Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings

Top Ten Tuesday is an original meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

I've been out of this loop for a few weeks, but I'm back in full force...thanks to or not thanks to a houseful of sick people :(

This Top 10 list was easy...I just pulled up my amazon wishlist with almost 300 books on it and chose 10 :):)

Top 10 Books I Hope Santa Brings

1.  IPAD - ok, ok...it's not a book...BUT..."my" Ipad that I've been reading ebooks on was really my boss's Ipad...and she made me give it back to her over Christmas holidays.  How rude! Yes, I know.  My 3rd Stephanie Plum was already downloaded on my boss's Ipad, which I'm sure she's reading right now.  WAH!  I will never be a proponent for completely replacing books with Ebooks, but after having an Ereader and then having it "stolen" away from me, I definitely see a place for them in our future.  I've even gone out on a limb this Christmas and ordered my middle child (the non-reader) a Nook-Color.  My hope is that it might inspire her to read a little more...she's big into electronics so maybe an electronic book will be the key.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

2.  The new Annotated version of Pride and Prejudice - From the moment I saw this one in real life it was a gimmee...a larger than normal beautifully covered edition of one of Austen's classics of classics.  And, to top it off, annotated and illustrated.  No thought necessary here.

3.  Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin - The setting is rural Mississippi...a lifelong friendship that crosses racial boundaries but ends with suspicion...two men who meet again in adulthood when the violence returns.  This one is probably a no brainer for Santa as well.  I'm a pretty transparent reader most of the time.

4.  A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse - a mystery? set in a bookstore??  Can any book lover resist a book whose setting is in a bookstore, library, book collector's home, etc??? I think not.  Bring it on, Santa!

5.  Great House by Nicole Krauss - Even if there hadn't been such hype about this novel this year, the idea of a desk with history...based on the homes and owners of its past...would have caught my attention just from reading the book jacket.  I've been waiting a while for this one.

6.  Just Kids by Patti Smith - This selection might be one that would surprise Santa just from the cover and a first look at the content.  Do you have any idea how many times I've been asked if I'm the rocker Patti Smith??  Not seriously, of course, but everybody's a comedian when the opportunity arises.  She even spells her name like me!

Anyhoo, my literary interest in this one goes past the rocker Patti Smith and my name sharing.  This story is more about her move to a New York that no longer exists and her friendship with the eccentric photographer Robert Mapplethorpe both before and after they both became famous. Sounds cool to me.

7.  The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - Back to the no-brainers for me.  A story about how an animal touches the life of its owner.  Several bloggers have promised tears and I have no idea why I do this to myself...but there's nothing like the love of a pet and I need to share those sentiments with all the authors who choose to write about these relationships.

8.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - I'm admittedly weird when it comes to books and movies.  This one has been on my list for a while, but when I saw that a movie was on its way in 2011 it became necessary for me to read this book immediately.  We all have our quirks, right?

9.  Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls - If I had to name books that touched my life in ways that I'm sure I'll carry with me the rest of my life, The Glass Castle would be one of those.  I reviewed it here.  When I heard that Jeannette Walls had backed up even further in her family's history and told the story of her maternal grandmother, I was and am intrigued to learn more about this woman who raised Jeannette's mentally ill mother.

10.  A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick - I LOVE historical fiction.  A well written story set in the past that also teaches me something about lives long ago really has the ability to transport me to another time and place.  These are escape books to me...I read paranormal fiction as well, but that is not real to me...it is a fairy tale or make-believe while historical fiction is a story with truth embedded.  This one has received a lot of buzz this year and many bloggers have recommended it...please and thank-you :)