Top Ten Series I Need to Start Reading

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. You can find upcoming topics at their Top Ten Tuesday page.

1. Percy Jackson and the Olympian by Rick Riordan: I actually started this series a couple of years ago, but only got as far as Book 2, which I read back in October 2011. I really need to start reading this series again. I mean, it's about Greek mythology, which I have been in love with since the 6th grade. This series should have been a priority read for me.

2. Jessica Darling by Megan McCafferty: I've heard so many great things about this series and intended to pick up Sloppy Firsts years ago. I really want to see what all the fuss is about with this Marcus Flutie character :)












3. Castor Chronicles by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl: I just saw the movie and really enjoyed it. I loved that the two main characters were portrayed as such avid readers. I own the first book, so this should definitely be a series I'll start sooner rather than later.

4. Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer: I've heard nothing but good things about this series, and I love modern day fairy tale retellings, so this series sounds like it'd be a definite winner for me.

5. Delirium by Lauren Oliver: I can't even tell you how long I've owned this book. I want to say it's been going on two years now, at least.

6. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: This series sounds so awesome and funny and quirky. Plus, I remember watching a clip from the movie in  a math class in college (it was the scene where the computer gives the number 42 as the ultimate answer to the universe--spoiler?) and it was absolutely hilarious! I've been dying to watch the rest of the movie, but I don't want to until I read the book first. I bought the volume with all five books at a yard sale for about $2, and I can't wait to dig into this beast.

7. Firelight by Sophie Jordan: I was so excited for this series and I bought the first book the moment it came out . . . and then I never read it :/

8. Gone by Michael Grant: This series sounded so incredible when I first heard about it. It sounded a lot like The Girl Who Owned a City, an older post-apocalyptic YA novel that was a favorite of mine in middle school. I'd been looking for similar story lines ever since, and when I happened upon Gone, I knew it was a must read. I still can't believe I haven't started it yet.

9. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare: This is another series that I've heard countless praise for. I told myself that I'd finally start it as soon as all of the books in the series have come out (that way, I don't have to be tortured by those long waits and those cliff hangers!).

10. Prague. Art. Chimaeras. I could go on and on about how incredibly awesome this series sounds just from reading the three paragraph summary. I can't believe I didn't jump into this novel as soon as I was able. I must be crazy. However, I did buy a copy of Daughter of Smoke and Bone with my birthday money, and I have every intention of buying all of the other books for this series.I just know this is one I'll love to death before I've even read the first page.

Top Ten Bookish Resolutions

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. You can find upcoming topics at their Top Ten Tuesday page.

This week's TTT is a freebie, so I decided to do the Bookish Resolutions topic from last year. I figured it was still early enough in the year to make some goals :)

1. Read 65 books this year: I read 90(!) books last year, but that was including books I'd read for classes, including a month of summer classes. I graduate in May (Yay!) so that means that I'll have about five months less of assigned reading that I can count. I think sixty-five will still be a pretty challenging goal since I used to only read about 40-50 books a year before I started college.

2. Write more reviews: I'm such a slacker when it comes to reviews. I've only written one review in the past couple months. Not good. I resolve to write a review within the week of finishing a book that I would like to share on my blog. I also resolve to write reviews for the 10 or so books that I read in the past couple of months by the end of February.

3. Posts: I have two goals in regard to my posts on this blog. 1) Post more! I haven't been as committed to posting as I hoped I'd be when I started this blog, and I really want to change that. My last semester is going to be super busy so I might not be able to make much progress with this goal right away, but after April I will have no more excuses. 2) Branch out more. I tend to stick with either memes or reviews, but I would like to write some discussion posts, make vlogs, share bookish sites and other things, and maybe even put up a random personal post every once and a while (assuming that anything interesting enough actually happens to me to write about).

4. Create labels for my posts: I put off doing this in the beginning, thinking it wasn't necessary then since my blog was small enough to navigate without those handy labels. But now as more posts are going up, my blog is becoming less searchable and I want to change that.

5. Visit and comment on more blogs: I love checking out other blogs and interacting with bloggers, which I haven't been doing enough of lately.

6. Read more classics: I've been reading mostly young adult books ever since my sophomore year of college. They're such fast reads that it's easier to find time for pleasure reading than it would be if I tried reading anything heavier, but now that I'm graduating I'm excited to get back to reading more literary fiction and classics (of my choice--aka not assigned reading) that I really loved in high school. This doesn't mean I'm done with young adult by any means, but I don't want it to be my major genre this year like it was for the last two.

