Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic.
This week’s topic is “Cover Freebie“, i.e. pick any ten book covers on any theme that comes to mind. I have decided to go with the covers of the top ten books languishing on my to-be-read pile. (Notice that I make no promises when I’ll finish reading these … )
Are there two more unlikable characters than Rob Reilly and Cassie Maddox? Are there? Probably, yes. But as the show, Dublin Murders, progressed, it was hard to think of more disappointing characters in recent fiction.
A young girl is murdered in the woods of a small (fictitious) Irish town called Knocknaree. There are certain shocking similarities to an unsolved crime back in 1985, when two children disappeared in the same woods. However, back in 1985, there had been a witness – a boy named Adam. But Adam couldn’t remember anything from that day and had to flee town because the folks there suspected him.
The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) is a 1987 anime movie directed by Gisaburō Sugii and is a surreal, melancholic mix of fact and fantasy. It’s based on (large portions of) The Tale of Genji written by Murasaki Shikibu back in the Heian period (794 to 1185) of Japanese history, also arguably the world’s first true “novel”.
It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the 6 Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.
September 2020’s book is Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld. Blurb below:
“He proposed. She said no. And it changed her life forever.
In 1971, Hillary Rodham is a young woman full of promise: Life magazine has covered her Wellesley commencement speech, she’s attending Yale Law School, and she’s on the forefront of student activism and the women’s rights movement. And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced.
In the real world, Hillary followed Bill back to Arkansas, and he proposed several times; although she said no more than once, as we all know, she eventually accepted and became Hillary Clinton.
But in Curtis Sittenfeld’s powerfully imagined tour-de-force of fiction, Hillary takes a different road. Feeling doubt about the prospective marriage, she endures their devastating breakup and leaves Arkansas. Over the next four decades, she blazes her own trail—one that unfolds in public as well as in private, that involves crossing paths again (and again) with Bill Clinton, that raises questions about the tradeoffs all of us must make in building a life.
Brilliantly weaving a riveting fictional tale into actual historical events, Curtis Sittenfeld delivers an uncannily astute and witty story for our times. In exploring the loneliness, moral ambivalence, and iron determination that characterize the quest for political power, as well as both the exhilaration and painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world still run mostly by men, Rodham is a singular and unforgettable novel. “
Making lists is my favorite thing to do, esp. rec lists. Here is a list of my favorite science-fiction and fantasy books / stories, and I hope to keep updating it from time to time.
I can’t claim I’ve read all the stalwart works of speculative fiction, but here are my personal top SFF recommendations, in no particular order. When next you’re on the lookout for something new to read, remember this list!
Last Update: May 14, 2021
"Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve a movement, that now And again now, and now, and now Sets neat prints into the snow … " ~ "The Thought Fox" by Ted Hughes
Is there a creature more cunning than the sly Fox? If we go by Slavic folklore, the Fox would have hoodwinked you many times over before you even got to say, “Wait a minute … ” Swift-footed and stealthy, the Fox never claimed it had a heart of gold to match its fur.
Who is Lexlingua?
Lex is an aspiring pirate masquerading as a lawyer, all-time bibliophile, frequent quote-collector and sometime astrologer. Lexlingua.co is her online armchair for philosophizing about fiction, law, and the future.
