Literary Dynamic Duos

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because they are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. They love to share their lists with other bookish folks and LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week they post a new Top Ten list complete with one of their bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with all those who are participating. If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don’t worry if you can’t come up with ten every time…just post what you can!

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FAVORITE LITERARY DYNAMIC DUOS (in no particular order)

1. DAVE ROBICHEAUX & CLETE PURCELL
   From James Lee Burke’s detective series that started with The Neon Rain, this pair is one of my two favorite detective/sidekick duos.  Together they make crime busting an art.
2. SPENSER & HAWK
   My other detective/sidekick favorite, created by Robert B. Parker.  Until Dave Robicheaux & Clete Purcell, there wasn’t a crime busting partnership that could touch Spenser & Hawk.  I will confess here that, not being hugely impressed with Parker’s elementary writing style, I fell in love with this duo when Spenser: For Hire began on TV.  For me, Robert Urich & Avery Brooks perfectly embodied the essence of Parker’s characters.
3. TOM SAWYER & HUCKLEBERRY FINN
   Who doesn’t love these two crazy kids?  Mark Twain was an unparalleled genius in creating two precocious boys who, in the midst of getting into all manner of trouble, had the best of hearts and intentions.
4. SCOUT & JEM FINCH
   Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird gave the literary world so many wonderful things, not the least of which is this brother/sister duo that embody what a sibling connection can be.  Love them.
5. NAOMI & RUTH
   This biblical pair are the epitome of what an ideal mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship should be.  They love each other and are devoted to each other despite the losses and sadness they have experienced.
6. JO & LAURIE
   From Little Women…who wouldn’t want to have Jo & Laurie as friends?  They had constant adventures, fought like they were brother & sister, were intellectually challenging to each other, and loved each other & their families with ferocity & loyalty.  The best of best friends.
7. FRANKLIN & BEAR
   Paulette Bourgeois’ Franklin books are wonderful for preschoolers & young readers.  Franklin & Bear are best of friends who stick together, learn together, have fun together, and are great examples of what good friends should be.
8. ORRY MAIN & GEORGE HAZARD
   John Jakes’ North and South trilogy has a special place in my heart.  It is my favorite historical saga and it is one of the few times when I fell completely in love with one of the main characters…Orry Main.  I loved who he was, a proud Southerner with a good heart and many flaws, a gentleman who stood up to (and defended people against) abusive behavior, and a man who’s love for his friend, George Hazard (a proud Northerner) remained steady throughout the Civil War.  I love that this legacy followed them throughout their lives, and that, though they were politically opposed, they did not allow that to ruin their friendship.
9. LOUIS & LESTAT
   Though not a huge fan of vampires and such, I did love Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat.  The relationship, contentious as it could be, between Louis & Lestat was interesting, controversial, and at times infuriating.  They were both strong, and their divergent convictions – along with Lestat’s complete devotion to hedonistic pursuits – made for an intriguing (and sometimes baffling) relationship between them.
10. HARRY POTTER, RON WEASLEY & HERMIONE GRANGER
    J. K. Rowling’s tremendous trio…each as integral to the other as breathing.  There is no grouping like them in all of literature.
11. KATHERINE TYLER (KIT) & HANNA TUPPER
    From Elizabeth George Spears’ The Witch of Blackbird Pond, these two characters are outcasts in a Puritan community in Connecticut that believes both of them to be witches.  They offer friendship to each other in what would otherwise be a desolate existence for them.  They watch out for each other, teach a little girl to read (whose mother has deemed her a halfwit), and ultimately protect each other from the superstitions of the Puritan community.
12. CALVIN & HOBBES
    So, so, so, so funny.  Calvin is the ultimate precocious kid with a raging imagination.  Love him, and love Hobbes more because he’s the “adult” in the relationship.  And they make me so very thankful not to be parenting them. LOL
13. JAMES HERRIOT & THE FARNON BROTHERS
    Based on the true stories of James Herriot’s years as a country vet, these three have the craziest and most hilarious adventures.  Herriot joins the Farnon’s veterinary practice, and the life that transpires as a result of this partnership is what the greatest of stories are made of.  I absolutely devoured these books as a kid, and again as an adult.  They are not to be missed.
14. CLIFFORD & EMILY ELIZABETH
    OK, I’ll admit I stole this one from another list, but how could I not add it?  This was my son’s first favorite series – both books and tv – and I loved how the relationship between EE and Clifford started, developed, and continued throughout the series.
15. DANTE & VIRGIL
    From The Divine Comedy, this partnership is one of the most memorable in literature, largely because of the exploration they undertake.  Virgil (and later Beatrice) are exemplary guides through the afterlife, and Dante’s experience is tremendous, touching, and profound.