7. Read more thrillers/mysteries: When I checked out NPR's Top 100 Killer Thrillers list, I was disappointed to see that I had only read five books off the list. However, about half of that list is on my to-be-read shelf. I've been making very little *cough* zero *cough* progress with this list since I came across it over a year ago, and it is well past time that I started reading more of this genre.

8. Start reading outside: I've tried reading outside a couple times, but I never really enjoyed it as much as I thought I would, and I think that's because I'm not really used to it. As soon as the weather gets warmer, I'm going to really give it a shot. If I can learn to love outdoor reading, that would open up a million more possible reading spots for me, and I love my variety.

9. Get an eReader: I really want a Nook Simple Touch for my birthday, which is coming up in April. I keep seeing some really amazing ebooks for only 99 cents and there are a lot of FREE ebooks (such as most classics which I'm excited for, but there are also some interesting paranormal and romance ebooks for free). I'm certain that I'm going to be on a very strict budget for most, if not all, of this year-who knows if I'll ever get a job in this economy?-so the eReader will be great to have for that time. Not to mention how handy it'll be on my two week trip to Europe in June. Instead of having to lug around a dozen books, I can just carry around my ultra-light eReader with dozens of books at my disposal. Heck yes!!

10. Read more books that I own: I resolve to read only books that I own during the summer (with the exception being those cheap ebooks, of course), and if my will power is strong enough, continue reading only books that I own as late into the year as I can manage. I own 126 books that I have yet to read, so my personal library is definitely big enough to see me through to the end of 2012 and well into 2013 (though I know I won't go that long without buying more books or visiting the library).

Top Ten Childhood Favorites

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. You can find upcoming topics at their Top Ten Tuesday page.

1. The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food
I learned how to read from this series, and this is one of my favorite stories of the Berenstain bears. I remember looking at all of those illustrations of candy and wishing that I had a pile of junk food to snack on too (which was the opposite of what the book intended for me, but oh well). I loved this series to death and I loved the show!

2. I Was So Mad
The Little Critters collection is another series that I learned to read from. I had a really hard time picking which book I wanted to display. I finally decided on I Was So Mad because I remember it being hilarious and I loved those frogs! I really want to go back and read this entire series. I hope my mom still has them somewhere in the house.

3. The Christmas Ghost (Sweet Valley Twins Super Chiller #1)
I don't think there's a single Sweet Valley book I haven't read (from every series).This is one of my particular favorites of the Twins series, and it's a Christmas themed book, so it's a perfect pick for December. In this book, Elizabeth gets a famous teen movie star to come to Sweet Valley and help out with a charity fund raiser for a local hospital, but Jessica, who is desperate to meet him, pretends to be her twin. She thinks there's no harm in what she does, but three ghosts from Christmas past, present and future show her the error of her ways. I'm definitely going to have to check out my local libraries once I get home after finals and see if any of them carry this book. It would make a great holiday read, and I haven't read a Sweet Valley book in some time so it'll be really nice to revisit the twins again.

4. Weeping Willow
One of my favorite books of all time. I felt such a kinship with the main character, Tiny Lambert (my own last name is Lambert, so that might have played a part in that). I even thought about naming my first daughter Tiny after I'd read this book, but thankfully I let that one go (since my daughter would probably actually be tiny-I'm only 5' 1" myself-so that would just be cruel).

5. Where the Lilies Bloom
This is another beautiful book, and a sad one. This should be assigned reading for all young girls (I would say 4th grade or older). I loved that this book took place in the North Carolina (I was living in California at the time but was born in NC and always considered myself a southern girl at heart). This book was a wonderful taste of home.

                                                                                    **********************************************

Hmmmm . . . well, that's all I can think of for books I loved in elementary school. Like I said above, I was obsessed with Sweet Valley and those books took up most of my reading time. However, there are a couple more books I would like to share that I fell in love with in the seventh grade:

6. Ella Enchanted
This book became an instant favorite. It has it all: romance, fantasy, adventure. I literally could not put it down until I finished it. I read Ella Enchanted in one day, which was something I was quite proud of because it was the first time I could remember doing that (not counting the kid chapter books).

7. The Girl Who Owned a City
This was my first dystopian novel ever and it blew me away! If you have never read it, you need to get to it immediately. Here's a short summary of the book (taken from Goodreads): When a plague sweeps over the earth killing everyone except children under twelve, ten-year-old Lisa organizes a group to rebuild a new way of life. Sounds epic, right?