[Official Blurb] Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature / weekly meme created by The Broke & the Bookish. The meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke & the Bookish. We’d love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your Top 10 Lists!
[Topic of 4 March 2014: Top Ten Authors Yet to Read Others Already Love]
Diana Gabaldon {Outlander series} Although I have flirted with reading the Outlander series in the past, as I quite literally have the first of the series in both hardback and paperback editions, I have not yet had the pleasure of starting the series and seeing it through to completion! Hence the reason I have included it as a ‘new’ classic to read on my tCC List! In November 2008, my Mum gifted me “The Outlandish Companion” of which I started to read until I realised I was getting into the heart of the series itself so I segued back into the heart of who Ms. Gabaldon is as a writer. I devoured all of those sections as though I could not quench my thirst! I’ve been attracted to the series since before it held world-wide acclaim, as I found in her writing style a writer who felt akin to my own stylings. I loved learning about her process and how she took inspiration in thought and transformed it onto the page. It’s always quite exciting finding authors who pen stories in such a way that brings a happy mirth of joy to your own writer’s heart! I have resolved I am not going to do what I’ve done in the past which is to watch the motion picture adaptations ahead of reading the text! Given that I know all of “Outlander” the series will be on dvd, I can take my time and soak into this world! I simply adore ‘time slips’ and this is the ultimate foray into that genre which bends time, reality, and the conception of how we live our lives and the affects of our actions over the expanse of time itself!
J.K. Rowling {Harry Potter series} I am quite sure this will come to a shock to many but not as such to my close friends who know the reasons behind why I wasn’t able to read the books ahead of their motion picture debuts! I quite literally became quite attached to young Harry Potter long, long, LONG before the epic pop culture iconic attachment ever latched into the subconscience of the world! I was struck by the courage of such a young boy and by the breadth of the imagination it took on behalf of its writer to bring forward such a fully realised world. I always intended to read Harry ahead of any motion picture but as time would come to foretell, it was simply not in the cards! I still lament I shall sit with Harry and read his adventures during an epic blizzard in future days,…
Elizabeth Gaskell Gaskell is one of those authors I knew I would instinctively appreciate whilst reading about her methodology as a writer and as a woman who loved life most of all! She never sacrificed her writing for living, nor did she find any issue with leaving her writings in the middle of where they were if there was something important about to be lived in the moment! I loved her tenacity for breathing life into every inch and niche of her days! She tends to write long sweeping novels full of multi-generational sagas and of the realities of characters you can divest your heart into and emerge out the other end grateful to have known. I cannot wait to soak into her writings, etching out how she observed the world through her character’s murmurings and take a pause knowing she only had a limited number of hours to write before embarking on her next living adventure! I applaud her dexterity!
Patrick O’ Brian {Master & Commander series}I am not sure I would have gone to see “Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World” if I had known it was the quintessential motion picture for a dearly beloved high seas epic serial in fiction! Then again, knowing of its origins prior to being in a darkened theater as the film was about to launch into my field of vision might not have swayed me to wait either! I fell in love with the teasers and the extended trailers thereafter, to where I was quite eager to see everything emerge into full scope and depth right before my eyes! This was a motion picture that you ‘survived’ not merely ‘watched’ because the action, the sequences of dialogue, and the full CinemaScope essence of its heart dared you to be emotionally connected to everything going on before your eyes! I was pulled and tugged into corridors I never felt I’d go for motion picture; but the breath-taking cinematography against the gentle arc of narrative and story set against a backdrop of lead protagonists your never quite sure you love, hate, or endear to tolerate is part of its brilliance. The visual images that sometimes leave you shuddering and without nerves in reserve gave me a hearty adventure I was only half ready to take! Imagine then!? When the hours align and I can re-enter this world, to where I might actually decide am I an Aubry or Maurin girl? My heart is thus torn!
Brian Jacques {Redwall series} Although I have known about Jacques works for quite a long while, I have not yet broached inside his worlds. Considering that I have “Redwall” on my shelf, there is quite the obvious longing to read the story! I know I can continue forward reading the series through my local library, either by their own card catalogue OR through ILL’ing the books in sequence. There is something quite intriguing about reading a series where the animals are as real as the ones in Narnia, but I think the main reason I’ve been a bit on the fence about reading this series is because I didn’t become attached to Narnia in written form, no, I became attached to Narnia through the live-action motion pictures. And, so perhaps a part of me has hesitated ever curious if I will sink or swim with another series where animals are not quite as they seem?
