Top Ten Tuesday Archives - Page 11 of 12 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Older Books I Want to Read

By Brookelorren on November 6, 2018November 5, 201822 Comments

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Tuesday! Today’s official topic is “Backlist Books I Want to Read”. I’m just going to write about older books in general, because some of these books may be out of print, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still get them. With the internet, almost any book that you want is at your fingertips (with the exception of Life After Legend that came as a pre-order gift with Warcross – I’m pretty sure nobody wants to sell their copy because I never see it on eBay).

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

So here’s today’s list (they’re in no particular order):

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (series) ~ Laini Taylor – I enjoyed Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares so much this year that I’d like to check out some more of Laini Taylor’s work. Maybe I’ll be able to get to these in 2019. This year I spent a lot of time catching up on entire series of books that came out years ago (like The Mortal Instruments) so next year I may have more time to read some of these backlist books.

Naughts & Crosses ~ Malorie Blackman – This was a book that Goodreads recommended to me based on the fact that I liked The Midnight Star by Marie Lu. It sounds like an interesting book that makes a statement about interracial relationships. Considering that I’m in an interracial relationship, it sounds like a book I might want to read someday.

The Raven Cycle ~ Maggie Stiefvater – I’ve heard a lot about the Raven Cycle and think that maybe I should check it out someday.

Michael Vey (series) ~ Richard Paul Evans – This is one of those series that whenever I think about it, I wonder “why haven’t I read this yet?” My daughter has read several of these books and thinks they’re great. I’m sure I own several of these on my Kindle. Although I’ve known about this series since before it first came out, I still haven’t read any of them.

The Grisha Trilogy ~ Leigh Bardugo – One of the reasons why I have not read Six of Crows yet is because I hope to read The Grisha Trilogy first. This is another one of those series that I intend to get to in 2019. I’ve read a couple of Ms. Bardugo’s short stories, so it’s not like I haven’t read anything that she’s done, but I just haven’t read any of her novels yet.

The Darkest Minds (series) ~ Alexandra Bracken – this book got a lot of attention earlier this year when a movie came out about it. I don’t watch a lot of movies, but I do like dystopian fiction. This isn’t at the top of my list, but it may be something that I’m interested in reading someday.

The Infernal Devices (series) ~ Cassandra Clare – I will start reading Clockwork Angel as soon as I finish reading the ARC that I plan on reviewing next week. There are still two other books in this series to read, but I have the second book in the series on hold at the library. There’s a good chance that I will read these books before the end of 2018. I’ve already purchased Lady Midnight and pre-ordered Queen of Air and Darkness; I’ll probably read that series either late this year or early next year.

Rora ~ James Byron Huggins – I’m pretty sure that this book is no longer in print. Nevertheless, you can still buy it. I got a copy this summer when I was planning on reading it for the Summer TBR Wipeout, but you see how well that plan went, as it’s still on my TBR. This book is about a group of persecuted Christians during the Middle Ages. I thought that their story sounded fascinating when I first heard about it ten years ago, but I didn’t buy the book then, and now that I’ve bought the book, I still haven’t read it. Like Michael Vey, one of these days I will read it.

1453 ~ Roger Crowley – Evidently, the 1400s were an eventful time in world history, because there are several books that are named after years in this century. 1453 might not be at the top of my TBR, but it sounds like it would be an interesting book. This particular 1400 book is about the crusades.

Blacklisted by History ~ M. Stanton Evans – in the late 20th century, McCarthyism was a term that was synonymous with “witch hunt.” People lost their jobs if they were accused of being sympathizers with communists. It’s likely that several innocent people lost their livelihoods after being accused of being a communist, but the truth is, there were communists in the US government. This story sounds like an interesting take on an often-misunderstood part of US history.

So there’s my Top Ten Tuesday for the week. Next week: Book Related Things I’d Like. I might get some Christmas ideas from other people’s clever lists, but I can’t think of much specific bookish merchandise, so I’m broadening the category for next week.

What older books would you like to read?

Books with Dark Magic and/or Darkness

By Brookelorren on October 30, 2018October 29, 201822 Comments

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic is a Halloween/Creepy Freebie (hosted, as usual, by That Artsy Reader Girl). I’ve decided to write about books with dark magic and/or darkness in them. I don’t celebrate Halloween, so I had to alter the topic a bit.

So a little bit about my Halloween story. Back when I was in college, I went to Knott’s Scary Farm with my future husband, a couple of his friends, and his future fiancée (perhaps you notice that this is already getting weird). So my husband had broken up with his future fiancée, then we went out for a while, and then he went out with her again. And we were all at Knott’s Scary Farm together. Needless to say, it didn’t really go all that well. But I was at this Beetlejuice show, and this fake Beetlejuice character was telling jokes about death and I was just thinking “this really isn’t funny. Death isn’t really funny.” I’m sure that being there with my future husband and his then-girlfriend didn’t help anything, but I haven’t really been into Halloween since.

