Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Top Ten Tuesday


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This week we're being asked to list our Top Ten Books that We Just HAD to Buy & Haven't Read Yet. Seriously? Only ten? I don't think The Broke and the Bookish realizes what kind of bibliomaniacs a lot of book bloggers are. At least the kind of bibliomaniac this blogger is.... I, literally, have about 1,000 books sitting on my TBR list. That's only the books I own...that's not counting the books I've heard/read about and have put on the TBO (To Be Owned) list. But, hey, we need ten....so, in no particular order and not saying that these are the ones that have been sitting on the list the longest or that were the most urgently needed at the time. Just ten that I've randomly picked off my TBR list.

1. The Delights of Detection (detective short stories chosen & introduced by Jacques Barzun)
2. Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell (A mystery that came highly recommended by someone at sometime. It has a cover by Edward Gorey...I would have HAD to have it for that alone.)
3. The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov (A Science Fiction series that I just had to have. Like 20-some years ago. Because I was such a SF girl at the time and I love Asimov and had to have it.)
4. The Ascension Factor; The Jesus Incident; and The Lazurus Effect by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom (Another SF series that I just had to have because I loved Herbert's Dune and went on a gotta-have-Herbert binge.)

Literary Books that I had to have because I'm an English major by golly and I should read literature like this:
5. Pere Goroit by Honore de Balzac
6. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
7. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
8. Richard III by Shakespeare (plus four other plays that I thought I needed to have and read)
9. Poems & Prose by Christina Rossetti (I love Rossetti's poetry. Don't ask me why I never actually read this collection.)

And, in the Non-fiction category:

10. Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis (and 4-5 other books by Lewis that I HAD to have)

5 comments:

Suzanne said...

Yeah, they could have made this a Top 100 list and I think we all could have come up with that number :-)

Publishers just need to stop publishing good books and we have to avoid reading blogs and other book news and that will do the trick ... were it only so simple.

I have read Pere Goriot and it's not bad.

Daisy said...

Not to dishearten you, but I did not care for The Scarlet Letter. It was so incredibly slow and I don't know, I couldn't get into it. Hope you like it better!

Yvette said...

I love Christina Rossetti's poetry too. I have this book sitting on one of my shelves. A friend gave it to me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I dip into it now and then. I don't think poetry is meant to be swallowed whole in one giant gulp. Ha!

The Sarah Caudwell book was highly recommended to me as well. For whatever reason I've never read it.

Birdie said...

Sounds like a fun list! Good luck whittling it down!

LBC said...

Obviously from my blog title, I would recommend The Scarlet Letter.

Check out my list here: http://hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com/2011/03/top-ten-tuesday-tbr.html