Katherine Howe No one could be more disappointed in herself than I am, in regards to not having yet read “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” which was purchased as a hardback the very year it was released! I have always meant to read the story within the covers, and I can even remember when I purchased the book, as it was one of the last purchases I had made of a new release I felt was worth taking the chance on! I had read quite a bit about upcoming releases that particular year and the stand-out for me was this particular author and this particular book. She has since gone on to publish stories which still entice me and implore me to read! Yet. I want to start here. With this wicked novel that I have itched to read and have longing looked at ever since on my bookshelf! I am definitely going to include it on my Rewind Challenge list because it was one of the ‘new releases’ which has become swept back against the sands of time and grown further away from my heart and fingertips!
Christopher Paolini {Inheritance series} I still remember when “Eragon” first released and I was quite keenly excited about a ‘dragon series’, except to say where my heart jumped for certain joy my fingers never quite reached the brink to open the book! Laughs. Clearly this goes back to when I was trapped inside a reader’s rut and unable to move myself past the point of picking up a paperback copy! I thus succeeded in attending the midnight release party by proxy (here this refers to ‘quite accidentally!) of Brisingr which led to bringing home a first edition hardback, as how else to explain why you’re at your local Barnes & Noble at such a late hour!? Laughs. I had a heap of fun getting caught up in the excitement of it all, as previously I had only attended a midnight release for Harry Potter (yes, I might not have read the books but I was mad-crazy about making sure I had a complete set! including, five books imported from England directly!)! With the sequent film releases, my curiosity has both waned and re-lit the fever to read Paolini’s stories. I did include two of his books on my TBR Reading Challenge list.
Charles Dickens The curious thing for me is not remembering if I ever actually sat down and read “A Christmas Carol” as although I want to claim I have and may very well have claimed I did in the past, the honest truth is that I do not remember!? I know that its my most beloved Dicken’s classic as far as watching multiple adaptations in film as I can never see too much of Scrooge; except for the one adaptation simply entitled “Scrooge” of which I avoid like the plague! Dickens is such a complicated fellow. Not only as a writer who wanted to chronicle certain stories within a certain umbrella of character direction, but he was not the easiest nor the worst of the writers from his generation to leave behind a complicated legacy. I know bits and bobbles of his writing life, but evenso, its his stories that echo out a calling for me to read them. I have a mini-hardback edition of “Oliver Twist” which will be the first I consume once I am able to lay mind and heart on Dickens. I wonder which story of his others began their sojourn into his legacy?
Fannie Flagg I have known about this author for a long time, but it wasn’t until I picked up a copy of “Standing in the Rainbow” that I made it a purposeful intent to actually sit down and read her stories! I cannot even begin to imagine how many times I have picked up this novel only to set it back down again! To the brink that when I was composing my TBR Reading Challenge list I knew this had to be included! I am hoping this novel will inspire me to seek out more of her stories! She appears to be an author whose words never fail to inspire her to compose stories of strong characters albeit flawed who evoke our emotional keels!
Cecelia Ahern I never truly kept an eye on this Irish writer, because I mistook her writings for being ‘chick lit’ rather than for being a bit more of depth than that genre might naturally allow possible. I always have a twitching in my nose when I stumble across a title of ‘chick lit’ because it’s not quite a natural draw for me to choose. Then, I started to discover her novels in motion picture adaptation format through my local library, and the rest as they say is history! I became drawn into her characters like a moth to a flame! I wanted more! I wanted to seek out her writings, soak into her character’s heads and hearts and start to see where she endeavoured to take us next! P.S. I Love You the film convinced me I needed to take a chance on Ahern, but its the novel “Where Rainbows End” which I picked up for free at my library which might become the first I shall be reading of hers!
Which of the authors I’ve listed dear hearts, whet your own palette of interest? Which intrigue you? Which did you try reading but found weren’t to your liking!? Do you ever hesitate to read a book &/or an author of a certain genre!? What book &/or author did you leave off your own list this week that you wished you had included!?
{SOURCE: Jorie Loves A Story badge created by Ravven with edits by Jorie in PicMonkey.}
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