Tuesday, March 27, 2012

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Books To Play Hooky With

How fortuitous! I wasn't going to do the Top Ten this week, but when I woke up this morning, it was a Storm Day! The kind that has nearly all of PEI stormstayed. (Stormstayed - the act of being stuck in your house due to inclement weather. We do weather so bad here, we have to have a whole word to describe it). I even stayed up late last night to finish correcting tests, so as not to upset the storm gods. If you don't correct, thinking you might have the next day at home to do it, the storm will take a different track, and not appear. Known fact.

So, books to play hooky with. Books that I'd want to stay home with to finish, or more likely, stay up late and give up sleep for. Or read all during a storm day. The kind of book you can't put down. Must. Keep. Reading to find out the ending.


1. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Dystopian books are often hooky books, because you have no idea where the story will go and you must find out.


2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Didn't everyone play hooky the day this book came out?



3. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson
I haven't got to the The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, because I'm waiting for a time when I know I can read nonstop, ie, play hooky with.



4. The Stand by Stephen King
The great showdown between good and evil, after that horrible flu? Stephen King is the reason I couldn't allow myself to read during university years - just in the summer. I would have stayed up all night, or missed classes to finish his classic books. Oh, I haven't read the Uncut Version. That's playing hooky for a week.


5. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
A book where a whole new world is invented by a brilliant author, and you just can't stop reading, you so want to spend more time in their world (underground London, in this case.) Carl is hosting a group read of Neverwhere for the Once Upon a Time VI.
  

6. Pope Joan by Donna Cross
Good historical fiction takes you to a time that feels more interesting than the present day world, and again, you don't want to leave. A woman pope? How could she get away with that?


7. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Books that take alternating points of view, back and forth in time, are the kinds you just can't put down. Add extreme emotional involvement? Take a day and immerse yourself in this tearjerker.


8. It by Stephen King
Scary. Again with the characters, now and then. By the time you finish a chapter, it's been so long since you've read that character's story, you have to keep reading.


9. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Historical fiction with compelling characters and politics.


10. Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer - my hooky book today!
I could have picked several Meyer books - Thirteen Hours or Trackers; his books are really good crime thrillers that follow several strands until they start coming together in ways you never expect.

Head on over to The Broke and the Bookish to link up and to see what everyone else is saying!