But I digress. Back to our Top Ten List:

Slasher Girls and Monster Boys – This will probably be the closest thing that I get to a “Halloween” read this year. It’s an anthology with several stories from various authors. Like most anthologies, some stories are better than others. It has a lot of stories where bad boys and girls get the justice that they deserve. And there’s creepiness and in many of these stories, a little bit of magic. If you’re looking for something to read tomorrow while you’re handing out candy, maybe this is your book.

Enchantée ~ Gita Trelease – Enchantée is not a creepy book at all, but there is a creepy villain in this book that uses his magic for evil and not for good. There has to be some force that works against the heroine of a story or it’s not a good book, right?

Give the Dark My Love ~ Beth Revis – In Give the Dark My Love, our main character is literally practicing necromancy. If I was going to put “necromancy” under a dark magic or a light magic umbrella, it would definitely go under dark magic.

Frequency ~ Christopher Krovatin – At first glance, Frequency seems to be a contemporary novel about high school students that are into music and use a few too many drugs. This book has it’s own kind of magic in it: music. Maybe you’ve gotten so into a song that you feel like the beat is controlling you (I know I have). In this book, the magic of music takes that feeling a step farther and is actually controlling people.

The Young Elites ~ Marie Lu – Not everybody in The Young Elites is dark: just our main character, Adelina Amouteru. Maybe she could have been a good person if life had treated her a little differently. At any rate, the main character in this series does some pretty evil things and her powers granted from the gods are pretty magical.

Ember in the Ashes ~ Sabaa Tahir – While the main characters in the Ember in the Ashes series are neither evil or magical, there is some evil magic afoot in this story. And there are evil characters. Plus, this series is pretty darned good.

Ever the Hunted ~ Erin Summerill – Ever the Hunted (and its sequel, Ever the Brave) is not one of those stories that feels creepy, but there is definitely some dark magic in this story. Our main characters are amazingly sweet, but there are some mind-controllers out there, and they’re not so sweet.

Throne of Glass ~ Sarah J. Maas – The Throne of Glass series has some pretty dark and creepy magic in it (although the first book doesn’t have a lot of magic in it). Our main character is also a pretty wicked assassin. I still have to read the last three books in the series (it’s really long) but it’s definitely worth reading.

Ace of Shades ~ Amanda Foody – The setting of Ace of Shades is very much like Las Vegas with a little bit of magic. It’s dark and gritty and dangerous. Definitely not a place that you’d want to be wandering alone in after dark.

The Mortal Instruments series ~ Cassandra Clare – This series has all the creepy crawlies in it: demons, werewolves, vampires, and the like. Yet, I don’t really feel like these are creepy books at all. Nevertheless, since I’m writing about books that contain dark magic or darkness in them, these books qualify. And they are probably going to make my list of Top Ten Books I Read for the First Time in 2018 (I lump all books in series together) so they should make it to today’s list.

Well, that’s today’s Top Ten List. Next week, I’ll list ten older books that I still want to read.

What books have you read that have dark magic or darkness in them?

Villains (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on October 23, 2018October 22, 201831 Comments

Another Tuesday, another round of Top Ten Tuesday. Today’s topic is Villains. While thinking about this topic, I realized that not every book has a good villain.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Without further adieu, these are some of the villains that I found interesting:

Valentine: The Mortal Instruments (Books 1-3). Valentine from The Mortal Instruments series is a great villain. He thinks that he’s doing the right thing. Perhaps at one time, he was doing the right thing, but he got carried away. And he became very, very bad. Real life villains are often the same way.

Adelina Amouteru: The Young Elites. It’s not often that the villain and the heroine are the same people. You have to feel sorry for Adelina because you know her story, and you know that deep down inside, she’s a decent person, but she’s wicked at the same time. Somehow, you just can’t help but root for her and hope that she redeems herself.

Vicomte de Séguin: Enchantée. I don’t think that there’s many redeeming qualities about the Vicomte de Séguin in Enchantée (it’s an amazing book, you’ll want to read it when it comes out). He is so devious and smart though. And in the end, it seems like he might feel that he has no choice but to be evil. Of course, we all have choices.

Maven: Red Queen series. Maven is one of those villains that you have to like, at least a little. He had crappy parenting and might have been a decent person, if he hadn’t been pushed to the dark side. I was even hoping that he would change.

Pit Viper: Frequency. He seems like such a nice guy! People seem to love him. And he was treated horribly. Still, once you find out what he’s planning, you realize that he’s not such a great guy after all. Maybe he’ll change. You want him to change. That’s why he makes a great villain.

Redacted: Everless. Unless you read Everless, then you probably don’t know who the true villain of this story is. If I was to say who this person was, it would be too much of a spoiler. This person makes a great villain because you don’t even suspect him/her! He/she seems so nice. I’m not sure if there are any redeeming qualities to him/her, but he/she’s a great villain because he/she blends in so well!

Zero: Warcross. Is Zero really the villain? Or is he a hero? Or is someone else altogether the villain? One of the things that I love about the villainy in the Warcross duology is that there’s a point in Wildcard where you’re thinking “there is nobody in power that is good in this story.” Sometimes real life is like that, especially when it comes to politics.

Prince of Hearts: Legendary. He probably doesn’t have too many redeeming qualities to him, but he puts Tella in a seemingly impossible situation. He’s quite devious, and as a result, he’s a fairly noteworthy villain.

