Top Ten Tuesday

TTT is hosted by Jamie over at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday Top ten Genre Books. The genre I choose is historical fiction. I have not read a lot of historical fiction this year so far even though it is one of my favourite genres to read. This is a mix of YA and adult historical fiction I loved.

1) The Book Thief- Markus Zusak

This is not only one of my favourite historical fiction novels; this is also one of my favourite books of all time.  The setting is WW2 in Germany and it involves a Jewish girl and a lot of thieving.

2) Outland- Diana Gabaldon

I have listed this book a few times for different TTT’s and there is a good reason for it. Again this is one of my favourite books. This book is set in 1945 and the protagonist is Clair who is a combat nurse recently back from the war and is celebrating a second honeymoon with her husband when she is sucked back in time to Scotland in worn torn 1743.

3) The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas- John Boyne.

Another book set in Germany during WW2. I am seeing a pattern here. Bruno returns home from school one day to find out that his father has been promoted and his family must move far away where he has none to play with and nothing to do. He discovers a fence and befriends a boy on the other side of the fence, a Jewish boy who is there with his family for very different reasons than Bruno’s.

4) Water for Elephants- Sara Gruen

This is another favourite of mine; I have been hooked on Gruen since receiving her first book, Riding Lessons as a birthday gift. Her latest book is set in 1932 in the world of a travelling circus where star crossed lovers meet and the story of their lives and an elephant named Rosie plays out.

5) A Northern Light- Jennifer Donnelly

This has to be one of my favourite debut novels ever. Set in 1906, sixteen year old Mattie Gokey takes a job at a hotel where a guest of the hotel, Grace Brown gives her the task of burning a stack of letters, but before they can be burned Grace’s body is found drowned at the bottom of the lake.  Mattie discovers the letters could hold the truth behind a murder.

6) Memoirs of a Geisha- Arthur Golden

 

This novel follows the life of Sayuri from her childhood in a fishing village to her life as a geisha. In 1929 she is sold to represent a geisha house where her story continues as she learns how to become a geisha. She is schooled in music and dance and must learn how to survive her trade and the upheavals of war.

7) The Devil’s Arithmetic- Jane Yolen

Amazing book that has not gotten nearly the amount of attention it deserves. When Hannah sits with down with her family for Passover she believes it will be like every year’s Passover. What she does not know is that she will be transported into the past where she is the only one who knows what is going to happen.


8) To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee

This makes the short list of my favourite books of all time. I read it in high school and fell in love with it. This is the story of a sleepy southern town and the crisis that rocked its foundation.  

9) The Thirteenth Tale- Diane Setterfield

Margaret Lea returns to her apartment one night after working in her father’s antique bookshop to find a letter waiting on her doorstep. It is from Vida Winter who is gravely ill and wants Margaret to be the one to capture her history. As Margaret ponders her request, she starts to read Miss Winter’s Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation only to discover after being sucked into the story that there is only twelve tales. Intrigued about the missing tale she agrees to act as Miss Winter’s biographer.

10) Vixen- Jillian Larkin

 

This is the first book in the flapper’s series and my favourite. This is set in the 1920’s when anything goes. It is the story of Gloria who dreams of being a flapper, Clara Knowles her cousin who moves in with Gloria to make sure that her cousin’s high society wedding goes without a hitch and Lorraine Dyer Gloria’s social ladder climbing best friend.