It’s time for Top 10 Tuesday again! I love picking up book recs from fellow bloggers — the lesser known, the better! There’s some extra happiness in locating those hidden gems, you know. So, here are 10 that I’ve picked up in recent months.
Tag: listmania
For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, we are looking at bookish wishes. I am taking it rather literally, about bad bargains, perilous wishes and the hazards of ambition. Here’s a quick list:
1 | Shakespeare’s Macbeth – Prophecies, anyone?
2 | Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – This heroine has been given the gift of obedience!
3 | Half Magic by Edward Eager – Only half of what these kids wish for comes true
4 | Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit – These kids’ wishes will expire promptly at sunset.
5 | Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – Tall or short, please can she make up her mind?
6 | The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – He wished all of his aging on a portrait.
7 | Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba – Writing down criminals’ names in a magical death book is not so heroic.
8 | The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien – You get a ring of invisibility but just makes Sauron see you more clearly.
9 | Faust by Goethe – This guy though success on earth is worth selling his soul away.
10 | The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowenna Miller – Experimenting with fairy contracts? Oops!
What do you think? Do you have any books to add to this dangerous booklist on worst bookish wishes ever?
A very intriguing prompt for this week’s Wyrd & Wonder: Eye of Newt! Magical ingredients, spell components or fantasy cooking… or any story tropes or character ingredients that make the perfect brew for the reader in us. This got me thinking of some of the interesting fictional cuisine items that I have come across in fantasy books!
Butterbeer | Harry Potter series
Lembas Bread | The Lord of the Rings
Wonka Chocolate Bars | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Queen of Hearts’ Tarts | Alice in Wonderland
Goblin Fruit | The Goblin Market
Death of Marat | Sunshine
Nobby’s Mum’s Distressed Pudding | Discworld series
Pop Biscuits | The Folk of the Faraway Tree
Groosling Soup | The Hunger Games
Just… some Honey | Winnie-the-Pooh
Any of these be your “eye of newt”? Did you recall any of these dishes? Did you ever try to give them some mundane world recipes? Did this post bring on some hunger pangs? Spill the beans! 😉
Hosts: A Dance With Books, The Book Nook, Jorie Loves A Story, Dear Geek Place, There’s Always Room For One More
Wyrd & Wonder has super interesting prompt(s) on the art of reading past, present and future by magical means. So, let me pick your brain on how to make some predictions. I could come up with 7 ways, none too dire, I hope!
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Magic Mayhem Music
The wonderful Wyrd & Wonder reading/ blogging marathon is being hosted by Annemieke (A Dance With Books), Ariane (The Book Nook), Jorie (Jorie Loves A Story), Lisa (Dear Geek Place) and Imyril (There’s Always Room For One More).
This Sunday, the prompt is our favorite songs that we associate with the Magical. Some great food for thought – and obviously my chance to conjure up some music for magic and mayhem.
Scenario 1: You are a dark witch, brewing something strong
The wonderful Wyrd & Wonder has started off again, hosted by Annemieke (A Dance With Books), Ariane (The Book Nook), Jorie (Jorie Loves A Story), Lisa (Dear Geek Place) and Imyril (There’s Always Room For One More). Thanks so much to them for all the effort that goes into this!
This Sunday, the prompt is top 5 magical systems (or spells) that we have come across in books. Obviously, world-building plays a huge role, but my picks are based on certain really striking book scenes.
This week we have a genre freebie for Top 10 Tuesday, and I am going with Top 10 Mythological Fantasy Books. I really do like a plot where the gods get interested in mortal affairs, leading to much chaos — and great world-building.
1 / The Chalion Series / World of the Five Gods series by Lois McMaster Bujold
2 / Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
3 / Paternus Trilogy by Dyrk Ashton
4 / Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson
5 / Edda of Burdens trilogy by Elizabeth Bear
6 / The Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner
7 / Tales of the Magatama Series by Noriko Ogiwara
8 / Indulgence Series by Erin Kellison
9 / The Wicked + The Divine saga by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie
10 / The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Have you read or are you interested any of these mythological fantasy books? Please feel free to leave as many recs as possible too!
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… And the Book OTP Prizes Go to …
For this week’s Top 10 Tuesday meme, we have a Valentine’s Day freebie, so let’s showcase some of those OTP (One True Pairings) that deserve extra attention today. Disclaimer: All of this is intended in good fun only!
How did 2022 fly by so quickly? I barely got any reading done (especially in the second half) and DNF’ed more books than ever (my watchlist fared way better!). For better or for worse, here they are, the few books that stood out as my “favorite books of 2022”.
It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. The 6 Degrees of Separation Meme is hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best. The book for December 2022 is The Snow Child by by Eowyn Ivey.
Snow Child is a retelling of an old (and rather sad) folktale about the little girl that a childless couple finds in the woods, but she is made of snow and ice and cannot stay on. It reminded me of a few unusual retellings of folk tales and how the fictional and the real converge in our worlds.