Top Ten Tuesday: Unlikable Characters You Can’t Help but Love

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Unlikable Characters You Can’t Help but Love .

I almost skipped this one because I really couldn’t come up with a full ten… but what the heck, might as well share the ones I did think of!

My FIVE are:

Severus Snape (Harry Potter series): I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of Snape today. And yes, he’s problematic, but somewhere deep inside he did love Lily (even though he was awful to her son year in and year out…)
Prince Cardan (Folk of the Air series by Holly Black): A total mean jerk when we meet him, but eventually, he’s redeemed by love.
Tybalt, King of Dreaming Cats (October Daye series by Seanan McGuire): I mean, I never actually hated Tybalt, but Toby does at the beginning of the series! Fortunately, their hate/hate relationship morphs into something completely different.
Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice): When we meet Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, we see him through Louis’s eyes, and let’s just say, it’s not a favorable impression. But as of The Vampire Lestat, we get to see him as he sees himself, and he’s just so much fun!!
Damon Salvatore (The Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith): Well, to be totally honest, I don’t remember much about book Damon (or the books in general), but I loved Damon on the TV series, so I say that counts!

That’s it! Those are the only loveable baddies I could think of!

Can’t wait to see everyone else’s lists… so please share your links!

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18Oct2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite words discovered while reading

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Favorite Words. That felt a little broad to me, so I thought I’d try to come up with a list of words I learned, discovered, or just enjoyed through my reading.

My top 10 are:

Absquatulation: Departing in a hurry; absconding (encountered in the Outlander series)
Castrametation: the making or laying out of a military camp (also from the Outlander series)
Ligneous: made, consisting of, or resembling wood; woody (from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin)
Ludic: showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness (also from T&T&T)
Seneshal: the steward or major-domo of a medieval great house (from the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire)
Symbiont: an organism living in symbiosis with another. (from the Parasitology series by Mira Grant and from Fledgling by Octavia Butler)
Taradiddle ~ A fib, or falsity (from the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger)
Widdershins: in a direction contrary to the sun’s course, considered as unlucky; counterclockwise. (from Discworld books by Terry Pratchett)
Oubliette: a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling. (from A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness)
Barouche-landau: A barouche-landau was an expensive four-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses, with two collapsible hoods – one for the front-facing passengers and one for the rear-facing passengers. (from Emma by Jane Austen)

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Do you have any favorite words that you’ve picked up from your reading?

If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!Save

13Sep2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Geographical Terms in the Title

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books with Geographical Terms in the Title.

This was a fun one, and I had plenty to choose from!

Here’s my list:

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes
The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Jane of Lantern Hill by L. M. Montgomery
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

What books made your list this week?

If you wrote a TTT post this week, please share your link!

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30Aug2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Books connected to schools… somehow

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a School Freebie — and lacking the brain power at the moment to come up with a coherent theme, I thought I’d go for a more random post.

All of these books, one way or another, remind me of school or learning — so I’ll just go ahead and share my list and then explain why I chose these books.

1) Educated by Tara Westover: There’s the title, for starters, plus what’s more iconic when thinking about school than a big old pencil?

2) The Most Likely Club by Elyssa Friedland: I just finished this book, and it absolutely took me back to the days of high school yearbooks, extracurriculars, and cafeteria table groupings.

3) A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik: I did say this was going to be rather random. This is an example of a school that I would never, ever want to attend. It’s terrifying and potentially lethal.

4) The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: As opposed to this one, which is more of a home for magical children than a formal school, but education happens, so it counts! And it’s so lovable that I’m always happy to include it in a TTT post!

5) The Finishing School series by Gail Carriger: Now here’s another school I’d be happy to visit! I mean, it’s set on a dirigible! ‘Nuff said.

6) The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder: I will always be scared by the scenes of the children trying to get home from the schoolhouse in a blizzard. Brrrrrrr.

7) The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare: This book doesn’t have much to do with a school, although the main character does teach others to read. I associate it with my own school days, since I think it was pretty much required reading for every schoolkid in Connecticut, at least back when I lived there.

8) The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: Does this still get taught in high school? I read this for an English class, and this was long enough ago that “dystopian” wasn’t an entire genre yet. It felt so startling at the time!

9) The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan : And now, a weird detour into my more recent reading! This is all about a remedial school for parents deemed negligent in some way, and it’s very disturbing.

10) True Biz by Sara Novic: Wrapping things up with one more school-based book — this one takes place at a boarding school for the Deaf, and it’s amazing.

So… was your school freebie more organized than mine? What theme did you go with? Please share your TTT links!

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7Jun2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With a Unit of Time In the Title

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books With a Unit of Time In the Title (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, eternity, etc.) . Fun… and not too much work to put together — always a plus!

My 10 books:

My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki — the author’s first novel; so powerful!
Six Months, Three Days, Five Others by Charlie Jane Anders — I haven’t read this one yet, but I like the author, so I do want to get to it.
A Journey to the End of the Millennium by A. B. Yehoshua — one of my favorite Israeli authors, but I haven’t read this particular book (yet)
Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis — read last year! (review)
The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder — so many happy memories of reading this series with my daughter
Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti — loved this book! (review)
How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin — on my TBR (but I really don’t tend to read short story collections)
180 Seconds by Jessica Park — I think this is a very under-the-radar book, but I enjoyed it. (review)
20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill — I read one story in this collection, and it terrified me so much that I never read the rest. Maybe someday, when I’m feeling exceptionally brave…
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez — I have tried this book at least twice, and neither time have made it past the midpoint. Someone convince me to give it another try!

