Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  This week’s topic is :

Best Character Names

This week I’ve chosen character names that have become household names:

Bilbo Baggins – Tolkien had such great names but I’m sure everybody has heard of Bilbo and his adventures.  This name has a quaint, homely feel to it somehow much like Merry and Pippin.

Sherlock Holmes – this is an unusual name that fits the character perfectly somehow.   It’s become synonymous with detecting.

Bellatrix Lestrange – the beauty of this name is it almost sounds like a character description doesn’t it – she was certainly a bit (or a lot) strange or maybe just totally insane.

Han Solo – there’s something about this name.  He’s a memorable character and so many people have had a crush on him – Han could almost be short for handsome and Solo – says something about his roguish bachelor status until he fell for the Princess.

Frankenstein – a name very much associated with monsters.

Count Dracula – similar to the above – you can’t think of this name without thinking of vampires.

Hannibal Lecter – it sounds like a creepy name, although I realise that’s probably just because of the book and the film – but ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ does sort of stick in your brain!

Bigwig from Watership Down – I had to choose him.  I loved the fact that in the animation he looked like he was actually wearing a hairpiece.

Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz – you have to love that her last name is Gale – meaning a strong wind, and of course she is carried off to a fictional fantasy land by a tornado.

So, are there any names here that you’re not familiar with…. curious minds, etc, etc.

And, you may have noticed my list has nine names – which leaves a slot for you to tell me your favourite character name.

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  I’ve changed the topic slightly and my book choices are:

‘Books I thought I would dislike but am really glad I read’

The original theme was ‘Books I Disliked but Am Really Glad I Read – to be honest, I don’t tend to read books through to the end if I’m not liking them.  Life is too short.  I do have a few books that really surprised me in a good way:

1. The Foundation series by Asimov – I didn’t expect to like this.  At the time I was reading very little sci-fi and to be honest I didn’t expect to understand half of the concepts here but I ended up having a great time reading the first three books – probably because I read it as a readalong with others which really helped to open up the ideads involved.
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman – for some reason I always thought the Graveyard Book was probably aimed at children and it kind of distracted me from picking this book up for a long time, even though so many people who I knew read it and loved it.  I was wrong.  It’s that simple.  I loved this book and Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors.
3. I am Legend by Richard Matheson – this was at the recommendation of a good friend.  I don’t know why but I had reservations going into the read but I kept an open eye.  It’s definitely a very bleak sort of read from the perspective of one very lonely man – but it completely blew me away and the ending is really astounding.
4. Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi.  Similarly to No.1 this book is space opera – again, I worried, quite needlessly as it turns out, that most of it would be too hard sci-fi for me.  This is a really good read though and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
5. Borderline by Mishell Baker – this series had glowing reviews and so I expected to enjoy it, however, I bought it as audio and so wasn’t sure if listening to this would work out for me.  As it happens it won me over completely – I’m still a beginner when it comes to audio and I have learnt a few lessons along the way so far, but this book is great to listen to.  The narrator does such an excellent job with the different characters that I was carried away.
6. Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory – this book is absolutely brilliant.  I can’t deny that I wasn’t in love with the cover for it though and it wouldn’t particularly have drawn my attention.  Also the blurb and the whole talk about gangsters, etc, put me off a little – it seemed such out of my usual safety zone.  This book was so good though.  My husband only reads a few books a year – last year he read this and loved it – I can’t think of a higher recommendation really.
7. Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky – this is a book that I felt was going to become very military focused – and there is a level of that involved – but there’s also an intensely compelling storyline which is helped by the use of an unexpected courtroom drama.
8. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt – a long time colleague and good friend recommended this one to me.  Again, I had doubts.  At the time I wouldn’t normally contemplate books with a western feel but this was just brilliant.  The dialogue is so good and it was just so unexpectedly compelling.
9. The Outlander (Cross Stitch) by Diana Gabaldon.  The friend I mentioned above passed on this series to me – her sister had read and loved it but she didn’t fancy reading it which kind of put me off a little too – as it happens I devoured the first five books in quick succession.  I haven’t completed the series yet but will do so eventually (although I’m not sure that the series is yet finished).
10. Your book choice – do you have a book you didn’t expect to enjoy but ended up loving??

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  This week’s topic is :

Books With My Favourite Colour On the Cover (or In the Title)

Feast your eyes on these lovelies.

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  This week’s topic is :

Books I’d Slay a Lion to Get Early

So many great books to look forward to for the rest of 2018, I hardly know where to begin but below are a few of my highly anticipated forthcoming releases.  For the avoidance of doubt – no lions were slayed in the making of this list:

1. The Tower of Living and Dying (Empires of Dust #2) by Anna Smith Spark
2. Starless by Jacqueline Carey
3. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
4. Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers
5. The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3) by Katherine Arden
6. The Monster Baru Cormorant (Baru Cormorant #2) by Seth Dickinson
7. The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) by S.A. Chakraborty
8. Kill The Farm Boy (The Tales of Pell #1) by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson
9. Redemption’s Blade: After The War by Adrian Tchaikovsky
10. ??? which book are you waiting for

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  This week’s topic is :

Frequently Used Words In X genre book Titles

Reading plenty of fantasy books you do occasionally come across the same words for titles – I’ve noticed particular, Blood, Death, Dark, Poison, etc – I’m noticing a theme right there.  Anyhow, I’ve chosen words that I think crop up every now and again (sometimes I’ve used the plural – like wolf/wolves – and these are books that I’ve either read, owned or have on my shelf.  And, for the sake of avoidance – none of these ‘word’ choices in titles are intended as a criticism.  This is simply for fun value and for books I’ve either loved or would love to read.  I did check out some of these words by typing into Goodreads and quite a few (aka a lot) came up with over 100 pages worth of books with the word in the title!  Here goes:

1. Grave – Grave Peril, Grave Sight, Graveyard Shift, The Graveyard book, Three Graves Full
2. Prince – Prince of Thorns, Prince of Fools, HP and the Half-blood Prince, The Prince and the Pauper, The Cruel Prince, Prince Caspian
3. Blood – Blue Bloods, Blood Promise, Anna Dressed in Blood, Days of Blood and Starlight, Blood Bound, Blood Rites, Blood Song, The Queen of Blood, With Blood Upon the Sand, Bloodshot, Of Blood and Honey, Saints Blood, Iron and Blood, Tainted Blood
4. Dragon – Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Dance with Dragons, Red Dragon, A Natural History of Dragons, The Dragon Engine, Twilight of the Dragons, The Dragon Round, The Dragon’s Path, How to Train Your Dragon, Nice Dragon’s Finish Last
5. Witch – The Witches, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, A Discovery of Witches, Witch Child, The Witches of Eastwick, The Witches of New York, Warrior Witch, The Witch at Wayside Cross, Truthwitch, Witches of Lychford, The Sisters of Witchdown,
6. Tower – Tower of Thorns, the Girl in the Tower, The Tower Lord, Two Towers, Dark Tower,
7. Ghost – The Ghosts of Sleath, Range of Ghosts, The Girl with Ghost Eyes, Ghostwalkers, The Ghost Bride, The Canterville Ghost
8. Legend – Legend of Ellie Quinn, I am Legend, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Legend of Eli Monpress,
9. Wolf – Wolf Road, Wolf’s Empire, City of Wolves, The Tiger and the Wolf,  Black Wolves, Wolf by Wolf, Den of Wolves, Wolf Hall
10. Your suggestion??

That’s it for me this week 😀