Top Ten Tuesday - Creep Week

Halloween is in two days time folks, so it's officially Creep Week! 

I am a total scaredy cat, so I try to avoid truly creepy/scary books.  Bring on all things witchy, supernatural, ghostly etc...


1.  The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively.  My first ghost story.  I loved this, and last Christmas gave a copy to my niece, she loved it to (she says).

2.  Dark Matter by Michelle Paver, a recent read, very creepy and from about half way through I could only read during the day.

3.  The Magic Cottage by James Herbert.  My Aunt loved horror stories and thought I might enjoy them too... Thought I'd give this one a read, scared me silly as a teenager.

4.  Needful Things by Stephen King.  I read this in 2002, on a beach in the caribbean.  It's brilliant, but I hated it, way too scary for me.  I forced myself to finish it or I'd still be thinking about it now.  If you like to be scared you should definitely try this one.

5.  The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson, this months book club read.  Based on actual court records of 1612 Pendle Witch Trials.  Review to come soon(ish).

6.  The Boonsboro Inn trilogy by Nora Roberts.  Not remotely scary, and only moments of light creepiness.  Ms Roberts recently renovated an old Inn in the town of Boonsboro in real life, and decided to write a trilogy based on the renovation.  The heroes are the men who renovated it and their romantic relationships.  The Inn has a resident mystery ghost which along with the renovation works tied the books together.  Ms Roberts writes rather a lot of trilogies, and I have to say that her supernatural stories are my favourites.  See also - the Three Sisters Island trilogy,  Key trilogy, In the Garden trilogy, the Circle trilogy, the Sign of Seven trilogy,

7.  The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.  Hmmm, not bad.

8.  Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper.  Good magic vs Bad magic.  I've read only the first three so far, and they are fantastic.  I've heard great things about the last two books which are on my shelf.

9.  The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  Brilliant.  not at all scary, but a wonderful story about a boy raised by ghosts.  Neverwhere was excellent too, also by Neil Gaiman.

10.  Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris.  They aren't brilliant fiction, not too well written, but easy reads and cheap to buy.  I kind of enjoyed this mystery series about a young woman who can sense the dead and how they died.

This meme is courtesy of The Broke and The Bookish

Top Ten Tuesday - Unusual or Favourite Character Names

I love this list from The Broke and The Bookish, there's been some good ones in recent weeks.

This week's TTT is all about Great Character Names.  Be they unusual or just my favourites.  A few sprang immediately to mind, others I had to think about, but I struggled to keep it to 10.  As usual I've bent the rules a bit to suit myself, but what else is new?

Locke Lamora from The Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch.  In fact Locke is not Locke's real name, which is as yet unknown to us/me (don't ruin it for me if you happen to know).  What I really love is that Locke's name doesn't just lyrically roll off the tongue, but it also reflects his character... If you move the L in Lamora to the end you get Amoral.  Which is exactly what he is - though loyal to the end to his friends which is his near enough only redeeming feature.

Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  Also many of the other character names, which are apparently inspired from Greek and Roman history, Classic Literature etc... In fact there is even a book about the names from this series...

Harry Flashman from The Flashman Papers series by Gordon McDonald Fraser.  Like Locke Lamora above this is a brilliant name for a brilliant character.  Flashman, or Flashy, is a total asshole, all 'flash' and no substance.  He's a character who is completely and unashamedly amoral, and in fact makes Locke Lamora look like a fair candidate for sainthood.

Sookie Stackhouse from The Southern Vampire series (aka True Blood books) by Charlaine Harris.  Can't help it, love that name, especaially when drawled by Bill... "Sookeh!"  lol.  He surname makes me think that she should buy out Merlotte's and change the name to The Stackhouse Steakhouse.

Buttercup, Westley etc... from The Princess Bride by William Goldman.  If I'm honest I'd have to say nearly every name I can remember from this book!  Not only are they brilliant names but who can possibly resist calling out "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prrrreparre to die" every now and then.  Names of note - Fezzik, Dread Pirate Roberts, Miracle Max.

Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  Maybe it was Colin Firth striding purposefully out of the lake, but I just want to sigh and swoon.

Lyra from the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman.  I love it, seriously I would consider this name if I had a daughter.

Thursday Next from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde.  I love the playful names that Fforde uses.  She's the daughter of a Chronoguard (Time Travel Police) Officer, so a name that suggests a future time would be completely appropriate.  Other names of note - I love that she named her children Tuesday and Friday, and her on/off husband is Landen Park-Laine, colleague Braxton Hicks etc etc...

A-Through-L from The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland... from the Fairyland series by Catherynne M Valente.  I am totally and utterly in love with this book.  The character of A-Through-L is just wonderful, he's charming and sweet and a devoted friend to the heroine September (whose name I also love).  He is perfectly named having grown up in a Library in the sections A through L.  His character was a fabulous idea and completely original.  Everyone should have a Wyverary for a best friend.

Pretty much any character from the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.  Yep, you might have noticed from my list I have a penchant for fantasy names, names which reflect the character, or the nature of the character, and this is what Terry Pratchett does with extreme success!  Who can forget Moist von Lipwig, or Death's assistant Mort.  There are hundreds more.

Challenges

I saw this on Chrissi Reads blog after she left a comment on my TTT list, and I returned the favour and read a little of her blog...

I love the idea of challenges, and so if she doesn't mind, I have decided to set myself a formal challenge.

In November I challenge myself to write up all the reviews of the books I read over the summer and publish them on here.

I'm good at work, but in my personal life I'm not particularly disciplined, so this is quite a challenge as I read rather a lot over the summer months.

Potential upcoming challenges:

• Finish all the books from my first Mr B's Spa, which took place in July 2012!
• Finish all the books I've started and abandoned.  - A possible December challenge methinks, which will also clear the shelves a bit.  No bad thing!
• Read the unread books on my Kindle - I'm away for several weeks in January/February on holiday, Kindle is perfect for that!!
• Go through all my books and clear out the ones I don't want to really keep, do a Car Boot Sale/Charity Shop dump.  I plan on moving house in 2014, so a clear out will be good.

Top Ten Tuesday - Best Books I was forced to read

This weeks Top Ten Tuesday list is the Top Ten Books you were forced to read, no matter the source, e.g. a school assignment, a book club, etc...  I was so happy when this Top Ten Tuesday topic from The Broke and the Bookish came up, as it's often the great books that are forced on you that seem to make the deepest impressions.  I've split them up into their sources, as you will see below.




School Books

I don't remember much from school, I think I've blocked the bad memories.  Anyway, what I do remember is that I could have been assigned the Best Book In The World Ever and I would still have hated it, simply because I hated school.  Because of this, I didn't enjoy them at the time, and only came to appreciate them recently...

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Book Spa books

These are books recommended to me by a brilliant bookstore in Bath, England.  The recommendations are based on discussion with the booksellers about my likes and dislikes, so they probably have a better than average chance of being ones I'll like...

3. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.
4. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
5. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Book Club books

6. Very Good, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse.
7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
9. My cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
10. The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

Honorary Mention Book Club Books...  These were all books that more than deserve top ranking, but which I had already read before they were selected for book club.  Even though these all beat the Book Club book list above, I wasn't technically forced to read them for the first time, but they are SO GOOD that I had to include them somehow.

11. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
12. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
13. Nightfall by Isaac Asmiov
14. Dark Matter by by Michelle Paver

Damn You Karou!

I should have known better... I don't have the ready cash at the moment to start reading a series, but I was a little bored with what I was reading, so I turned to my bookshelf and picked Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

I haven't finished it yet but I know I'm going to want to read the others in the series, and not wait til Christmas in the unlikely event that my family check my wishlist on Amazon.

On the positive side my copy of Republic of Thieves is winging it's merry way to me now *dances around the room*...