Top Ten Books on my To Be Read list

Top Ten Tuesday was created and is hosted by The Broke And The Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books that are on top of my To Be Read list. Although I must say, its less of a list and more of multiple towering piles around my home.

Beach Music by Pat Conroy

Ever since that oh so rewarding affair with My Reading Life by Pat Conroy where I waxed poetic about him being my new favorite author, I have been trying to pick up everything he’s written. I found a first edition copy, signed, of this book in a little used bookstore nearby a few months ago. Even though its probably not worth much to the world, I was so happy to find it I bought it immediately. Its been sitting (lovingly) in a pile of books to read in my living room for a while now. Must dust it off soon.

Russka by Edward Rutherfurd

I bought this a while back at a Library book sale and promised myself I’d read it. I love Russia and I definitely love Rutherfurd, but I haven’t gotten around to this one yet for some reason. Its definitely in another pile of must reads.

Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

What I’ve heard is a great memoir about a Chef and her life! My father sent this one to my kindle as a gift and I was so excited to start reading but somehow life and other books intervened and I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. But its there, shiny and new in my eBook library for me to consume soon.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

This book is in my anticipation-to-be-read pile for the fall. I have heard great things on blogs and on twitter about this book. I am very excited to purchase it when it comes out in a couple weeks. I hope it lives up to the hype!

  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Quest, love story, virtual space opera, mages, robots, battles, flying DeLoreans, puzzles, powers, unlocking secrets, lottery tickets. The description for this book is intriguing and amusing. It sounds like a great read and I can’t wait to get to it.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Oh Murakami, how I love thee! 1Q84, Murakami’s nod to George Orwells 1984 with a little fantasy, dystopia and well, essential Murakaminess thrown in, this book is one I am highly anticipating reading. I’ve been waiting for ages and now it is finally only a couple months away! I can’t wait to eat my pumpkin bread and read this book. (Look for it in October)

  Elegies for the Brokenhearted by Christie Hodgen

This was one of those books that you’re holding it in a bookstore and the clerk comes by and yells out “You have to read that! Buy it!” and so, despite the pile of books under your other arm (and really, how did so many books jump into your arms when you weren’t looking?) you purchase the book because if the book clerk said it was good, you’d be crazy to not buy it, right? I mean, they probably read as much as you do, if not more. (perish the thought!) So this book of five stories about five people who are eulogized in the narrative of one woman’s life, which Joanna Smith of the New York times book review said “is the literary equivalent of a hand grenade.” (I really liked that description) became a part of my pile.

The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright

A couple who have been married 39 years die in each other’s arms on the same night, in the Bed and Breakfast they own. When their children come home to arrange the funerals, they find love letters that their father wrote their mother every Wednesday. But there is more to the letters than they thought, so the intrigue and exposure begins. This book sounded good when I bought it over a year ago and it definitely still sounds good so I’m hoping to finally get to it this fall.

One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

I didn’t just put this book on the list because Thursdays naturally come after Wednesdays, but because this is actually next in my pile! (Subconscious, are you messing with me?) I recently picked up a signed copy of this at Book People in Austin. I’ve read all of Fforde’s other Thursday adventures and loved them. Looking forward to cracking this one open soon.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

Another I bought at Book People in Austin (I wasn’t kidding about that whole piles of books flying into my arms when I’m not looking thing) that has been sitting and waiting for me to get to it. Of course you may know this book, it is no recent release, it won all sorts of awards when I was 1-year-old, but I just wasn’t quite advanced enough to read it then. Set in New Zealand, it intertwines three people’s stories to reflect the heritage and history of their land. I’ve heard its exotic, poetic, touching and beautiful.