Top Ten Books I Had to Have…but are STILL Languishing on the Bookshelf

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because they are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. They love to share their lists with other bookish folks and LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week they post a new Top Ten list complete with one of their bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with all those who are participating. If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don’t worry if you can’t come up with ten every time…just post what you can!

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Laura’s Top Ten Books I Had to Have…but are STILL Languishing on the Bookshelf

1. The Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson
   I bought the audiobooks when they were first released because my husband & I were both interested in them, and we listen to audiobooks together on road trips.  They are still on the shelf almost a year later…one road trip this year, and not long enough for even one of those books.  Sad.
2. A Thousand Splendid Sons by Khalid Hosseini
   I bought the audio version of this and The Kite Runner at the same time.  Listened to The Kite Runner and LOVED it, but have not gotten to this yet.
3. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
   This set has been on my shelf for at least 10 years, and has followed me through several moves.  I purchased it with the conviction that I should read it, because it’s an incredible shame that I never even knew they existed when I was an adolescent.  Still there…still waiting…
4. Hearts in Atlantis & Insomnia by Stephen King
   I have loved Stephen King since I was in 9th grade, and have devoured 30ish of his books over the years.  For some reason these never made it past the bookshelf, and I eventually got rid of both, though I have since re-purchased Hearts in Atlantis in audio format.  The last several King books I’ve “read” were actually listening experiences, and that is proving to be my preference lately.
5. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
   Purchased for a book group read, I had grand hopes of finishing it.  I barely got started, and with the distractions of a new baby and home renovations, it was abandoned and is still on the shelf.  I haven’t discarded it, so there is hope that eventually it will make it into the pile of current reads.
6. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
   I bought this book when it was causing a stir on the book scene, and it sat on the shelf for years.  I finally sold it to the used bookstore, only to repurchase in audio format.  Still there, but I’m hoping to get to it this year.
7. The Bourne Series by Robert Ludlum
   These sat on my shelf for years until I finally sold them when I was getting ready to move out of state.  They were a recommendation from my brother, and for some reason I never got excited about reading them, even after having seen the movies.  They are still on my TBR list, so hope is still alive that I will read them one day.
8. Everything Monica McInerney has written
   McInerney is an Australian author, and I stumbled across her books Family Baggage and The Alphabet Sisters through http://www.dearreader.com.  I devoured those books and started looking for more, only to discover that the rest of her books had only been published in Australia.  Thanks to my online book club, I had a contact, and over the next year I exchanged books with her…she sent me the McInerney books I couldn’t get in the States, and I sent her book club selections that were difficult for her to find.  I have read a couple more of them and I love them, but I hate the thought of finishing the and having no more to look forward to, so I space them out.  Silly, I know, but sadly true.
9. Complete sets of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway
   For some reason, I thought I needed “the complete set” of whatever classic author was on the radar at the moment.  So I bought them…in fact, I bought the book club editions, which have virtually no resale value when one decides to part with them.  I have not parted with them, but I’ve not read them either.  They do, at least, look good on the bookshelf.
10. The Space Between Us & If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar
    I have been on an Indian literature kick for the past couple of years.  It’s not a constant pursuit, but when I find Indian novels that look interesting, I can’t resist buying them.  Not only did I purchase these, but I bought The Space Between Us at full price, which is almost unheard of for me.  They are still on the shelf, and I will get to them, but I signed myself up for all these reading challenges this year…
    

Some of Laura’s Favorite Book Quotes (’cause there are more than 10)

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because they are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. They love to share their lists with other bookish folks and LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week they post a new Top Ten list complete with one of their bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with all those who are participating. If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don’t worry if you can’t come up with ten every time…just post what you can!


So, without further ado…Some of Laura’s Favorite Book Quotes (’cause there are more than 10):


1. “You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies — which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world — what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose.”
from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

2. “Show me a man or a woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call ‘society’. Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”
from The Stand by Stephen King

3. “Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.”
from Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

4. “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. / Silence the pianos and with muffled drum / Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.”
from Funeral Blues (aka Stop All the Clocks) by W. H. Auden

5. “Things are sweeter when they’re lost. I know–because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot. And when I got it it turned to dust in my hands.”
from The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

6. “Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet. I understood on some dim, detached level that the sweep of earth beneath my feet was a spectacular sight. I’d been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care.”
from Into Thin Air by John Krakauer

7. “All kings is mostly rapscallions.”
from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

8. “The telephone rang, and she knew she was going to die.”
from Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Riverte

9. “If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”
from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

