Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and Bookish, where book bloggers share their Top Ten lists on everything bookish. This week its a freebie, so I am going to do Top Ten Books I loved but never wrote a review for.
10. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson - Read this book the summer after I graduated high school and just loved it. I loved the story of a lost love and war and a murder trail. The movie that came out a few years later was one of the few movies that really captured the book wonderfully and stayed pretty true to the premise. And living out here on the West Coast, the internment of Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians is still a real prescence, not only because it happened about 70 years ago, but also because I have a family connection (my mom's sister's husband's family was interred somewhere in the BC Interior during the war).
9. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - I first read this book for my Grade 12 English class and my teacher ruined it for and I wanted to chuck the book at the wall. About a year later I took a European history course that covered the Great War and one of the requirements was this book. And for some reason, I really enjoyed the read and it became one of my favourite reads.
8. I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb - I think this was one of Oprah's first books for her book club. I was intrigued by the concept of the book and since my mom's birthday was coming up, I purchased it for her. After she finished it, I read it and it was one of those books that I just couldn't put down. I haven't read it since, but it was definitely one that I loved and still love and would love to read again.
7. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - Read this is for my Grade 11 English class and while most of my classmates didn't want to read this book, I was probably the exception rather than the rule, in that, I really enjoyed it, not only from the historical aspect, which didn't hurt, but also from the aspect that it was quite readable and I ended up a few years later rereading the book on my own and still enjoying the story. I am hoping to read this book again.
6. Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier - I read this as a part of an Art History course I took in university and yet again I enjoyed it. I think it was partly due to the fact that I had never heard of the painting and because I researched the painting itself on my own, it became a book that meant more to me than just another historical fiction book.
5. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen - I worked as cataloguer a number of years ago for a school district here in BC and when this book crossed my desk to get catalogued, I was intrigued so much so that I went to a local public library to see if they had the book in their system, which they did and quite enjoyed it.
4. Hidden Places by Lynn Austin - I have read this book a couple of times since it came out about 11 years ago and really liked it. Part of the reason that I like it so much is that the book isn't the cliched Christian novel that I sometimes tend to read. The author shows the characters as flawed individuals who each have their own secrets, despite the "happy ending".
3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck - I first read this book about 8 or 9 years ago and this has constantly been one of my favourites. I had read The Grapes of Wrath back in high school and didn't really understand it, but for some reason I really enjoyed this one. Probably it had to do with the fact that it was very readable and when reading it on the second time around a few years ago, I go more out it again.
2. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood - I was probably about 17 or 18 when I read this, but whenever it was, I fell in love with it and even though I haven't read the book in about 10 years, there is something amazing about this book that makes it one of my favourite books. I suppose it doesn't hurt that the book is based on actual events, even though there is liberty taken with the storyline.
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - I first read this book when I was 13 years old and read the first 10 chapters of the book while I waited for my sister to get her collarbone reset in emergency. I have read the book at least 2 times since and its sort of my comfort book in a way. While I was always a reader before this point, this was the book that probably turned me onto more adult-like fiction that was complex and allowed me to think more critically about what I read and therefore I sought out books that challenged me as a reader.
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