Catherine: Heartless. I’m not sure if we can consider Catherine to be the villain of this story or not, but we know that she becomes a villain. Maybe that’s why she makes such a good villain in this story. She’s not really a bad person, is she? But life’s circumstances shape her in a way that cause her to become a bad person. Often, that’s the way people become villains in real life.

The Nightbringer: Ember in the Ashes tetralogy. This guy is really creepy. I don’t want to give out spoilers if you haven’t read the series, but the way he uses people is just disgusting. Which makes him a good villain. Because you have to loathe him. Maybe at one point there were good things about him, but his interactions with Laia… ::shudder::. Another good thing that for a long time, he fools some of the readers into thinking that he’s not really a bad guy. Now that I know better, I’m going to have to think of this when I reread the series prior to Ember 4 coming out.

So there are all the baddies for this week! I who are your favorite villains? I can’t wait to find out. Leave a link to your Top Ten Tuesday and I’ll visit!

Next week: Stories with Dark Magic and darkness. I’m not a real Halloween person (I’ll give you the back story next week) but there are plenty of stories with dark magic to go around!

Book Settings I’d Like To Visit

By Brookelorren on October 16, 2018October 16, 201834 Comments

It’s Tuesday again, and today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic is “Bookstores/Libraries I’ve Always Wanted to Visit”. I’ve chosen to do “Book Settings I’d Like to Visit” instead. In case you’re wondering, the bookstores/libraries I’d like to visit include Powell’s Books in Portland (been there but it’s awesome), the National Archives, Library of Congress, and the Vatican library. But back to ten bookish settings:

There are a lot of bookish settings that would absolutely be terrible to visit because they’re always at war or something. But not all of them would be that bad.

The Shire: Who wouldn’t want to visit the Shire? I wouldn’t want to go at some periods of it’s history, but overall, it seems like a nice place. If it looks anything like the movies, it would be gorgeous. I guess the next best thing would be to go to New Zealand. But I’ve never been there either.

Narnia: Narnia would be a lovely place to visit. As long as you went at the right time. I mean, who would want to visit while the White Witch was still reigning and there was an eternal winter (with no Christmas)? It would be cool to see the talking animals and the mythical creatures.

Heaven: The Bible has a lot of places that would be pretty cool to visit. The Garden of Eden would be interesting to see (before that whole fruit thing happened, of course). I probably wouldn’t want to stay very long in any one place, because I probably wouldn’t really like their idea of sanitation, but Heaven would be a pretty cool place to stay for a very long time. We’re supposed to be happy there forever, right?

Tokyo of Warcross: I think it would be pretty cool to visit the Tokyo of Warcross. It would probably be a pretty fun game to play. The virtual overlays over everything would be cool to see as well. I’m not sure that the whole social scoring would be too good in real life (they’re already doing that in China) but other aspects of the game and its leakage into reality would be fun.

The Prairie of Little House: I guess there’s something of a theme in a lot of places I’d like to visit. Imagine the peace and quiet where you could read all of those books! But it would be lovely to visit some of those old-timey places where there weren’t a lot of people around and it was just you and nature.

Prince Edward Island of Anne of Green Gables time: here’s another one of those old-timey places that would be quiet and fun to visit for a bit. I bet it would get pretty cold in the winter though, since it’s so far up north. Maybe I’d only want to visit in the summer. Or I’d want to have extra warm clothes to wear. I get cold pretty easily.

Feudal Japan of Flame in the Mist: We’re going to assume that if I go to visit this place, I’m not going to be a peasant, because that would be no fun at all. But the magical forests and the like would probably be quite beautiful.

Krynn of Dragonlance: While I wouldn’t want to visit Krynn during one of their numerous wars, there were periods of peace in the land’s history (I think). It would be pretty fun to study to be a mage. I imagine they’d have to be Erudite like me, since they always have to read books.

Ireland, of The Wren Hunt: This was a last-minute edition to this post, because I just read it last week. The Wren Hunt is set in modern-day Ireland. Not in a big city or anything, but in a small village. Although the book doesn’t do a lot to describe the surroundings, I’ve seen pictures of Ireland before and I know it’s a beautiful place. So, I’d probably love to visit the setting of this book.

Pacific Crest Trail of Wild: At this point, I’ve gone through my entire read list on Goodreads (there’s a lot of books that I’ve read that aren’t on Goodreads that I don’t remember though) and I still have to come up with one other place. I’d love to visit the Pacific Crest Trail though, which is in the book Wild. I love hiking, and think that this would be a fun thing to do. I’d need new shoes though. Since I walk all day at work, I go through shoes fairly quickly, and am in need of a new pair. Especially if I plan on going on a massive hike like this.

So that’s today’s list. Come back next week when I talk about villains!

Really Long Books That I’ve Read

By Brookelorren on October 9, 2018October 8, 201830 Comments

Time for another Top Ten Tuesday! Today’s Topic is “Longest Books I’ve Ever Read” but how does one figure that one out? I’ve read some really long books in my life. Since I can’t pinpoint the longest books I’ve read in my lifetime, I guess you’ll have to settle about reading about some of the really long books that I’ve read. They’re all over 800 pages long!

