Is that an owl I see before me? Top ten most vivid worlds

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is Top Ten Most Vivid Worlds/Settings in Books.

Well.

To join the inevitable horde...

#1 will have to be the world created for the Harry Potter series, by J. K. Rowling.

My favourite part of this world is the elision between the wizarding world and the Muggle world. The cover ups and obfuscations when things go a little bit awry. The awareness that wizards and witches have of Muggles, but the obliviousness that Muggles express towards anything wizarding, even if it's, you know, a flying car or garishly coloured robes.

As a reader, reading these books for the first time,  I kind of wanted to jump inside.

#2 A Song of Ice and Fire series, by George R. R. Martin.

There are MAPS! My favourite thing in books. The world is vast and intricate, with just enough references to the real world to make it seem plausible and acceptable (particularly in the first book), and just enough extra to make it such a compelling fantasy series. I always finish a book wanting to know more about the world and its inhabitants, the landscape, the customs, and all those places on the map that we have yet to visit...

#3 Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart


While I struggled with this book, the world in it - a futuristic nightmare of credit poles and see-through trousers, where everything is fit to be broadcast and shared - was vivid and a little bit frightening in its garishness.


#4 The Unit, by Ninni Holmqvist


Childless women over the age of 50 are sent to a facility where their every whim is catered for - the only catch is, they might be called upon to participate in medical tests at any moment. Some of these tests are harmless; others can be fatal. Usefulness to society is valued over all. A brilliant book that sticks with you.


#5 The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy


My A-level English teacher would be proud. I read this when I was 16 and at college, and I can't say that any of us were particularly enamoured with it. It was, however, one of my first experiences of a book in which the landscape 'counted' as a character, and I can still remember the events that took place over a year and a day on Egdon Heath. Score one for school.


#6 Malory Towers series, by Enid Blyton


I imagine I filled in a lot of the details for myself as a kid, because these books weren't big on intricate description as I remember. But much like the Harry Potter books, I wanted on occasion to be a student at Malory Towers, and the school, with its four towers, the pool, the lacrosse pitch, and the offices for older students, all seemed gloriously exotic at the time.


#7 The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth


I love Philip Roth's books, and have done ever since I was introduced to Portnoy's Complaint at university by my Jewish-American Lit lecturer (my absolute favourite teacher, ever). This, like a lot of other Roth books, is set in Newark, NJ, and is brought to life wonderfully. TPAA is an alternate history, but Newark remains real. One of my all-time favourite books.


#8 The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt


A too-hot, too-humid Southern town bakes in the summer while Harriet attempts to solve, along with her friend, the mystery of her younger brother's death. This book really came to life for me when I was reading it, and the landscape envelopes you completely.


#9 Alone in Berlin, by Hans Fallada


A bleak Berlin under Nazi occupation. Deception, suspicion, and the gradual, horrible loss of hope, all along the grey, uncompromising streets of wartime Berlin.


#10 The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides


This sleepy Michigan neighbourhood is far from being other-worldly, yet it is rendered in such a dreamlike, half-remembered way that I think it qualifies. Vivid and blurry at the same time, you feel like you're there when the heat gets unbearable and the air is full of flies and cut down trees.

And that's all before you go through the wardrobe to Narnia, or visit Armistead Maupin's San Francisco, or the Ystad of Kurt Wallander, or attempt to take on Big Brother...

Sandy toes and ocean waves: Top Ten Beach Reads

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is: Top Ten Recommended Beach Reads.

I am a bit of a sun dodger in the summer, but I do love being by the sea, and beach + book is never a bad way to spend an afternoon!

1. Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

Holiday murders and the heat of the desert.

2. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour - Morgan Matson

One of my favourite road trip books!

3. Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin

Short, snappy chapters and lots of fun characters.

4. The Summer I Turned Pretty - Jenny Han

A nice beach-themed read.

5. The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton

Blurring the lines of truth amongst a group of high school girls.

6. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides

Delicious and absorbing.

7. The Boyfriend List - E. Lockhart

A quick, fun read perfect for a sunny day!

8. Five on a Treasure Island - Enid Blyton

The ultimate in beach-side adventures, where the kids have their own island to play on to their hearts' content.

9. Riding The Magic Carpet: A Surfer's Odyssey to Find the Perfect Wave - Tom Anderson

This is a little bit of a cheat, because I just received this book for my birthday, but it seems like exactly the kind of thing to read by the sea!

10. You could always have a snooze! (Remember the sun cream.)

Top Ten Tuesday: Rewind!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, TTT is on a rewind, meaning we can choose any past topic that takes our fancy!

I haven't been taking part in Top Ten Tuesday for very long, relatively speaking, so going back through all the old topics, I saw quite a few that I thought I'd enjoy doing. In the end, however, I chose to relive a chunk of my childhood and go with the relatively simple: Top Ten Childhood Favourites. If nothing else, it gives me an opportunity to google some tragic book covers from the late 80s/early 90s. (And, let's face it, the early 80s, because my local library growing up was hardly ahead of the times, or even anywhere near them.)

These are all books that I was reading, roughly, as a pre-teen and young teenager. I read a lot of series whilst growing up, so here are just a few choice samples:

1. The Babysitters' Club (series) by Ann. M. Martin

Kristy and Shannon swoon over the impeccable rhyming of "blue" with "you".

