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TOP TEN TUESDAY :: WHAT MAKES A MUST-READ?

- Meg

Every week, The Broke and the Bookish hosts a top ten list with a bookish theme, and this week’s theme is Ten Things That Make You Instantly Want to Read a Book! I feel like I read across a variety of genres and reading levels, but I am also always drawn to specific things, too.

  1. An amazing cover. This probably is a no-brainer for me because I’m always attracted to shiny things. For the most part, a really fantastic looking cover is often the first and major initial draw to a book. With so many books out there to read, I am more likely to reach for an amazing cover before anything else. I also tend to buy editions with prettier covers even if it’s a little bit more money because I know it’ll look nice on my shelves and I’ll enjoy reading it a little bit more with a nicer cover!
  2. Complex, well-written villains. I don’t like my villains to be evil for evil’s sake. I want them to have as much depth as the “hero,” and I want to feel for them. Characters that toe the line between good and bad and live in that morally grey area are my favorite.
  3. Complex, well-written characters in general. I want for female, male, and non-binary characters to be well developed and as well rounded and not forced into a stereotypical, list-checked box.
  4. Space travel and alien cultures. If I’m reading a story about characters in space, I want the main characters to be at least slightly alien, and I want the main characters to explore alien cultures. Give me all of the weird stuff!
  5. Fairy tale, folklore, and mythological retellings. Especially Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast retellings, and I wish there were more retellings of Rapunzel and the Little Mermaid, too. I like retellings even more if they subvert the familiar stories, too.
  6. Historical fiction. I feel like I grew up on historical fiction. After reading series like Dear America and The Royal Diaries, I just consumed whatever the local libraries had. I’m really partial stories set in the Regency era, Wars of the Roses, Victorian + Edwardian eras, WWI, early America, ancient Egypt, and ancient Greece.
  7. London. Honestly, if it’s set in London, I’ll most likely gobble it up. It’s one of my favorite cities, and I miss it so much.
  8. Castles and the Gothic. Give me all the things set in ancient, spooky castles, and throw a few thunderstorms, a full moon, a lot of rain, subversion, and a woman out of her time, and I’ll be the happiest.
  9. Epistolary. I love stories and narratives created entirely through letters sent between characters. Even if it’s more modern with text messages and emails and social media posts.
  10. Libraries and author histories. Lately, I feel like there are a lot of books out being released that are set in libraries or revolving around libraries, or even about the (fictional) histories of books and authors. I love fictional accounts of famous authors’ lives, and I feel like it better fits this subheading than historical fiction!

What things make you want to read a book?

FIRST CHAPTER, FIRST PARAGRAPH: The Gentleman, by Forrest Leo

- Meg

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First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday is hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea!

I received Forrest Leo’s The Gentleman in a Muse Monthly box a few months ago, and I still haven’t gotten around to reading it. Oops. The Gentleman is Leo’s debut novel, and is about a Lionel Savage, a popular poet in Victorian London, who has discovered he has no money, marries a woman for her money, and realizes he does not love his wife because his muse has left him. The description on the inside cover says that Lionel believes he meets the dark lord/devil at a party, and once Lionel’s wife disappears he believes he accidentally sold her to the devil himself. After his wife’s disappearance, Lionel, with some help along the way, plans a rescue mission to Hell to rescue her.

One: In Which I Find Myself Destitute & Rectify Matters in a Drastic Way

My name is Lionel Savage, I am twenty-two years old, I am a poet, and I do not love my wife. I loved her once, not without cause – but I do not anymore. She is a vapid, timid, querulous creature, and I find after six months of married life that my position has become quite intolerable and I am resolved upon killing myself.

After flipping through several pages after the introduction, this looks like a very well-paced, humorous novel, and I’m excited to start it after I finish up a few of my current reads.

FIRST CHAPTER, FIRST PARAGRAPH: The Mortifications, by Derek Palacio

- Meg

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First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday is hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea!

Derek Palacio’s The Mortifications follows a rural Cuban family in the 1980s torn apart during the Mariel Boatlift. Uxbal Encarnación—father, husband, political insurgent—refuses to leave behind the revolutionary ideals and lush tomato farms of his sun-soaked homeland. His wife Soledad takes young Isabel and Ulises hostage and flees with them to America, leaving behind Uxbal for the promise of a better life. But instead of settling with fellow Cuban immigrants in Miami’s familiar heat, Soledad pushes further north into the stark, wintry landscape of Hartford, Connecticut. There, in the long shadow of their estranged patriarch, now just a distant memory, the exiled mother and her children begin a process of growth and transformation.

Ulises Encarnación did not believe in fate. This may have been a by-product of the sailor’s name of his father, Uxbal, had given him and the fact that Ulises detested ocean horizons – they were impermanent and appeared like waterfalls over which one could cascade into death. More likely his disbelief was a consequence of how Ulises was taken from Cuba as a young boy by his mother, Soledad, as a member of the now-infamous 1980 Mariel Boatlift. Uxbal had wanted the family to stay despite their poverty. They did have a sturdy house with a garden, tomatoes when others didn’t, but Soledad saw in Ulises a mind for school, and she worried about the state of young, pensive boys in Cuba. Bookworms were considered faggots, and though she did not think her son a homosexual, the state might, and she cringed at the thought of him in prison, or worse, at a rehabilitation camp.

Have you read this? What did you think about it?

FIRST CHAPTER, FIRST PARAGRAPH: Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

- Meg 1 Comment

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First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday is hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea!

James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room is part of the classics challenge I am doing this year (and spectacularly failing at, but I still have time to catch up). The edition I have is part of Penguin’s Great Loves series that contains twenty volumes of love. The back cover of this says “Love can be dishonest.” In Giovanni’s Room, when David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend’s return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened – while Giovanni’s life descends into tragedy.

I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life. I have a drink in my hands, there is a bottle at my elbow. I watch my reflection in the darkening gleam of the window pane. My reflection is tall, perhaps rather like an arrow, my blond hair gleams. My face is like a face you have seen many times. My ancestors conquered a continent, pushing across death-laden plains, until they came to an ocean which faced away from Europe into a darker past.

Have you read this? What did you think?

FIRST CHAPTER, FIRST PARAGRAPH: Lolly Willowes, by Sylvia Townsend Warner

- Meg

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First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday is hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea! I’m also cheating a little bit this month by posting more than the single line that functions as the first paragraph.

Lately I’ve been really interested in what is published by New York Review Books, and I came across Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes in a bookstore. It’s about a single woman living at the beginning of the 20th century who decides, in middle age, to live alone, out of her brother’s house and away from polite society. John Updike’s blurb on the back reads “This is the witty, eerie, tender but firm life history of a middle-class Englishwoman who politely declines to make the expected connection with the opposite sex and becomes a witch instead.” Perfect for Halloween! 🎃

When her father died, Laura Willowes went to live in London with her elder brother and his family.

“Of course, ” said Caroline, “you will come to us.”

“But it will upset all your plans. It will give you so much trouble. Are you sure you really want me?”

“Oh dear, yes.”

Caroline spoke affectionately, but her thoughts were elsewhere.