A lot of these are history books because they can be really long.

The Bible might be the longest book that most of us ever read. Maybe. I’m guessing that the majority of people around today have never actually read the Bible from cover to cover. I try to every year, but I’m failing miserably this year. I have different editions that I read (one year I read it in Spanish for a challenge and to improve my Spanish language skills). The American Patriot’s Bible is 1568 pages and contains a lot of interesting facts about the founding of the United States.

A History of Modern Europe – at 1515 pages, this is a really long book! It’s definitely not something that you’re going to read over the weekend. It was really good though. A lot of history that I’ve read over the years either deals with world history or American history. This one focuses solely on Europe, which has had plenty of its own problems!

Atlas Shrugged might very well be the longest fictional book that I read. This edition is 1188 pages! It is not an easy read, either. This particular book took me months to read. I wasn’t blogging about books at the time, but even if I were to reread this book today, I think it would take me a while to get through. The writing is not easy.

I’m sure that there will be a lot of George R.R. Martin books on Top Ten Tuesday posts this week. The edition of A Dance with Dragons that I read was 1125 pages! No wonder they took me so long to read! I read the five books that were published while I was at work last year; I was reading this series on my lunch break for months!

The edition of A Storm of Swords that I read was 973 pages. Even though these books are long, they were a lot easier to read than Atlas Shrugged. They’re still long enough that I don’t plan on reading them again until the last book comes out. Well, maybe if Winds of Winter comes out ten years from now, I might reread the series before that, but if it’s out in another two or three years (LOL) then I’ll probably wait on the reread.

A Patriot’s History of the United States is another very long book, with 960 pages to it. This one focuses on the history of the United States, from its discovery by the Europeans to fairly recently. Although long, it was well-written and easy to read.

The History of the Ancient World is 896 pages. Susan Wise Bauer’s writing is interesting and easy to read. Even though this book took me a little while to get through, it didn’t take me months like some of the more difficult books on this list did.

From Dawn to Decadence is 895 pages (at least the original hardback edition that I read was) and took me a very long time to read. It’s not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. I had aspartame poisoning the first time I tried reading it, which made it difficult for me to remember details of the book as I read it. Years later, I tried reading it again, and I was able to finish it. I read it right around the time that the author died (he was really old at the time).

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a long book, even in the abridged version, which is what I read a long time ago. This Penguin Classic edition was 848 pages. It took me months to read this. Someday, I hope to read the unabridged version of this book, but that’s 3,674 pages — and it’s not easy reading, either! That will probably be the longest book that I’ll ever read.

The Creators by Daniel J. Boorstin is 832 pages long. I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did The Discoverers, but this was a good book. For a book this long, it didn’t take too much time for me to finish. Looking this book up on Goodreads, I discovered that there’s yet another book in this series — The Seekers — that I had never heard of before. I had to add that to my TBR, because these books are amazing.

So there you have it: ten über long books that I’ve read. I have some really long books on my TBR, but most of them (with the exception of Kingdom of Ash) are not quite as long as these!

Next week I will probably write about settings in books that I’d like to visit. The topic is on bookstores and libraries I’d like to visit, but since I can only think of three of those, I’ll be switching up the topic a bit.

Authors I’d Love to Meet (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on October 2, 2018October 1, 201830 Comments

Hooray for another Top Ten Tuesday! Today we’re going to talk about Authors that I’d Love to Meet. For this question, I’m not necessarily going to talk about authors that I’d like to wait in line at a bookstore to get an autograph from… because that would basically include any author whose books I like.

Today’s list includes authors that I’d like to hang out with for the day. Maybe go to their house, have over for dinner (assuming that I wasn’t cooking and there’d be maid service involved) or just chill. I’m also assuming that I wouldn’t be a blithering idiot when hanging out with them and we could just hang out like normal people (that’s a big assumption, but let’s say a little magic is involved for that. It’s not like any of these fantasy scenarios are going to happen in the first place).

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Thank you once again!

1. Marie Lu

Is this one really a surprise? It probably shouldn’t be if you’ve read this blog for a while. I’m not exactly sure I’d want her to know how much fanfiction I’ve written based on her books because that might be embarrassing though. We went to the same college, so I guess there’s a couple minutes of conversation that we could have, LOL. Ms. Lu seems like a really nice person who cares about people. At least that’s how she comes across in her books and tweets.

2. Veronica Roth

I had to also include my other auto-buy author, Veronica Roth. Her book that’s expected to be released in 2020 was the first 2020 book on my TBR. I love everything that she’s written so far, even the short story that she’s written that made it into Summer Days and Summer Nights. Okay, not chapter 50 of Allegiant, but I try not to think of that one. Ms. Roth doesn’t post a lot to Twitter, so I don’t really know if we’d have much to talk about other than her books, but I suppose I could ask her about how she likes Chicago.