10. “Entreat me not to leave you, / Or to turn back from following after you; / For wherever you go, I will go; / And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; / Your people shall be my people, / And your God, my God. / Where you die, I will die, / And there will I be buried. / The LORD do so to me, and more also, / If anything but death parts you and me.”
from The Bible (Ruth 1:16-17)

11. “Girl,” I says, “come help me haul these things down the hill, I’m going to live in the post office.”
from Why I Live at the P.O. (short story) by Eudora Welty

12. “I’ve had an elegant sufficiency; any more would be a superfluity.”
from The Beard (short story) by Fred Chappell

13. “There was something strange about this country of America, something that they all seemed to share and understand and she did not.”
from The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

14. “In the great green room there was a telephone, and a red balloon, and a picture of … the cow jumping over the moon.”
from Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

15. “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee


16. “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee


17. “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
from C. S. Lewis


18. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey


19. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy


20. “To be, or not to be,–that is the question:–whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?”
from Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Top Ten Characters (or Literary Figures) I’d Name My Children After

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. 

Each week t a new Top Ten list is posted complete with one of their bloggers’ answers. Everyone is welcome to join, so please link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND post a comment on our post with a link to your Top Ten Tuesday post to share with all those who are participating. If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.


 If you can’t come up with ten, don’t worry about it—post as many as you can!


Laura’s Top Ten Characters / Literary Figures I’d Name My Children After:

1. NATHANIEL…My husband and I both love this name, and it is an added bonus for me since Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite American writers.
2. ESME…meaning esteemed or loved, this name comes from The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell.  Loved the book, and the name is really lovely and unusual.
3. SCOUT…from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I love everything about this book.
4. EBENEZER…(This is my husband’s choice).  Not to be confused with Scrooge, Ebenezer is of Biblical origin and literally means “a stone of help.”  Theologically, it refers to anything that reminds us of God’s divine & holy presence.
5. DELILAH…From the Biblical story of Samson & Delilah.  Though the character is a duplicitous trickster, her name is beautiful.
6. FINOLA…from Becoming Finola by Suzanne Strempek Shea.  I loved the book, and more importantly, I loved (by the end) how the essence of Finola became bigger than the actual character in the book.  Very cool story.
7. SCARLETT…from Gone with the Wind, of course.  Despite the fact that she was essentially a spoiled brat, she has a very cool name.
8. NICHOLAS…certainly a very rich literary history.  Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Nick Caraway in The Great Gatsby, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson, Saint Nicholas, and I’m sure many more.  Meaning “victory of the people,” it is a strong, masculine name.
9. JOSEPHINE…of course, my very favorite character from Little Women.
10. CODY…The literary character of Buffalo Bill is based on Colonel William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.  That it is a well-known name in western fiction makes it near & dear to my heart, and as such, my son is named Cody.

That’s it.  Stayed tuned for next week’s Top Ten Tuesday!

Laura’s Top Ten Favorite Book Debuts

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created & hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. 

Each week a new Top Ten list is posted that one of the bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It’s a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers. 




My Top Ten Favorite Debuts


1.  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  Amazing that an author writes this book, and only this book, and it becomes a major part of the American Lit canon.  It’s a stellar read.


2.  A Time to Kill by John Grisham.  Though it was not his first novel published, it was the first book he wrote, and it is head and shoulders above The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, and many others.  It is obvious that John Grisham’s heart was in this story.


3.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling.  Who knew that this novel would touch off such a reading revolution among young adults.  It takes a writer with quite a flair for  storytelling to reach teens the way Rowling did, and what a bonus that so many of us adult types liked it too.  The characters are complex and well drawn, and we were drawn in to the point that it was difficult to wait for the next installment.


4.  The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.  LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book.  It was my favorite read of 2009…a complex, layered, and completely satisfying novel.


5.  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.  Definitely my favorite Bronte novel – a spectacular rendering of a Gothic romance on its surface, but so much more than that.


6.  Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.  This was an unflinching portrayal of what happens when a teenager is sexually assaulted and can’t find the confidence to defend herself or prosecute her attacker.  


7.  The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.  I loved this book…I thought the entire story was just beautifully written, and although some of the religious elements were not exactly my cup of tea, I thought the story remained absolutely consistent and lovely from start to finish.

8.  Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.  I loved this book when I was a teenager, and again as an adult.  I’ve never forgotten it, and for me it remains one of my lifetime favorites.  IMO, no girl’s reading life can really be complete without the March sisters.


9.  Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.  I have never been much for vampire stories, but there are, occasionally, books that are just good, regardless of the subject matter.  This book is one of those for me.  It is dark & mysterious. sexy, a little dangerous, and wholly entertaining.


