Double-Stacked Bookshelves

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a great way to share what you're loving in list form.  The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is:  Top Ten New To You Authors .  Oh, there are so many possibilities!  Needless to say, there are several authors on my list who should not be new-to-me authors because they've been around for a while.  Alas...I'm late to their genius.  In no particular order, here are some authors I loved this year: Jhumpa Lahiri :  Her short stories in Interpreter of Maladies are beautiful and brilliant.  I'm very excited to expand my Lahiri reading. Ellen Marie Wiseman :  Wiseman's The Plum Tree is a heartbreaking work of gorgeous story.  I'm thankful I found this gem in the Friends of the Library book sale. Leslye Walton :  The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is just that...strange and beau...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is:  Top Ten Authors I've Read the Most Books By .  Woohoo...great topic! Here are mine: Nora Roberts Books Read:  43 Favorite Book:  The Chesapeake Bay Saga (four books) Janet Evanovich Books Read:  24 Favorite Book:  Top Secret Twenty One (Stephanie Plum #21) Heather Graham Books Read:  21 Favorite Book:  The Cameron Family Saga (six books) VC Andrews Books Read:  21 Favorite Book:  My Sweet Audrina Jude Deveraux Books Read:  14 Favorite Book:  Days of Gold (Edilean Series #2) JK Rowling Books Read:  9 Favorite Book:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Italo Calvino Books Read:  9 Favorite Book:  If on a win...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is a doozy:  Top Ten Authors I Really Want to Meet .  AGH!  There are so many.  So many!  I think I'm going to divide my list into two parts:  five authors still living and five who have passed.  Here goes! Five Living Authors JK Rowling.  How can she NOT be on your list!!!    She's perfection. Salman Rushdie.  I think he would be so fascinating to talk to. Chris Bojhalian.  Hands down, he's my favorite American writer and I'm so bummed I missed his book signing when he was in Portland :( Alexander McCall Smith.  Just so I could talk all things Scottish with him.  I want to know even more about Bertie, Angus, and all the characters from 44 Scotland Street ! Jenny Lawson.  ...

I've figured out my guiding topic for the month!  I'm feeling very accomplished today.  This entire challenge will be focused on writers I truly enjoy or who have influence my readings/writings in some way.  I hope people will explore some of the authors/works I discuss throughout the month. For the letter B, I've got four stand out writers who have shaped my reading preferences:  Charles Baudelair, Jorge Luis Borges, Tadeusz Borowski, and Chris Bohjalian. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) A French poet, essayist, art critic, and Poe translator, Baudelaire focused on the industrialization of Parisian society during the 19th century.  He believed that it was art's purpose to capture the fleeting experience of life in the urban landscape.  Perhaps his most famous work, Las Fleurs du mal ( The Flowers of Evil ), published in 1857, highlighted themes of sex, death, decomposition, decay, metamorphosis, melancholia, and various vices.  The volume was ...

As someone who has made books and reading their profession, it is very difficult for me to choose a favorite author.  But there are several who stand out in my eyes and that's why this week's "Why I Love" is dedicated to my favorite author ...or authors in my case :) First, and foremost, I have to include Italo Calvino who is a notable Cuban-Italian writer.  I first encountered the brilliance that is Calvino's writing in an undergrad English course and have since sought out everything he's written, even going so far as to take a grad course dedicated to him.  The first book I read of his was The Baron in the Trees .  Pure magical brilliance!  He's also written a lot of literary theory and critiques on the notion of time as it's represented in literature.  I have to say that my absolute favorite novel by Calvino is If on a winter's night a traveler... which is a unique piece of work in that it doesn't follow the traditional formula of novel...

Throughout the literary world, there are several authors who are severely underrated.  I don't really know why or what causes such authors to be considered "not as good" as those high-brow, canonized writers of literature, but, without fail, those poor, under appreciated authors somehow manage to eek out a loyal following.  So, in honor of the hidden gems in the literary world, I am honoring my favorite underrated author for this week's "Why I Love..." edition. That being said, cue the wonderful, talented, and severely underrated Elizabeth Gaskell.  Who? most ask.  Well let me tell you!  Mrs. Gaskell, as she's often referred to, is a British writer from the Victorian era.  Most notable are her novels:  Cranford , North and South , and Wives and Daughters .  She's also quite notable for writing the first biography of Charlotte Bronte.  The majority of her work deals with social issues and the likes.  However, she is also a quite accomp...