3. Cassandra Clare

I’ve been reading a lot of The Mortal Instruments lately, and I think they’re really good, but that’s not the main reason why I’d want to meet her. I’d love for her to show me her library! She posted a picture of her workspace on Twitter once and it was only part of her library, and it was gorgeous! Plus, her bio says that she’s travelled a lot. She also got her start by writing fanfiction, so it would be cool to talk to her about that. Plus… maybe I could ask her if she’d convince her publisher to release R-rated versions of some of her books ;-). I know she writes those extra scenes and posts them on Tumblr.

4. Alice Reeds

Alice Reeds isn’t well-known, but she’s the author of Echoes, which I reviewed earlier this year. Why would I want to meet her? She lived in Germany for a long time. She speaks both German and Russian, and so do I. I think that she would be really interesting to talk to.

5. Paper Fury

So if I met her today I’d have to apologize for not reading her book yet, but I did buy it! She seems so nice on her blog and on Twitter, plus I’m pretty sure she lives in Australia. I love Australia! I spent five weeks there on an exchange with the Australian military, and it was awesome. I got to see quite a few cities on the East coast, from Canberra to Cairns. So I think she’d be fascinating to meet.

6. Sabaa Tahir

Not only do I love her Ember in the Ashes books, but she seems like a really nice person on Twitter (if you’ve liked or responded to one of my tweets, your chances of getting on today’s list go up drastically). After A Reaper at the Gates came out, she stayed at a few hotels that were haunted. I’d have to ask her if she’s stayed at any haunted hotels recently!

7. Astrid Scholte

I haven’t read her book, Four Dead Queens, that is supposed to come out next year (although I’d love an ARC), but she seems like a really nice person on Twitter. We could probably talk about our favorite books, and I could ask her about what it’s like to get her first book published, because why not? I’d love to do that someday.

8. Laura E. Weymouth

While I haven’t read her book The Light Between Worlds (it isn’t even out yet), she seems like a really nice person that I’d like to meet; we’ve tweeted back and forth a few times. Plus, she lives on a big farm or something that would probably be pretty cool to visit.

9. Laini Taylor

Strange the Dreamer is a wonderful book and I’m looking forward to Muse of Nightmares as well (out today!). She also seems to be fairly intelligent when it comes to politics, although I’m sure there’s a lot that we wouldn’t agree on. But what’s the fun with talking to an echo chamber?

10. Kiersten White

Here’s another author whose books I haven’t read yet (although I did buy a couple of her books, LOL) but I’d like to meet her. She’s very encouraging on Twitter. I don’t know a whole lot about her other than that, but if she came over to my house for dinner, we could talk books!

So that’s this week’s Top Ten Tuesday. What authors would you like to meet? Would you like to hang out with them and pick their brains, or do you think that meeting them while they sign your books is intimidating enough? Leave a link to your TTT and I’ll visit back!

Next week, I’m posting some of the longest books I’ve ever read! I don’t know if it’s the very longest books I’ve ever read, but I did find ten books that I read ranging from over 800 to more than 1500 pages long. I’m glad not all books are that long!

Books By Awesome Authors I Still Haven’t Read

By Brookelorren on September 25, 2018September 22, 201848 Comments

Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). Today’s topic is supposed to be “Books By My Favorite Authors That I Still Haven’t Read,” but I want to also include authors that I like, but don’t necessarily consider to be among my “favorites”. That way this post can have more variety.

Cassandra Clare. There are a lot of books that I haven’t read by Cassandra Clare yet. I haven’t read any of The Infernal Devices yet, or The Dark Artifices. Although I’m finishing up The Mortal Instruments, I haven’t had the time to read any of these. I’ll be checking them out of my library soon, however.

Sarah J. Maas. I have had the opportunity to read most of the Throne of Glass series over the last couple of months, but I haven’t read any of A Court of Thorns and Roses. Or any of the novellas. I’ll get around to them someday, but she’s written quite a lot.

Renée Ahdieh. I read Flame in the Mist, Smoke in the Sun, and The Wrath & the Dawn earlier this year, but I still haven’t read The Rose & the Dagger. I would like to read it at some point, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe because this book doesn’t have a waiting list and I can read this whenever I want to.

Victoria Aveyard. When I first wrote this post, I thought that there would be no way War Storm would become available at the library before today. Well, it did become available, and I did get to read it, but I haven’t read any of the novellas. I’m going to be really busy in November with NaNoWriMo, maybe I’ll read some of the novellas that month.

Stephanie Garber. I read Caraval earlier this year, and I thought it was great. I haven’t had the chance to read Legendary yet. Of course, I also haven’t had the chance to read Finale yet, because it’s not out yet.

Laini Taylor. Now we’re getting to the part of today’s list where I’m getting desperate to find books I haven’t read by amazing authors. I haven’t read Muse of Nightmares yet, although I do have it on pre-order. But then again, I also haven’t read her Daughter of Smoke and Bone series yet, so I guess we’re not getting too desperate to find books I haven’t read. Yet.

Gavin Menzies. I’ve read two of his books, and I thought they were pretty good. I still haven’t read 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance yet. I’ve had to dig into nonfiction at this point, but I haven’t read this book, and would like to.

