Top reads by genre (Top 10 Books)

Member Name: ladybracknell

Product:	Top 10 Books
Date:	02/11/09 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: All are first class reads

Disadvantages: None

I am a complete bookaholic and have far too many favourite authors and books to be able to reduce them to a top ten. So I've decided to simply list my favourite book within each of the genres or sub-genres that I read. All these titles are on my 'keeper' shelf and although my general reading philosophy is 'So many books. so little time', I often find the time to re-read these ones.

If you haven't read these books already, I hope I can persuade you to give them a try.

1. Children's Fiction: Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

Like many parents, mine read to me every night and one of my abiding early memories is of my Dad reading Winnie the Pooh (and The House at Pooh Corner), transporting me into this wonderful, magical Hundred Acre Wood. Of course, I hadn't a clue when I first heard these stories what an acre was and, in all honesty, I was really quite old before I realised that Piglet was, well, a piglet, as the E. H. Shepherd drawing of said Piglet didn't look much like one. But the adventures of Christopher Robin, Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit and all his friends and relations, enchanted me.

The beauty of these books is their capacity to be enjoyed on so many levels. The basic stories are full of fun and enough action to hold even the smallest child's attention and there are whole paragraphs in which Milne's subtle humour would be beyond very young children and so can be omitted without losing the sense of the story, but which will delight the adult who is reading to that child. Pooh's songs and poems too are a pleasure. My Dad used to make up his own tunes for the songs in the book and even now fifty-odd years later, I can still sing Cottlestone Pie word for word!

I think the measure of a good author is one who stands the test of time and A.A. Milne has certainly done that. These books were first written in the 1920s for his own son, Christopher Robin Milne, and nearly one hundred years later, his words are still delighting children all over the world.

2. Young Adult Fiction: Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

I'm sure most girls would say after reading this book that they identified with one or other of the four March girls, whether it be Meg, Jo, Beth or Amy. For me, Jo was everything I wanted to be. She was independent, feisty, and determined to have a career at a time when a woman's idea of a career was marriage and motherhood. The four girls collectively represent womankind. Meg, the nurturer, Jo, the career-girl, Beth, the sweet and gentle one and Amy, rather selfish but not wholly without good qualities and the one who gets the boy!

The lives of these four girls, together with their mother, are set during the hardship years of the American Civil War and this book not only gives you a historical insight into this time but also introduces the young reader into life's realities as experienced by these young women: death, disease, poverty, loss and disappointment.

To my mind, Louisa M Alcott still got it wrong. I so wanted Jo to marry Laurie, the boy next door, but there, too, I learned a lesson. You don't always get what you want!

3. Classics: Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

There is no doubt that I love Pride and Prejudice and the very subtle humour of Jane Austen but let's face it, nothing much happens in that book, so I'm choosing instead Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Its alternative title is Novel Without a Hero and that may well be Thackeray's opinion but to my mind, Becky Sharp is definitely a heroine.

This book was written in the mid-nineteenth century, and charts the rise and fall and partial rise again of Miss Becky Sharp during the Regency period or the Napoleonic Wars to be more specific. Becky may be a devious, manipulative, social climbing, adventuress but she is doing the only thing she can as a woman alone in her time: she is surviving as best she can.

From the moment Becky leaves school behind at the very beginning of the book, when she throws the teacher's gift of a dictionary out of the carriage window, telling her what she can do with it (albeit in polite Victorian language), I knew I was going to like Becky Sharp and she didn't disappoint.

She cuts a swathe through Regency society as she claws her way from poverty to gentility, not caring who she hurts on the way. She gets her comeuppance more than once and deservedly so, but compared to her friend, Amelia, who is just so sweet you want to slap her, Becky is a breath of fresh air.

I know many people shy away from Victorian novelists but if you're expecting a rambling, overly descriptive book like a Dickens novel, think again. Thackeray is a rollicking good storyteller who creates characters that are instantly recognisable even today and he recounts his tale without too much verbosity. And I have to add that in his creation of Rawdon Crawley, Mr Thackeray gave me a lifelong love of bad boys!

4. Modern Classics/General Fiction: Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

One of the books I was forced to read at school and, quite frankly hated, was Jane Eyre. I could not identify with Jane at all. She was a Victorian wimp and she certainly didn't deserve Mr Rochester. Which brings me to my next choice in the genre I'm calling general fiction, and that is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

This is not a huge book but Jean Rhys packs so much emotion into those one hundred and sixty pages that you would think it was as long as my previous choice.

Although the lead male character is never named as such, the inference is that he is Mr Rochester in the time before his return to England from the West Indies, which I guess makes this a sort of prequel to Jane Eyre.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Antoinette (Bertha), the first Mrs Rochester, and catalogues her early life as a Creole growing up in the steamy atmosphere of the West Indies, and her descent into madness, aided and abetted by her husband.

I guarantee that by the end of this book, you will have revised your opinion of Mr Rochester!

