Top Ten Tuesday

Well hey there, gals and guys, and welcome to this weeks instalment of Top Ten Tuesday. And, oh my, it's the last one of January, and oh dear god, where did that month go?! I'm going to be having my wisdom teeth taken out today, maybe even as you read this, so please leave me lots of lovely comments to wake up to (in horrible pain!) A quick note on today's picks- my book club would obviously consist of supersmart people who were preferably also English graduates (well, they don't even have to be graduates, just, you know, people with some knowledge of how to analyse a book properly) because a LOT of these books I wouldn't necessarily recommend to people who don't read much, I just desperately want to discuss them!

So, anyway, with that massive preamble, here are:

Top 10 Books I Think Would Make Great Book Club Picks


1. Great House by Nicole Krauss- I've chosen this basically because I finished it more than a week ago, and I still can't think of what to say about it. It's just so... sort of intertwined stories, but not too intertwined, but then I think you can make other connections too, and basically I need to discuss this with people to figure out what it was really about! All I know is that I loved it, which does not a review make!

2. How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran- Basically because every person ever should read this. But  also because there are all sorts of funny things we could all talk about, and then also we could discuss feminism, which is always awesome (unless you're one of those "I'm not a feminist, but..." people, in which case you can't come to my book group!)

3. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates- Can't we all appreciate a good fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe? Lots to discuss in this one too- not only about the story itself, but also the ethics of writing such a book, and how seriously we can take it, and all other good things like that.

4. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck- Oh dear god, the things that can be discussed in this book! I studied this book in Uni, and the one hour seminar was really not enough time to discuss all of the themes and the scale and the pure magnificence of this book.

5. Anything by Jane Austen- There is any number of things that one could discuss about any of the six Jane Austen novels, and I want to talk about all the things with many other Jane Austen fan people. It'd be like that book, The Jane Austen Book Club, only not shit.

6. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood- Another feministy discussiony book, but also one that I think people would really really enjoy, just for all the righteous anger and stuff it brought up, at least in me! Then we could have a revolution and take over the world...

7. It by Stephen King- This is, in fact, the next Stephen King book I'm reading (it's also my favourite!) but aside from both those things, there's so much that can be discussed about it. Like, so much that I'm sort of dreading reviewing it because it's going to be like a ten page long ramble about all its fabulousness that literally nobody will read past, say, the first two paragraphs. BUT THERE'S SO MUCH TO SAY! This is why I need a book club.

8. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte- Much as I hate hearing people talk about how much they hate this book (and I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't) I feel like a book club would be a perfect forum for me to convince everyone about why it's wonderful. And it's not its narrative structure, let me tell you that!

9. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer- This is almost the opposite of Wuthering Heights- I was massively ambivalent about this book (well, about the story, I was pretty freaking excited by the actual writing) but I feel that, if convinced by the right people, I could be convinced of its innate brilliance. Maybe.

10. No Logo by Naomi Klein- I should have really put The Shock Doctrine because, despite starting it in September, I've been too scared to pick it up again, and a book club would force me to read it! But anyway, No Logo is something I'm fairly convinced everyone should read, and then we could all have an anti-capitalist revolution along with our feminist one. The world's going to be SO GOOD after all our reading!

These aren't necessarily my top book club picks, but they're the best ones I could think of on the spur of the moment! Now I just need to find some like-minded people to read/start a revolution with. Or... maybe I could just keep doing readalongs here! (If anyone knows of a Grapes of Wrath readalong anywhere, please point me in that direction and I'll be on it! OR, if you'd be interested in reading it along with me, I could probably be convinced to host it...)