Oh, the BSC. How I adored these books as a kid. Fifteen chapters of babysitting adventures and mild teenage issues, all wrapped up nearly by the end of the book. Not forgetting, of course, the requisite introductory chapter, where we learned, over and over and over, that Stacey had a blond perm and was from New York, Kristy liked sports and wore a visor, Claudia liked junk food and Nancy Drew, and no one cared that Jessi was black. So much so that they kind of forgot to add in anything in the way of personality for poor Ms. Ramsey.

My first BSC book, and the one I remember the most, was Kristy's Mystery Admirer, as shown above.

2. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

A book that baffled me for years, given all that talk of belts instead of sanitary towels, but one that I loved anyway. I used to borrow the audiobook from the library, and listen to it on my Boots cassette player.

3. Malory Towers (series) by Enid Blyton

I was a massive Enid Blyton fan - everything from The Famous Five to The Secret Seven and the Five Find-Outers, to St. Clares and the Faraway Tree. But Malory Towers, with its tempestuous protagonist Darrell and a cast of broadly sketched but compelling characters, both pupils and teachers, made me desperate for midnight feasts and lacrosse, whatever that might have been. (My brother and I tried, by chucking a tennis ball between two fishing nets, but it's not quite the same.)

4. Sweet Dreams series (various authors)

If only she knew that glasses were for NERDS.

80s throwback time. My library had a potted selection of these books, all of which I borrowed at one time or another. I can only remember two stories now: one about a girl who went to live with her grandmother for the summer, by the beach, and spent all her time diving for sand dollars (I had no idea what these were), and one about a girl assigned to a science project with a (gasp) "bad boy". She liked meteorology, he liked being popular, except he fell in love with her and proved it by taking off her glasses and remarking on how beautiful she was. ("Guys don't make passes...", and all that. Doh.)

5. No. 1 (unknown author, part of the Point series)

Okay, so I remember this book vividly: it was huge, for a YA novel, and bright purple on the front. It concerned a gypsy boy called Terry, who wrote songs and was bullied at school, the bullies themselves, who (I think) end up forming a boy band, and the fight to be number one in the music industry and in the charts. I don't remember who wrote it, but it was a standalone in the "Point" series (who also did Point Horror and Point Romance). If anyone does remember, please enlighten me!

6. Making Out (series) by Katherine Applegate

Also contained a doctor's lecture to Nina and her blind boyfriend on how to use a condom. Fact.

I think they renamed this series a few years ago, but when I was reading it, it was the VERY SCANDALOUS "Making Out", so scandalous it was difficult to ask for them as birthday presents. A group of teens live on a tiny island off the coast of Maine, all stealing each others' boyfriends and girlfriends and scrawling out journal entries while looking cool in a massive jumper (necessary when living on aforementioned tiny island). I wanted to live on an island, and I wanted to be like wise-cracking Nina, who smoked (except she didn't) and always said funny things in threes.

7. Sweet Valley High (series) by Francine Pascal

The scandal of Suzanne, who tried to seduce Robert Redford. I mean, Mr. Collins.

I started by reading the Sweet Valley Twins books, the only one I owned being one where (12 year old) Jessica dates one of her brother's friends by pretending to be older, and ends up on a double date with, erm, her brother. That old chestnut. I then graduated onto SVH, where I spent many a happy hour reading about Jessica's latest hare-brained scheme, and Elizabeth's plan to get her sister out of trouble. Memorable favourites include: The New Jessica and Too Good To Be True from the regular series, the Secret Diaries they published from each twin's point of view, and some trilogy late in the series, where the twins go off to be counsellors at a summer camp. (If you too are an SVH survivor, I highly recommend Shannon's Sweet Valley High blog, as well as the Dairi Burger, which is on hiatus but has an impressive archive.)

8. Anastasia Krupnik (series) by Lois Lowry

The literary character I most resemble.

I almost feel like I would still enjoy this series now, which is more than I can say for some of the above tragedies. ;) Anastasia lives with her parents and her little brother Sam, first in New York and then in the suburbs. My favourite, and the one I read over and over, was Anastasia Again!, in which they make the move to the suburbs, and a hostile Anastasia gradually learns to love her new home.

9. Point Horror series (various authors)

Ghosts! Hangings! Dead girls! Woo!

We used to pass these around school in a borderline-illicit fashion. I recall almost nothing about individual books now, other than the tried and tested formula, which was that the killer was always the one who the narrator never suspected - usually the best friend. I do remember laughing at some for being absurd, yet being genuinely terrified of others: namely, Caroline B. Cooney's Twins, which was so frightening to me at the time that I never finished it, and hid the "scary cover" at the back of the wardrobe.

10. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Maybe my favourite book ever as a kid. I thought being a spy was the greatest thing ever. I wished for stealth and a big yellow raincoat. I had to stand for just writing down lots of pointless things in a notebook.

I also noticed that, in recounting these books, I can remember the series' numbers but not the titles themselves. I knew that SVH #11 and SVH #32 were two of my favourites, but I had to google the titles.

I hope you enjoyed that very retro Top Ten Tuesday - leave me your links!