[Top Ten Tuesday: Classics That I Want To Read]

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup hosted by The Broke And The Bookish!

I love classic novels. They are like taking a trip into history. Reading them is so different than reading historical fiction. Historical fiction plays at making the past and our future meet, where classic novels transport you into the time itself. The authors were living in the world that we're reading about and one day the "contemporary novels" we read will have the same effect on future generations. It's pretty awesome when you look at it. So now I'll give you the list of classic novels that I want to get to sometime soon...

 

 

"I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith

"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Bronte

"Calico Palace" by Gwen Bristow

"Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov

"Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen

"Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier

"The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux

"The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"This Side of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte

Well there's my list!  What's on yours?  I wanna know.  Leave your link below or tell me in the comments!

P.S. since this week is my birthday week I'm doing twitter giveaways for some of my favorite books. Twitter handle @BlueBowGrl

[Top Ten Tuesday: All Time Favorite Books in Classic-ish Lit]

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup hosted by The Broke And The Bookish!

One thing I love almost as much as YA lit, is the classic stuff.  I used to force myself to read one classic every summer when I was younger.  I have to admit that it took me a whole summer to actually make it through all 1,000 or however many pages of Gone With the Wind.  Thing is, it was totally worth it in the end.  You might also notice that there isn't any Jane Austen on this list.  You might think I'm crazy, but I'm not a huge fan of her writing style, even though I'm a big fan of her stories.  It's weird, but it's reality.  So here are my top classic-ish lit picks!

The Books!

 

 

 "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott:  I don't think I've ever read a character I relate to more than Joe March.  She has a best guy friend, doesn't understand girls like she should, wants to write and she doesn't mind doing what she wants, even if it's frowned upon.  I can't tell you how many times I've read this one.

"Jubilee Trail" by Gwen Bristow:  Seriously, has anyone else read this book, because it's amazing!  It's about this girl who gets married and goes with a wagon caravan to California where her life gets all sorts of crazy.  Plus she makes friends with an old timey hooker and they become besties.  It's really magical and there are Indian attacks and dying cattle and things!

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee:  I can't say enough wonderful things about this book.  I love all of the characters and the message and everything else.  Let's just say that I'm a big fan.  Plus, the names are amazing.  Atticus, Scout, Boo... you get the picture!   

"The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde", by Oscar Wilde:  Oh Oscar, you're like my magical unicorn of an author spirit animal!  Really though, I can't get enough of this man's plays.  He wasn't afraid to be snarky.  Honestly, I think he was the early king of snark.  I even went to his grave site in Paris, because we totally would have been besties if we would have been alive at the same time! 

"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte:  Of course there had to be a creepy love story on this list and Jane Eyre takes the cake.  (At least out of all the classic lit I've read)  I just love the love story and the chills that you get as the secrets unfold.  I think this is Gothic lit at it's best!  So many secrets, so many!

"Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell:  Scarlet and Rhett are perfect for each other, meaning that they are both really really messed up.  Seriously, they really can't get their shit together, but I think that's why I like them so much.  Plus, there is war in this book and explosions, who doesn't love the mixture of messed up characters, explosions and love?

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald:  Talking about characters that can't get their shit together, this book should win a prize!  Almost everyone in this book doesn't know what to do with themselves and it causes all the drama.  Daisy, how I loath you.  And Gatsby, give me a call, I promise I'll return it.  (too soon?)  I have to admit that I'm a fan of Fitzgerald's writing and the 1920's in general!

"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton:  Yes, I know this one isn't as old as the others on this list, but I feel like I need at least one classic YA novel and this one wins out!  I just love this story about two best friends who get in all sorts of trouble.  Cause everyone knows that's what best friends do!

"The Sun Also Rises" by Earnest Hemingway:  Okay, this one isn't really a favorite.  I can't stand Jake.  I just can't.  The thing is, I really like Brett and think she's a character worth reading.  My best friend made me read this one for Brett and I dig her really flawed character.

"Wilderness" by Jim Morrison:  I'm pretty sure this one wins for least classic, but as a music junky, it was bound to happen.  This series of poems is great and weird and totally off kilter.  Morrison's mind was wack and I love diving into these poems every once in awhile.

Well there's my list!  What's on yours?  I wanna know.  Leave your link below or tell me in the comments!  

[Top Ten Tuesday: Beach Reads]

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup hosted by The Broke And The Bookish!

I love Beach Reads!  I tend to read different books during the summer than the rest of the year.  For awhile I would tackle one large classic every summer, one summer I read music related biographies and one summer I read a few series that I had been wanting to get through.  So, I'm gonna give you a few of my favorites in each of those categories.  It looks like this summer will be a bit different as I want to get through a lot of fun girly summer books.  So here are my favorites in the three categories that I already mentioned.

Favorite Classic Beach Reads:

"Gone With The Wind" by Margaret Mitchell:  This one actually took me a whole summer to get through back in my teens, but it was so worth it!  I mean the book is almost 1,000 pages long and not contemporary language.  I fell in love with this book so much that I now have three old school hardback editions of it!

"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte:  I love me some Gothic lit and this is one of my favorites!  It's got so much mystery and some really screwed up and yet lovable characters.  Honestly, if you haven't read this one yet, you should get on that!   

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald:  I read this one summer on the beach and I know that I didn't get everything about it, but I've revisited it and also watched the resent movie (which I LOVED!)  It's so much darker than I was expecting and I think that one of the things that I liked most about this story.  Plus it's set in the 1920s!

Biographies For Music Nerds Who Also Like The Beach:

(I'm obsessed with classic rock and musical theater)

"Love, Janis" by Laura Joplin:  I love Janis Joplin and her solo music as well as her years with Big Brother and the Holding Company.  I have their album on vinyl and it's one of my favorite things!  This book was awesome and told Janis's story in her sister's words as well as her own.  It was so cool to read about her life through the letters that she wrote to family and friends.

"A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love and Faith in Stages" by Kristin Chenoweth:  This book made me laugh and laugh and laugh.  I'm such a huge fan of Kristin's work and this book.  She talks about everything.  Beauty Pageants, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, Pushing Daisies and Wicked!  And that's not all.  Her wit shines through in this book too!  

"Wilderness" by Jim Morrison:  Jim was the lead singer of The Doors.  The man died at the age of 27, same as Janis.  This book of poetry is wack, but genius as well.  Sometimes I want to read something that's really wack and this is what I go to.  

Series To Beach About:

(I'll link you guys to the first book in the series)

"The Gemma Doyle Trilogy" by Libba Bray:  It's Victorian.  It takes place at a boarding school.  It has sexy gypsies.  It's got loads of humor (which we all expect from Libba).  It's epic and full of some of the craziest plot twists that made me want to scream and cry and also give out high fives to Libba for having the guts to write them.

"The Darkest Power Trilogy" by Kelley Armstrong:  These books are spooky and have a slew of known paranormal creators and yet it's an odd mixture which adds some new elements to the story.  These are super fast and fun reads.  The perfect kind for sitting on the beach or by a pool.  

"The Wicked Lovely Series" by Melissa Marr:  There are 5 books in this series and they're all out.  So you don't even have to wait for the next books like I did.  I happen to love these books a whole lot, even though that third one almost didn't get read all the way through.  The rest of the books are awesome!

"The Flappers Trilogy" by Jillian Larkin:  In all honesty I have only read the first book in this series so far, but I have the other two and loved the first one so much!  I'm really excited to get to the other ones and I think they will happen this summer!

Well there's my list!  What's on yours?  I wanna know.  Leave your link below or tell me in the comments!