Bill O’Reilly. There are quite a few of O’Reilly’s Killing series that I haven’t read yet. I have read Killing the Rising Sun, Killing Reagan, and Killing Lincoln, and I thought they were really good. I haven’t read Killing the SS yet, although it’s not out yet. There are a few other Killing books I haven’t read yet either.

Marie Lu. Amazingly enough, I actually haven’t read everything by Marie Lu. Shocking, right? While technically she’s only a contributor to these books, I recently found out about some stories that she wrote for a couple of anthologies, including Slasher Girls and Monster Boys. I really liked Veronica Roth’s story in Summer Days and Summer Nights, so I figure that I have to go check this one out now. Plus, there are other great authors in this anthology too.

She also has a story in A Tyranny of Petticoats that I’m going to have to check out as well. Then she has an essay in another book and I think a Middle Grade book that I haven’t read yet. So I guess I have some things to check out between now and 2020 when Kingdom of Back comes out!

Untitled Sabaa Tahir Sabaa Tahir. I haven’t read the fourth book in the Ember in the Ashes Tetralogy either. It doesn’t even have a title yet. But fortunately, we’re at 10 books now, otherwise I’d tell you how I also haven’t read The Chosen Ones, which will be Veronica Roth’s new book, out in 2020. But we’re out of time now.

Hidden Gems (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on September 11, 2018September 11, 201828 Comments

It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means! Another Top Ten Tuesday post. This week, we’re going to be talking about Hidden Gems. I’m guessing that this is the opposite of the Hyped Up Books topic that we did at the end of July. So today I’m writing about some books that I liked, that don’t get talked about a lot. Since I’ve only been book blogging for about four months, I apologize in advance if I include a book that was once really popular but I haven’t heard much about.

I’m only including books that have already been released.

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

So before I dig around into the Goodreads vault to find some books that I liked that I read a long time ago, I’ll start with some YA books. One recent book that I really liked was Echoes, by Alice Reeds. I couldn’t put it down, and ended up reading it in one day.

Not that reading a book in more than one day means that I didn’t like the book (it took me a few days to read King’s Cage and I thought that was great), but in the absence of having to go to work and reading a book that is über-long, it usually takes me a day to read a really good book like this.

Another story that I read this year that I thought was pretty good was My Real Name is Hanna, which is a story about a Jewish girl who struggled to survive in the Ukraine during World War II. I haven’t heard a lot about this story, which is pretty sad, because the story was enjoyable.

From here we go back in time, although The Weight of Feathers was released in 2015, so it wasn’t that long ago. I read it this April, however. This book is a little like Romeo and Juliet, in that it is about two teens from feuding families that end up falling in love. It has a different sort of ending, however. It won some awards, and I found out about it because my library posted a link on Facebook about it.

I don’t know if you’d really consider The Book of Lies to be a hidden gem, because I first heard about it on television, but this book has been around for a while (it came out in 2008) and I’m sure it doesn’t have many people talking about it any more. I only remember bits and pieces of this story, but I remember I liked it quite a lot, and I ended up staying up late to finish it. Did you know that Superman has something to do with the Bible? The answer to that connection lies in this book.

The Heavenly Man is definitely a hidden gem. I first heard about it in church, LOL. I really loved this story, and I’ve heard from a few people that read it later, and they really enjoyed it as well. It made me rethink the concept of miracles. We seem to think of them as things that no longer exist today, but I think that maybe we rarely see miracles because we don’t need them that much.

At this point in my list, I think I’m running out of truly hidden gems; maybe if they ever decide to do this list at some point in the future, I’ll have more for you. Prior to book blogging, I heard of most books on TV, so they can’t really be that hidden, can they? But I’m sure that the rest of these books won’t be on very many Top Ten Tuesday lists this year anyway. One of those books that I really liked was 1421: The Year China Discovered America. I thought that this was a really interesting idea, and China did have quite a fleet at the time that Menzies thinks that China might have sailed to America, so who knows? It is an interesting idea.

Again, I doubt that we could call Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature to be a hidden gem, because I heard about it on the radio several times before I finally got around to putting it on hold at the library, but I also doubt that it’s going to make too many Top Ten Tuesday lists any time soon.

This book made my list of top books that I read in 2017. I found it to be really interesting. We always think of our own times as violent, but when compared to the past, it’s actually not. If you’ve ever wondered where the phrase “cut off their nose to spite their face” comes from, or have ever pondered whether medieval torture techniques would fly today, this might be an interesting nonfiction read.

I thought Defying Hitler was a great book, even though it’s unfinished. And yes, I first heard about this book on television. In my German class way back in middle school, I remember hearing about Germans who had to bring wheelbarrow loads full of cash to buy a loaf of bread. This is the story of someone who actually lived through it, all the way to after Hitler started to come into power, and people had to go to indoctrination camps. It was an interesting true story.

In the Garden of Beasts is another one of those World War II books that is quite eerie. This is the story of an ambassador and his family that came to Germany right about the time that Hitler came to power. Also probably not hidden, but as this book’s been out for a while now, I doubt it gets talked about as much as it used to.

Never Stop Walking is a book that I reviewed earlier this year, and you still don’t hear a lot about. Christina Rickardsson grew up in caves and then in the slums of Brazil. For those of us who grew up living in homes and never really had to seriously worry about our friends getting killed by the police or having to kill someone in order to get something to eat, this story is a journey into a life that we don’t hear a lot about. This book still remains fairly hidden.

