Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Top 5 Tuesday: Books I'd Love to Re-Read

 This week I decided to switch back over and participate in Top 5 Tuesday, originally hosted by BionicBookworm, now hosted by MeeghanReads!

This week's theme is: Books I'd Love to Re-Read

I've recently started getting into re-reading here and there in the past couple of years and I've been really loving it! There are so many books I've been wanting to re-read, so narrowing it down to just five was hard and I had to leave out a lot (such The Wolf in the Whale, Vita Nostra, and The Bear of the Nightingale... just to throw those in), but here are five that I've been really wanting to re-read for a while now. 

Stoner
Stoner by John Williams
I read Stoner a number of years ago now and just fell in love with it. It's a very quiet, thoughtful novel about a young scholar who falls in love with English literature and pursues a career and life as a professor. There's much more to it than that, of course, but that's the general gist of it and I would really love to give it another read this year and remember exactly what it is about it, the writing, and John Stoner himself that made me love it so much. (Please note: there are no plants featured in this novel, the title is a mere coincidence.)

About:
"John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world." Goodreads 


Preludes & Nocturnes (The Sandman, #1)
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman series is easily one of my favorite graphic novel/fantasy series in general of all time and I really want to start a re-read of them all. I've been keeping up with the audiobook production versions of them that have been coming out lately, and as much as I have been loving those, it's only making me want to re-read the books more! Hopefully I'll be getting into a start of this re-read soon. 

About:
"Upon his escape from an embarrassing captivity at the hands of a mere mortal, Morpheus finds himself at a crossroads, forced to deal with the enormous changes within both himself and his realm. His journey to find his place in a world that's drastically changed takes him through mythical worlds to retrieve his old heirlooms, the back roads of America for a twisted reunion, and even Hell itself—to receive the dubious honor of picking the next Devil. But he'll learn his greatest lessons at the hands of his own family, the Endless, who—like him—are walking embodiments of the most influential aspects of existence.


The Crimson Petal and the White
The Crimson Petal and the Witch by Michel Faber
The Crimson Petal and the White is the novel that made me fall in love with Faber's writing and was the start of him becoming one of my favorite writers. There's something about this epic historical fiction tome that is just so captivating and that I still think about all the time. I first read this back in undergrad when I commuted, and I remembered sitting in my old Tahoe reading this when I got to school early and being so bummed to have to actually get out of my car and stop reading so I could go to class. I really want to experience the magic again!

About:"Michel Faber leads us back to 1870s London, where Sugar, a nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, yearns for escape into a better life. Her ascent through the strata of Victorian Society offers us intimacy with a host of lovable, maddening, unforgettable characters." Goodreads


The Court of Broken Knives (Empires of Dust #1)
The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
I've almost started a re-read of this one a number of times, but always seem to get distracted by something else. I remember this series pretty well and how riveted I was by Anna Smith Spark's stream-of-consciousness grimdark style and could hardly even put it down. I think this is a pretty polarizing novel because of the style, but it absolutely worked for me and I've been dying to give it another read. 

About:
"In the richest empire the world has ever known, the city of Sorlost has always stood, eternal and unconquered. But in a city of dreams governed by an imposturous Emperor, decadence has become the true ruler, and has blinded its inhabitants to their vulnerability. The empire is on the verge of invasion – and only one man can see it." Goodreads


Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey, #1)
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
I had so much reading Fforde's Shades of Grey so I've already been wanting to re-read it, but now that we have a sequel finally scheduled for release this year I definitely want to bump this one up on the priority list. I am unbelievable excited about the sequel because of how much I loved this book. I even convinced my husband to read it a couple years back and he also had a great time with it, so I think we both may be re-reading this one this year. 

About:
"Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the low-level House of Red and can see his own color—but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means." Goodreads 

Have you read any of these books? Let me know what books you want to re-read!

2 comments:

  1. I've read The Crimson Petal and the White a few times - so cool to see someone else who also enjoyed it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I DNF Stoner when. I was a teenager. Maybe I should give it another try! Some books are better when you’re older. :)

    ReplyDelete