5. Romance: Frederica - Georgette Heyer

I admit it, I love a good romance novel and Georgette Heyer is the queen of Regency romance. Her stories are peopled by wealthy, rakish Regency heroes and her heroines are cut from the same cloth as Austen's Miss Elizabeth Bennett. I love all Georgette Heyer's novels but my favourite has to be Frederica.

The eponymous heroine, is the oldest in a family who have fallen on hard times and she seeks the patronage of her, very distant, cousin Lord Alverstoke. Alverstoke is a rake and a bored one at that.
But much to his surprise, Frederica and her siblings do not bore him.

Georgette Heyer tells the story with skill and the pages of this light, frothy romance bring to life a Regency England that may well never have existed but is absolutely believable. She also manages to convey sexual tension between the hero and heroine without recourse to pages of gratuitous rumpy pumpy.

This is just the perfect romance.


6. Science Fiction: Dark Universe - Daniel F Galouye

Now SciFi is no longer a genre that I read very often but this particular book is one I read many years ago and even now I remember.

Following a nuclear holocaust, the people of earth retreated underground until the threat of contamination had passed but a group of people remained underground not realising that it was safe to return to the surface. In the dark world they inhabited, these people developed a kind of sonar by using what they referred to as click stones to help them "see". Into this world come monsters who silently scream and people start to disappear.

To tell anymore of this story would involve massive spoilers but suffice to say, this is the best ever science fiction book I've read.

As with Huxley's Brave New World there are elements of this story which are quite prophetic, given the recent news story about the young blind boy who locates items by clicking his tongue to "see", in much the same way as the people in this book use their click stones.

Dark Universe was published in the early 60s and is probably out of print but you may be lucky enough to find a copy in your local library.

7. Historical Fiction: Harold the King - Helen Hollick

At the beginning of this book the reader is reminded that history is always written by the victors, implying that our ideas about the Saxons as an uneducated people are those handed down to us from the Norman chroniclers. This book redresses the balance.

Helen Hollick doesn't glamourise Harold in any way. He is depicted as a man of his time and this makes some of his actions seem alien to modern eyes but over the course of this book, the reader grows to know and respect Harold the man.

Even though I knew how the story would end, I finished the last pages in floods of tears and mourned for days the passing of the last true King of England.


8. Crime: Faithless - Karin Slaughter

I have read and enjoyed all the books in the Grant County series, set in Georgia and featuring paediatrician Sara Linton and her ex-husband, Jeffrey Tolliver who is chief of police. The crimes are often gruesome and described in lurid detail and the stories are always gripping.

In Faithless, which is the fifth book in the series, Sara and Jeffrey have resolved their marital differences and remarried. Whilst out walking in the woods they come across the body of a young woman who has literally been scared to death and their investigation leads them to the next county and seems to hark back to Sara's mother's past.

The crime in this book, as always, is believable and well written, and the story has so many twists and turns that it is hard to fathom who dun it. But it is the ending of this book which provides the real shocker and which left me totally bereft, even today! To get the full effect of this ending, you really need to read the entire series from book one. You won't be disappointed.

9. Fantasy: Warprize - Elizabeth Vaughan

Elizabeth Vaughan is a relatively new author and Warprize is the first book in a trilogy. Xylara is a princess and a healer who not only nurses her own people but also the wounded of the Firelanders, the enemy. Whilst healing these Firelanders, Lara is given to Keir, the mysterious Firelander warlord and held as the "Warprize". Initially, Lara doesn't know what being the Warprize entails and she is fearful but Lara is in for a surprise when she eventually discovers just what being the Warprize means.

This is a wonderful fantasy trilogy with great world building, and peopled by believable and well defined characters.

I admit to not being a huge fan of fantasy novels and read this book on the recommendation of a friend. After reading it, I couldn't wait for books two and three to come out to discover what happened next.


10. Urban Fantasy: Moon Called - Patricia Briggs

This genre, for the uninitiated, feature vampires, fae, witches, werewolves and all other many and varied fantasy folk and the stories are set in a modern urban setting. Of the titles and series I've read so far, the best has to be Moon Called by Patricia Briggs which is book one in an ongoing series.

Mercy Thompson is a car mechanic and sometime "Walker". A walker is a person who can shapeshift; in Mercy's case this is into the form of a coyote. She is an independent shifter, although she was raised by werewolves and is closely allied to the local werewolf pack led by Adam, their alpha. Mercy has friends amongst other groups of beings too. There is Stefan, a vampire, whose VW she is currently working on and the garage she owns once belonged to her friend and mentor, Zee, a member of the fae community.

In this first book of the series, Mercy employs a young man, even though she senses he is a werewolf and not from the local pack. Soon Mercy is involved in a fight with werewolves seeking the boy and she calls on Adam for help in protecting him. Many twists and turns in the plot occur before all is resolved.

This is an excellent series and Patricia Briggs has created a fabulous and believable world. If you enjoy the Sookie Stackhouse books or the True Blood series on TV, you'll love this book.

Summary: My reading history