10.  Night by Elie Wiesel.  I was blown away by this little book when I read it in high school.  It was such a wrenchingly personal account of a Jew’s survival during WWII.  It touched me deeply.

Top Ten Books I Wish I’d (Been Able to) Read as a Kid

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created & hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. 

Each week a new Top Ten list is posted that one of the bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It’s a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers. 


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Before I start with my list, let me explain my title…  When you grow up in a religious fundamentalist home with parents who are very strict & closely adhere to the tenets of their religion, there are lots (LOTS) of rules, which naturally means there are lots (LOTS) of things that are against the rules.  Access to a large scope of reading material (or should I say LACK of access) falls under the purview of the rules.  If it wasn’t (isn’t) true (to life, meaning NOT fiction), it was not on the approved reading list, UNLESS it was published by a denominational publishing company, in which case it was sanctioned.  Sad….very sad, because it leads to a gaping hole in one’s knowledge of literature, its origins, its history, its development, its value, etc. when one becomes an adult and has the benefit of hindsight.


Now I am, and have always been, a bookworm.  I LOVE to read.  I thought I had access to all that I wanted to read, until my first trip to the public library as an elementary schoolgirl.  There, what should I find but Nancy Drew.  Oh WOW!!!  This was the beginning of my subterfuge.  It was back in the day when dropping  your kids off at the big, downtown public library was still safe…still ok.   We just had to be ready to go at the prescribed time, so my plan was to make sure to check out my books right before my mom was to collect us, giving me an opportunity to hide the contraband inside my jacket before she checked through my stack (yes, that happened!!).  My younger brother picked up on this as well, and Hardy Boys were his choice du jour.  So we went from having to be retrieved from the kids room (reluctantly), to being miraculously ready to go & out front with our books, waiting for my mom to arrive.  What little rapscallions we were…sneaking one or two banned titles home, reading them at night, under the covers with a flashlight, and sneaking them back to the library again.  I can’t remember if we were ever caught.  Maybe.  What I can remember is a voracious need to have access to books…lots of books…and most especially, books that other kids were reading but I could not.


Now in retrospect, what is incredible to me is that these books were an issue at all.  There is nothing inherently wrong with them.  They don’t go against the tenets of any faith, so far as I can tell.  Further, there is nothing that is not fundamentally true at its core.  But, to be a fully participating member of the reading world, one unavoidably rubs elbows with bookworms of all walks of life.  So, does the separateness that is a hallmark of my religious upbringing naturally extend into even one’s reading life?  Does it naturally dictate that in order to remain separate, one has to be separate in all things?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I am playing a lot of reading catch-up as an adult, and I’m making sure my kiddo reads…and reads…and reads…and reads.


So, here is my top ten for this Tuesday!


1.  Green Eggs & Ham…and every other Dr. Seuss book that looks fun.
2.  Where the Wild Things Are…and every other Maurice Sendak book I can find.
3.  The Boxcar Children Series by Gertrude Chandler Warner
4.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
5.  The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
6.  Anything by Roald Dahl
7.  Anne of Green Gables Series by L. M. Montgomery
8.  The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
9.  The Black Stallion Series by Walter Farley
10.  The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
11.  Anything by Robert Cormier


There are lots more, but these are off the top of my head.

Top Ten Bookish Resolutions for 2011

It’s Tuesday which means another Top Ten Tuesday hosted by our friends at

 The Broke and the Bookish!

I absolutely resolved to only make promises I could keep in 2011, which of course precluded a lengthy resolution list.  However, I think I can resolutely say that I can make 10 bookish resolutions that I will keep, and I am definitely considering this as tangential to what would be standard resolutions, as they are all reading related and as such fall under the header of “I will read a lot this year!”  Both a promise I can keep, and a resolution that warrants a little fleshing out.  So here goes…my ten(ish…maybe 11) bookish resolutions for 2011:

