Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favorite Books Before I Became A Blogger

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created over at The Broke and the Bookish.  This feature was created because they're particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish (and who isn't?). They're all about creating new lists including a little bit of everything and I've been meaning to participate for so long but always seemed to get behind.  So here we are and hopefully you'll head over to their page and check out what everyone else put up for this week's Top Ten.

I know it sounds silly, but it was hard to remember the titles I read before I started this blog outside of the classics and school assigned mandatory books.  I've fallen in love with the blogosphere and forget easily that I've only been at this for a few years now.

Favorite Pre-Blog Book #1:  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894 declared it the "most perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently quintessential of its author's works," and Eudora Welty in the twntieth century described it as "irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be."

It was the first book I fell head over heels in love with.  I'm aware that it makes me a horrible cliche, but Austen's writing was just ahead of her time and her characters feel like family members after so many re-reads.

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #2:  Twlight (Twilight, #1) by Stephanie Myers

Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-between desire and danger.Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

A series for YA that I think shocked the system.  Harry Potter may have been adult friendly but still fell more into MG and so this series I think did a lot for showing everyone that great series can be found within the YA literature world and are ripe for the reading.  I also have to say that I think this series had a lot to do with the fact that now we're all lucky enough to see so many more YA books being turned into movies, who isn't excited about that?

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #3:  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) by C.S. Lewis

When Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy took their first steps into the world behind the magic wardrobe, little do they realise what adventures are about to unfold. And as the story of Narnia begins to unfold, so to does a classic tale that has enchanted readers of all ages for over half a century.

My dad read this and the rest of the series to me before bed for so long when I was little.  The witch terrified me, but this series and most especially this book really bring back great memories for me and even after all these years any time I see a copy or hear about the series I can't help but smile and think back to the good story times we had.

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #4:  The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. 

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. 

If she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

I later reviewed the series as a whole once the blog was up and running but I thank Collins for getting me excited about the dystopian genre.

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #5:  I Do, But I Don't (Crandell Sisters, #1) by Cara Lockwood

"She creates perfect days."In spite of her incorrigible curly hair, Lauren Crandell is a neat-freak and organizational guru, qualities that make her the perfect wedding planner. But when two weddings in one day go haywire, and hunky firefighter Nick Corona comes to the rescue -- twice -- Lauren realizes there are a few important details in her own life she hasn't been tending to since her divorce. Namely, her sex life.

"She lives lonely nights."

Sweet and sexy Nick seems hell-bent on fanning the flames between them, and Lauren definitely feels sparks flying. But she's scrambling to plan nuptials for her most challenging client yet -- a beautiful, cunning, and certifiable Psycho Bride. With the big day rapidly approaching, a series of misunderstandings, mishaps, and mistaken identities threatens to ruin not one, but two happily ever afters. But with her career and her love life on the line, the wedding planner just might learn that you can't plan "everything, " least of all true love.

Not YA but a hilarious read.  Its one of the first books I can actually remember laughing out loud at points while I was reading.

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #6:  Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

This Victorian bestseller, along with Braddon's other famous novel, Aurora Floyd, established her as the main rival of the master of the sensational novel, Wilkie Collins. A protest against the passive, insipid 19th-century heroine, Lady Audley was described by one critic of the time as "high-strung, full of passion, purpose, and movement." Her crime (the secret of the title) is shown to threaten the apparently respectable middle-class world of Victorian England.

A requirement for one of my literature classes in college and the mystery throughout the pages made the chore of mandatory reading under a very small time frame completely tolerable.

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #7:  P.S. I Love You by Cecila Ahern

A novel about holding on, letting go, and learning to love again.

Now in paperback, the endearing novel that captured readers' hearts and introduced a fresh new voice in women's fiction Cecelia Ahern.

Holly couldn't live without her husband Gerry, until the day she had to. They were the kind of young couple who could finish each other's sentences. When Gerry succumbs to a terminal illness and dies, 30-year-old Holly is set adrift, unable to pick up the pieces. But with the help of a series of letters her husband left her before he died and a little nudging from an eccentric assortment of family and friends, she learns to laugh, overcome her fears, and discover a world she never knew existed.

The kind of enchanting novel with cross-generational appeal that comes along once in a great while, PS, I Love You is a captivating love letter to the world!

Saw the movie before I knew it was a book.  Couldn't believe I did that so I decided to check the book out anyways and discovered, not surprisingly that I enjoyed it more than the movie.

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #8:  The Shack by Wm. Paul Young

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his "Great Sadness," Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.

If you've read this one you'll understand that it never leaves you.  I can't recommend it enough whether you're religious or not, it's a book worth taking the time to check out and see what's it all about.

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #9:  I'll Be Seeing You by Mary Higgins Clark

The murdered woman could have been her double. When reporter Meghan Collins sees the sheet-wrapped corpse in a New York City hospital, she feels as if she's staring into her own face. And Meghan has troubles enough already without this bizarre experience. Nine months ago, her much-loved father's car spun off a New York bridge. Now, investigators are saying that there's no trace of his car in the river, and they suspect he faked his own death. With frightening speed, links start to appear between Meghan's father and her dead lookalike. Meghan may be in danger herself, but she's determined to find the truth to the mystery. In a nightmare journey spiraling from New York to Connecticut to Arizona, Meghan finds that the truth can sometimes be deadly.

She's a machine and a staple in the literary world.  With so many books to choose from (and I did read a lot of them) I loved them all.  With her soap opera style of flashing from one scene and character to another...love it!

Favorite Book Pre-Blog #10:  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter has never played a sport while flying on a broomstick. He's never worn a Cloak of Invisibility, befriended a giant, or helped hatch a dragon. All Harry knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley. Harry's room is a tiny cupboard under the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in ten years.

But all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to a wonderful place he never dreamed existed. There he finds not only friends, aerial sports, and magic around every corner, but a great destiny that's been waiting for him... if Harry can survive the encounter.

Has anyone not read this series?