It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Top Ten “Gateway” Books In My Reading Journey. Basically a list of books that played a significant role in my reading journey, from the start, discovering Russian literature, breaking reading slumps and so on.

• Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! by Craig Schuftan – started my love of reading, the Romantics and learning
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – the book that really started my passion for reading
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – cemented my passion for Russian literature
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë – found a love for the Victorian gothic novel
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut – developed an interest in philosophical science fiction

• The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy – developed an interest in mysteries and pulp fiction
• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón – the book you recommend to everyone as a gateway book
• If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino – an interest in post-modernism (sadly not much of an understanding yet)
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – broke a major reading slump last year
• Careless People by Sarah Churchwell – I credit this book for a new interest in non-fiction

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Books on my Bookish Bucket List. These are books I plan to read to increase my pretentious levels but feel like I need to become a better reader first.

• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
• In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
• Middlemarch by George Eliot

• Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer
• The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
• Underworld by Don DeLillo

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: On My Autumn 2014 TBR List. I’m not sure if I’ll get to all these books; I’m sure others will get in the way but here are ten books I plan to read over the next few months.

• Equilateral by Ken Kalfus
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Ransom by David Malouf
• Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh
• The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit
• The Yellow Papers by Dominique Wilson

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Top Ten All Time Favourite Books in Pulp Fiction. I wanted to do something a little different to others and still use a genre that means a lot to me. When referring to Pulp, I’m referring to Hard-Boiled and Noir crime novels. If you need an introduction to these genres, there are some brilliant guest posts on this blog by blahblahblahtoby that breaks down Pulp Fiction into The 1930’s – 1940’s, The 1950’s, The 1960’s – 1980’s, The 1990’s – Onwards.

• Dare Me by Megan Abbott
• Fadeout by Joseph Hansen
• He Died with His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond
• March Violets by Philip Kerr
• Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson

• Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
• The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
• The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
• The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
• They Shoot Horses Don’t They? by Horace McCoy

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Popular Authors I’ve Never Read. This is going to be interesting, I don’t often read popular authors but these ten might shock or disappoint you, maybe one day I’ll read them but I don’t follow the crowd.

• J.K. Rowling
• J. R. R. Tolkien
• Nicholas Sparks
• John Irving
• Charlotte Brontë
• Mary Roach
• Melina Marchetta
• Ian McEwan
• Anton Chekhov
• Mark Twain

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Reasons I Love Being A Blogger/Reader. Do I really need reasons? Reading and blogging has been a big part of my life, I don’t want to imagine my life without books. I thought I would talk about five things I love about being a reader and then five reasons being a blogger is great.

Reading

• Escapism – I don’t need to experience life as a serial killer, warrior, mad scientist, astronaut, rake or anything else. I can just read a book and watch those characters make the mistakes.
• Books look great – One of the best things about being a reader is all those beautiful books on my shelves (I’m a hoarder collector).
• Knowledge – The more I read, the more I learn, which leads to the realisation that there is so much more to learn.
• Book clubs – I love being apart of a book club, nothing like getting together and talking about books.
• My pretentious levels – I just love being pretentious and trying to read every book on the ‘1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die’ list is very pretentious.

Blogging

• Book journal – I love having a book journal, this is the main reason I started blogging and remains the most important part of my blog.
• Bookish news – As a book blogger you often find out all the bookish news and are aware of all the great books coming out (this is also a curse).
• Critical reading – As a book blogger, I think my critical reading skills have improved greatly.
• Writing skills – Nothing improves your writing more than practise.
• The community – The book blogging community is great, I love connecting with all the other book bloggers. Though where are all the male book bloggers hiding?

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Books That Will Make You Swoon. I don’t know if I’m the type of person that swoons but I here are ten books where the writing stands out so much that they are swoon worthy.

• A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
• If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Colour of Milk by Nell Leyshon
• The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Books That Will Make You Cry. I don’t normally cry in books, but I’m sure I can come up with some books that will make you feel sad enough to cry.

• Big Ray by Michael Kimball
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• Looking For Alaska by John Green
• The Colour of Milk by Nell Leyshon
• The Fault in our Stars by John Green
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Round House by Louise Erdrich
• The Unknowns by Gabriel Roth
• The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Top Ten Characters I’d NEVER Want To Trade Places With. I thought this could be interesting, I don’t want to trade places with anyone but here are some characters I definitely wouldn’t want to trade places with (in no particular order).

• Cormac Easton from The Explorer (read the book and find out why)
• Esther Greenwood from The Bell Jar (I wouldn’t want her life)
• Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye (what a phony)
• Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (he’s a little crazy)
• Mark Watney from The Martian (no Wi-Fi)
• The new Mrs. de Winter’s from Rebecca (Mrs. Danvers is mean)
• Miles Halter from Looking for Alaska (Alaska was awesome)
• Celeste Price from Tampa (too disturbed)
• Dr. Peter Brown from Beat the Reaper (autofibulectomy)
• Galen from Dirt (messed up family, messed up life)

I could go on but I rather leave the conversation for the comment.

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Things on My Reading Wishlist. Which is described as “if you could make authors write about these things you would… Could be a specific type of character, an issue tackled, a time period, a certain plot, etc”. I wasn’t really interested in doing that topic so I’ve decided to highjack this topic and tell you which Non-Fiction books are on my wishlist or shelf to read this year.

•  Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad by Brett Martin
• The Dark Path: A Memoir by David Schickler
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
• Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson by Robert Polito
• On Literature by Umberto Eco

• Ways of Seeing by John Berger
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
• Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America’s Most Celebrated Publishing House, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux by Boris Kachka
• Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum
• Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder by Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss

Some of these books are already on my self, so I hope to read them soon. Others I’m really excited to read. Feel free to offer me some recommendations on good Non-Fiction to read.