1. Complete at least one reading challenge this year.
   I have set three challenges to meet this year:  read 12 books from my TBR shelf that have been there more than 1 year, read at least 150 books (including books read to my kid), read at least 100 books (not including books read to my kid).  I will manage at least one.
2. Review the books I read this year.  Last year I got lazy on a lot of them, perhaps because I didn’t have particularly strong reactions to a number of them, which makes them difficult to review.  I want to strive to do better than a simple rating this year, as I find it enhances my reading experiences.
3. Read every night before I go to sleep.  So often I get distracted or busy & then stumble into bed at night.  It is so much easier to sleep if I give myself time to read & unwind at the end of the day, so I will strive to do that on a daily basis in 2011.
4. FINALLY read Moby Dick, Great Expectations and Middlemarch.  I will confess here that I will be listening to the (unabridged) audiobooks rather than actually reading these books, but I LOVE experiencing classics this way, and it’s a really great way for me to get the long(ish) classics under my belt.  Makes running errands & such a lot more enjoyable, too.
5. FINISH For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Eat, Pray, Love.  Two of three will be easy, as I am thoroughly enjoying the audio experience of the Hemingway & Frank books.  I think the McCullars will actually require a restart, but I’m confident it will be great.  Eat, Pray, Love…am struggling with this one a lot, and will (hopefully) not throw it into the DNF heap, though it certainly depends on how infuriating it turns out to be.
6. Use the library more, and have overdue fines less.  I am so prone to buy books (yes, I buy used almost always), but my bookshelves are overflowing and there are things I don’t currently own that are high on my TBR list for 2011.  I’ve just got to remember to renew, renew, renew…we get five renewals here, for heaven’s sake…I’ve got to do better.
7. Read more from my own shelves.  Though I have stacks of books, I still get sidetracked by a new (for me) book that I can’t resist buying.  It’s not as though pulling from my shelves would make for boring reading…I’m just a bibliophile to my core, and books make me happy.
8. Use iBooks, especially when traveling.  I always travel with books…I’ve just got to try & keep it to ebooks & audiobooks when I’m flying.  Right……
9. Search out and finally listen to the audio cd of On Writing by Stephen King.  It’s out there.  Get it.  Listen to it.  Pass it on to someone.
10. Use 501 Must Read Books, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Classic Novels, and other lists of this sort as guides for my 2011 (and beyond) reading.  Always good to keep up with what is generally considered great lit.
11. Enjoy reading every day!!

Well, there it is…my list of bookish resolutions.  I don’t think it’s too hard, actually.  So, what are your bookish goals for 2011?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

In no particular order, here are the top ten books I would love to get for Christmas this year.  I doubt that I will get any, but it’s nice to wish nonetheless.  Of course, a little $$ and time for a trip to the used book store would accomplish the same thing.  Either way…Santa??!!

1. On Writing (unabridged audio cd) by Stephen KingI have wanted to listen to this book since I became aware of it.  I am a long time Stephen King fan, and have come to enjoy listening to his books more than reading them as I have gotten older.  Certain authors, I believe, lend themselves to the aural experience, and King is one of those.
   
2. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
   I actually got this book for Christmas…thank you, me!
   
3. Riding Lessons and Flying Changes by Sara Gruen
   Ever since I read (listened to) Water for Elephants earlier this year, I have been wanting to read others by Gruen, and these seem a natural choice.  They might as well be one book, as far as I’m concerned, due to their common protagonist and story line.
   Got the second one before the first one, and still looking for a used copy of Riding Lessons.
4. Ape House: A Novel by Sara Gruen
   I love Gruen’s writing style.  Water for Elephants was compelling and riveting, and I am hoping that other novels will prove to be equally good.
   
5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
   One of the classics I have not read, and feel should definitely be on my list for 2011.
   Thanks to a FAB gift card to Amazon, I got the unabridged audiobook, and the audiobook of Mark Twain’s autobiography as well!!  Can’t wait!!
6. Great Expectations (unabridged audio cd) by Charles Dickens
   I have (unbelievably) not read this novel…never required in all my schooling, and since I studied primarily American Lit, it was never on a required reading list for me.  This is one I plan to listen to, as I have found I enjoy some of the denser classics much more in an audio format.
   
7. Moby Dick (unabridged audio cd) by Herman Melville
   Considering that my degrees are in English & heavy on American lit, how is it possible that I never read Moby Dick??  Thus ditto the above regarding denser classics being better (for me) in an audio format.
   I have an abridged version, which I will listen to if I can’t find an unabridged copy.  😦
8. The Social Climber of Davenport Heights by Pamela Morsi
   I thoroughly enjoy her books – they are light, fun and just right for a reading respite between some of the heavier choices.
   
9. Decision Points by George W. Bush
   I bought this book for my dad for Christmas, and am rather envious, so hopefully a copy will be coming my way (or my dad will make a long term loan when he is finished).
   
10. Any unabridged audiobooks by Nevada Barr or James Lee Burke that I have not read yet.  These are books I listen to with my husband when we are on road trips, and it is a really cool thing to share.  Plus, I particularly enjoy Will Patton’s narration of Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series.  He is outstanding, and it makes for a really rich “reading” experience.

Well, there they are!  Maybe I’ll get a surprise or two this Christmas!