

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

Top Ten Books/Movies to Read or Watch to Get in the Halloween Spirit

Five Movies
Links to IMdB

The Nightmare Before Christmas : Tim Burton's film (directed by Henry Selick) is a wonderful way to get in the Halloween spirit - despite the fact the film is about Jack Skellington's discovery of the strange Christmas Town.

The Amityville Horror : I am most definitely talking about the 1979 version, not the 2005 remake. In this fun and frolicking tale, some newlyweds buy a haunted house and are treated to terror.

Poltergeist : Young blond chick staring at a fuzzy television screen. You've seen this and even just that image freaked you out.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre : 1974, not 2003 version. Grave-robbing cannibals take out some kids with a chainsaw.

Hocus Pocus : This is clearly the number 1 Halloween movie of all time, and you should run out and buy a copy right now if you don't already have one.

Five Books
Links to my reviews

In A Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu : A collection of five stories, 3 focused on "spectral illusions" and 2 on "monsters", this is a perfectly creepy read where you aren't sure if the supernatural elements are real or the result of guilty/overactive psyches.

Dracula by Bram Stoker (especially the annotated edition) : The story of Dracula itself is entertaining, thought-provoking, beautifully Victorian, and compelling; but to read the story with a scholar's notes at your side - a scholar who chooses to believe it is a true story - is absolutely fantastic....and creepy.

The Sandman Series (graphic novels) by Neil Gaiman : Many times when I read something I deem creepy, it's in a sporadic, silly, or disgusting way, but not this novel. Gaiman sets a creepy tone and maintains it throughout the entire story. The pictures accompanying the text - this is afterall a graphic novel - do nothing the diminish this tone. I never found myself smiling at a ridiculous image.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness : Truly unique, the tale features three stories from the monster which reveal important truths but not ones typical for a fairy tale. I was so impressed with these stories: the way they worked together to complement the main narrative and the way they revealed humanity and not a pat moral. A Monster Calls also uses numerous illustrations throughout and they are done in a wonderfully creepy, gray scale style.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury : This is my number 1 Halloween book. Cooger & Dark's is more than just a dingy, dirty, dark carnival; it is alive, it breathes, it feeds. It is temptation, and that is why Bradbury's carnival creation is so much more sinister than other literary carnivals and freakshows I have read about. What a beautifully mysterious tale of good and evil.