So those are some hidden gems for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday. Next week I’ll talk about books that I hope to read this fall.

Books Made into Movies: Which Was Better? (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on September 4, 2018September 3, 201850 Comments

It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means… another Top Ten Tuesday post. Today’s Topic is supposed to be “Bingeworthy TV Shows/Movies”, but I’ll be doing a post on “Books That Were Made into Movies: Which Was Better?” Because I’m sure that you’re not interested in this:

Or this:

And since I usually only watch TV shows during my Russian meetup group, I think I’ll stick to books (the last one, Red Queen, has nothing to do with the Aveyard books). These are in no particular order.

How could I write a Top Ten Tuesday post about movies without including Divergent? Divergent was the movie that got me into reading YA. I actually saw the movie trailer before I read the book, and I read the book before I saw the movie. Despite the fact that I own all the movies in this series and have seen them several times (mostly in Spanish to practice my language skills), I actually don’t think the movie was all that great. I don’t think Shailene Woodley did an outstanding acting job here, and although Theo James is kinda hot, his acting was just okay as well. Plus, they get the stupidest details wrong in these movies (eye color, tattoos, location of the safe house in book 1…). I understand that they changed some of the details for artistic license, but these movies could have been a lot more faithful to the books. Maybe I’m bothered by it because of the hours and hours and hours of Divergent trivia that I’ve played on QuizUp.

Verdict: Books were better.

The Hunger Games is another book series that I loved that was made into movies. I think I watched the first movie before I read the books, but I read the rest of the books before I saw the movies. This was a series that I read in both English and in Spanish.

I think that they did a great job on the movies here. They seemed to stay fairly faithful to the books, and the acting was decent as well. I would have liked the movies even if I hadn’t read the books.

Verdict: Both the books and movies were good.

The Little House on the Prairie books are classic books. I don’t know how many times I read the set when I was a kid. The television show that ran in the 1980s was fairly popular as well. When my kids were younger, we’d watch the TV show with them, and it’s still pretty good.

However, even though the television show was pretty good, I still think that the books were better. The TV series had a feel-good message and moral lessons, but it wasn’t enough to beat the books.

Verdict: Books were better.

Anne of Green Gables is another series that I’ve read that they made into movies. I haven’t watched the Netflix series based on this show, but I did see some movies that they did of this show years ago. I wasn’t really that impressed (I think that I’ve seen two different versions of this book to screen adaptation). Even if the movies had been good, they didn’t cover the entire series, and Rilla of Ingleside is actually my favorite book of the entire series, I think.

Verdict: Books were better.

Forrest Gump is one of my all-time favorite movies. I just love the story, and the music is wonderful as well. I’ve seen this movie quite a few times.

The book, on the other hand (pictured here), is not quite as good. I don’t remember it all that well, but I do remember that it was just okay. I think I found it on sale, along with its sequel, Gump & Co. Forrest is not the same guy in the book as he is in the movie, and he’s not as likeable. Not by a long shot.

Verdict: Movie was better.

Like Divergent, I had never heard of The 5th Wave until I had seen the movie trailer. I went ahead and read the book before I saw the movie though. I thought the book was fantastic, and I flew right through it. This book made my top ten list of favorite books for the year that I read it in (the other books in the trilogy were not as good and didn’t make my favorite books list, however).

I thought the movie was pretty good, however, it really paled in comparison to the book.

Verdict: Book was better.

I was so excited when I heard that they were going to make Dragons of Autumn Twilight into a movie. After all, I named my kids after characters in these books! Alas, instead of making a really cool live-action film like The Lord of the Rings, they ended up making a really terrible cartoon instead. We were really disappointed.

I’m sure that you’ve heard to never judge a book by its movie, and that is doubly true for this book. The book series is fantastic! Unfortunately, I think that the movie that goes along with this book is the worst on the list.

Verdict: Book was WAY better.

The Lord of the Rings is a classic book series. I read it a long time ago, and I don’t remember much about it because I had aspartame poisoning at the time (it really killed my memory), but I remember liking the books.

Of course, I’ve seen all of the movies as well, and they were also great. They did a wonderful job making these movies, and I wish that they had done such an amazing job on Dragons of Autumn Twilight as they did on these movies. Before these movies came out, I was never really impressed by fantasy books that had been turned into movies. But these showed me that they could be done well.

Verdict: Both the books and movies were good.

Ender’s Game is another book that I was really excited to see turned into a movie. I read three of the books in this series in high school and I thought that they were really good, so I had to go see the movie when it came out.

While I thought the movie was good, I thought that there was a lot that was in the book that they ended up having to leave out for the movie. I know that they have to edit movies for time and all, but I think that all that ended up getting cut out made the movie inferior to the book.

Verdict: Book was better.

Unbroken was a great movie. It had a wonderful message, and it left me crying at the end. I think I saw the movie on Christmas day, and my dh gave me a copy of the book as a present on the same day, so I saw the movie first.