What books are on your list this week?

Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

17May2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Was SO EXCITED to Get, but Still Haven’t Read

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books I Was SO EXCITED to Get, but Still Haven’t Read. I have plenty of these! (Don’t we all?)

To keep it simple, I went back through my preorder spreadsheet (yes, I keep track of my book orders via an Excel spreadsheet!), and discovered plenty of books that I ordered well in advance of the release date… and still haven’t gotten around to reading. Sigh…

I only went back through my last 4 – 5 years of book buying — I’m sure I have plenty of older books that would fit this list too!

My top 10 books (and the year each was purchased) are:

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (2018)
Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness (2018)
Someday by David Levithan (2018
Death of an Eye by Dana Stabenow (2018)
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (2019)
The Five by Hallie Rubenhold (2020)
When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey (2020)
Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister (2020)
Ambush or Adore by Gail Carriger (2021)
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (2022)

What books made your list this week? Are there any on my list that you think I should read ASAP?

Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

3May2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Two-word word association for the last 10 books I’ve read

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is One-Word Reviews for the Last Ten Books I Read. I tried, but I couldn’t think about how to do this — my list would have been basically: scary! funny! sweet! etc… not very enlightening.

So, I thought I’d do a bit of word association. Remember playing word association games? Say the first word that comes to mind…

In this case, I decided to do the two words that come to mind when I think about the most recent books I’ve read. Here goes!

Hollywood & Hyenas

Narwhals & Cheese

Mule & Pajama Party

Lawyers & Scones

ASL & Anarchy

Bonedog & Dustwife

Doll-children & Surveillance

Tudors & Shapeshifters

Cake & Kissing

Dating & Demons

How did you do with this week’s TTT prompt? Did you have better luck than I did writing one-word reviews?

Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

26Apr2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with BOOKS on the cover

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books with [___] On the Cover (Pick a thing (a color, an item, a place, an animal, a scripty font, a sexy person, etc.) and share covers that have that thing on the cover.). I took what seemed like an easy-ish approach and went with books!

I love books about books and readers — how about you? Do you have a favorite?

What was your TTT theme this week? Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

12Apr2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I Haven’t Read, But Want To

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Authors I Haven’t Read, But Want To, and I definitely have a bunch of those!

In no particular order, my list includes:

Jess Kidd: I own two of this author’s books, and I’m especially interested in reading Things in Jars, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

2. Jesse Q. Sutanto: The “auntie” books look so cute!

3. Stacey Lee: I have one of her books, and love the sound of at least one more.

4. Mike Chen: I keep picking up Kindle books by this author because they sound so good, yet I haven’t read any of them (yet).

5. Elizabeth Acevedo: I own one of her books, and know there’s another that I need to read as well.

6. Sarah Pinsker: The sci-fi award-winning author’s books sound really intriguing to me.

7. Sarah Moss: Another author where I own one book, and have another on my wishlist.

8. Peng Shepherd: And again — I have the first book below (unread), and I’m wishing for the second.

9. Kate Quinn: I feel so behind when it comes to this author! I have copies of three of her books, and have yet to read a single one.

10. N. K. Jemisen: I’ve been wanting to read both her Broken Earth and Inheritance series, but have never quite found the right time to start.

Have you read books by any of the authors on my list? If so, which do you think I should make a priority? What authors were on your TTT list this week?

Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

5Apr2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Adaptations I’m Looking Forward To

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a freebie, which means we each come up with whatever we feel like writing about. I decided to go with the books being adapted for TV or movies in the coming year that I’m most excited for.

This is really the golden age of TV (and movies)! At least, for book lovers it is. Here are some adaptations coming soon(ish) that I’ll want to check out:

1) Pachinko – currently airing on Apple TV, based on the book by Min Jin Lee. I don’t have Apple TV and wasn’t planning to sign up… but this is really tempting me.

2) Daisy Jones & the Six – no release date yet, but it’ll be coming to Amazon… eventually. The show started filming in fall 2021 and stars Riley Keough as Daisy and Sam Claflin as Billy. Can’t wait to see how this turns out!

3) The Time Traveler’s Wife – coming to HBO in May 2022. This is a favorite book, but I did not like the 2009 movie version, which completely missed what made the book so special. I have high hopes for this new adaptation, which stars Rose Leslie and Theo James.

4) Persuasion – a new version! I actually love the 1995 film, but I don’t hate the idea of a fresh take either. Coming to Netflix sometime in 2022, this adaptation stars Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis.

5) The Storied Life of AJ Fikry – The movie is supposedly filming now. I haven’t found a confirmed release date, but estimates are 2022 or 2023. Kunal Nayyar (of Big Bang Theory) has the lead role.

6) Killers of the Flower Moon – another one coming to Apple TV! Argh, I really may have to bite the bullet and subscribe. There isn’t a firm release date set as far as I’ve seen, but it looks like it’ll be late 2022 or early 2023.

7) House of the Dragon – Based on George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, this Game of Thrones prequel series will be huge, I’m sure. Airing August 2021 on HBO… and yes, I’ll probably watch, despite the awful taste left behind by the end of GoT.

8) Where the Crawdads Sing – coming to theaters in July 2022. I’m eager to see if a movie can do justice to the characters.

9) Kindred – Absolutely yes to the adaptation of this fabulous work by the great Octavia Butler. No release date yet, but it’s being adapted for TV by FX. Find out more here.

10) An Offer From A Gentleman – Okay, yes, it’s a little soon to be hungry for season 3 of Bridgerton… but what else are we supposed to do after binging season 2?