Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Summer TBR


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is top ten books on my summer TBR. So, here’s what I plan to read in the next few months.

My Summer TBR




1. Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) – Brandon Sanderson
2. The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2) – Brandon Sanderson
3. The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3) – Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn is an epic fantasy trilogy and a heist story of political intrigue, surprises and magical martial-arts action. The saga dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the hero of prophecy fails? What kind of world results when the Dark Lord is in charge?


4. Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe – Benjamin Alire Sáenz

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.   
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.


5. Ready Player One – Ernest Cline

It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.  
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.  
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.  
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.  
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. 
Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape. 
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?


6. Stone Mattress: Nine Tales – Margaret Atwood


Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In "The Freeze-Dried Bridegroom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.


7. The Wind Through the Keyhole – Stephen King

In The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King returns to the rich landscape of Mid-World, the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga that stands as his most beguiling achievement. Roland Deschain and his "ka-tet"—Jake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two . . . and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.


8. Notable American Women – Ben Marcus

On a farm in Ohio, American women led by Jane Dark practice all means of behavior modification in an attempt to attain complete stillness and silence. Witnessing (and subjected to) their cultish actions is one Ben Marcus, whose father, Michael Marcus, may be buried in the back yard, and whose mother, Jane Marcus, enthusiastically condones the use of her son for (generally unsuccessful) breeding purposes, among other things. Inventing his own uses for language, the author Ben Marcus has written a harrowing, hilarious, strangely moving, altogether engrossing work of fiction that will be read and argued over for years to come.



9. Severance: Stories – Robert Olen Butler

The human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes after decapitation. In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. Inspired by the intersection of these two seemingly unrelated concepts, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler wrote sixty-two stories, each exactly 240 words in length, capturing the flow of thoughts and feelings that go through a person's mind after their head has been severed. The characters are both real and imagined: Medusa (beheaded by Perseus, 2000 BC), Anne Boleyn (beheaded at the behest of Henry VIII, 1536), a chicken (beheaded for Sunday dinner, Alabama, 1958), and the author (decapitated, on the job, 2008). Told with the intensity of a poet and the wit of a great storyteller, these final thoughts illuminate and crystallize more about the characters' own lives and the worlds they inhabit than many writers manage to convey in full-length biographies or novels. The stories, which have appeared in literary magazines across the country, are a delightful and intriguing creative feat from one of today's most inventive writers.



10. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail – Cheryl Strayed

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. 
Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

11 comments:

  1. Lots of good books on here! I really liked Aristotle and Dante and Wild was really good as well. I have seen good things on Ready Player One and need to check it out - Great list and enjoy!

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  2. Well, the only ones I've read out of your list is The Mistborn trilogy, but I CAN'T recommend it enough! It's one of my all-time favorites so I really hope that you will get to it because I want to hear all about it when you do :D Ready Player One is one that I've been meaning to get to as well, hopefully soon! Good luck with your Summer tbr list AJ^^ x

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  3. Great picks! I have been meaning to read Ready Player One for so long now, I have heard amazing things about that one. Also want to read Aristotle and Dante. I hope you enjoy all of these books when you get the chance to read them :) Here's my TTT.

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  4. Ready Player One is definitely on my larger TBR list for this summer! Hope you enjoy all your books! My TTT:

    Crystal @ Books Unbound

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  5. I'm heard Ready Player One is a good one. Can't wait to hear what you think of it!

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  6. The Mistborn series is great fun and you should hopefully enjoy it. Sanderson has a knack for creating well put together fantasy novels that are always really inventive, have amazing action and are just great fun to read. The magic system in Mistborn is also really cool. I hope you enjoy them!

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  7. Artistotle and Dante and Ready Player One are two of my favorite books in the entire world, so I hope you love them! I want to read Mistborn at some point too, but the rest of these are new to me!
    here's my TTT

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  8. I still have to read the Mistborn trilogy as well. I somehow haven't quite gotten to, despite having heard nothing but wonderful things.

    My TTT.

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  9. I've only read two of these books, Aristotle & Dante and Ready Player One. I liked Aristotle & Dante, but Ready Player One id one of my all-time favorites! I hope you get the chance to read these this summer!

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  10. Great list! I absolutely LOVED Aristotle & Dante, it's definitely one of my top 3 favorite reads ever. Hope you enjoy these books!

    ~Cari @ myaddictionbooks.blogspot.com

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  11. Great list! Mistborn and ready player One are both on my to-read shelves. Have a great summer! Happy Reading!

    Here's My TTT

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