Even though I thought the movie was really good, there is only so much you can put in a movie. The guy spent a long time on a life raft, and then he went to a prisoner of war camp. Then when he went home he had to recover. It’s difficult to pack into a short movie

Verdict: Book was better.

So that was this week’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic. Come back next week where I talk about Hidden Gems: books that were really great, but not everybody knows about yet.

Back to School with Nonfiction: Top Ten Tuesday

By Brookelorren on August 28, 2018August 13, 201825 Comments

So it’s time for the kids to go back to school. My daughter started public school for the first time about two weeks ago, my boy started his homeschool coop last week, and our “Lastname Christian Academy” officially starts the Monday after Labor Day. For today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) we are doing a back to school edition. This week, I will be posting some of my favorite nonfiction books. They’re in no particular order.

The Fourth Turning has got to be one of my favorite nonfiction books. It was my favorite book that I read for the first time in 2016. It came out in 2007, but it’s very relevant today. I just love how this book describes how history runs in cycles, and it is so amazing how this book is laid out. If you like this book, Pendulum is also a good book with the same idea, but I liked this one immensely better, even though this one is older.

I first read The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin in college, and not for an assignment; it just looked interesting. The book details the history of discovery, from things as simple as the clock and the calendar to more modern inventions, like navigation. I’ve read this book twice, but it’s been a while since I’ve read it last. I’ve also read a few of his other books; they’re also outstanding. A couple of years ago I was able to find a copy of The Creators in hardback at a library book sale and I had to get that one too, even though I had already read it.

If you are a homeschooler, then you are probably familiar with Susan Wise Bauer’s Story of the World series (they’re very popular). She also has written a set of history books for adults: The History of the _______ World (she has books for the Ancient World, Medieval World, and Renaissance World). They’re all great. If you think you know history because you studied it in high school, you probably are missing a lot. Some of the stories in these books are quite brutal, and I don’t think that they’d get taught in high school just for the brutality factor alone (history can be pretty nasty at times). These are really thick books, and you probably won’t finish it in a day or two like you can with most novels, but you can learn a lot from them.

One of my favorite history books is A History of Modern Europe by John Merriman. I bought the third edition (pictured in the photo here) because if you buy the brand new edition, it’s really expensive. There’s over 1400 pages of text here, so you won’t get this one read in one sitting either, but the book is very readable.

After the Flood by Bill Cooper is a lot shorter and a lot less academic, but I found it to be really interesting nonetheless. I think it’s fairly typical for people living today to think of the ancient world being full of unintelligent people who didn’t know much, but I’m pretty sure that was not the case. This book talks about some of the ancient records that shows that more than likely, ancient people in places like modern-day Britain already had knowledge of the Judeo-Christian God before the arrival of the Roman missionaries that started showing up there after the time of Jesus. I found the ancient geneological records to be fascinating.

I read The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours in college, but I also reread it once after that. The stories here are pretty fascinating. It’s hard to tell at times what in this book is real and what was exaggeration. Whether some of the tales are made up or not, what is apparent is that there was corruption in the early medieval period just as much as there is now.

If you’re looking for a reading challenge, then you might want to try tackling Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (unabridged edition). My Kindle says that I still have about 75 hours left in this book, and I’m 2 % of the way through (probably part of that is chapter indexes though). I read the abridged edition years ago, but I’d like to one day read the entire thing, because there’s some fairly interesting stories here (although the reading is not the easiest).

There are several different Kindle editions of this book floating around, some free, some you have to pay for, but I’ve found that this particular edition is the best, because 1) the footnotes are all there and linked, and 2) all six volumes of this book are all together. I’ve downloaded a few copies of this book and have decided on reading this particular edition because it seems to have the best formatting.

I love 1421: The Year China Discovered America, because there is so much about the ancient and even medieval world that we don’t understand. If you like the History Channel shows where they go look at unexplained evidence and try to figure out what it all means, then you might be interested in reading this book too. I’ve always wanted to read his other book, 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, but I could never remember the title, but I finally found it. Now that it’s on my Goodreads TBR, I’m more likely to read it.

So far, all the books I’ve put on this list have been history books, which is most of the nonfiction that I read (well, that and political fiction) but I do read whatever nonfiction looks interesting. Freakonomics is a thought-provoking non-history nonfiction book. It explores the economic factors behind things like drug dealing, danger, abortion, and other subjects, but not in a boring way. I haven’t read this book in a long time, but now that I’m talking about it here, I want to read it again.

Wildcard seems to be one of the most anticipated books of the year, and if you’ve read Warcross already, then you probably remember that there’s a place that Emika goes to that is the dark side of Warcross. It’s actually based on a real thing called The Dark Net. While I was reading Warcross, I was reminded about the things that I read about in this book, including the Assassination Market (which is a real thing). If you find those sorts of dark things interesting, you might be curious to read this book. It’s a fairly easy and enjoyable read.

So that’s this week’s Back to School edition of Top Ten Tuesday. Stay tuned for next week where I talk about books that that were made into movies, and which one was better (because I don’t really watch too many movies or TV shows and I’m certain that most of you aren’t interested in watching something like Кухня, so I’m straying off topic a little).