This week's Top Ten topic, from the brilliant bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish, is Top Ten Minor Characters.  It's interesting that this topic came up this week, as I am finally reading The Eyre Affair, which is full of talk about minor characters and how taking them out of books is a crime.  I'm going to try not to let this list devolve into Top Ten Sidekicks Redux, but I admit to having trouble thinking of enough minor characters to fill a whole list...besides, there are no small parts, only small actors, or something like that...

10.  Octavia, Venia, and Falvius from The Hunger Games-These three were Katniss's prep team for the Hunger Games, and along with her stylist Cinna were in charge of getting her support from wealthy capitol residents.  I'm not sure why I found them so charming-they are completely shallow and not that bright, but something about them just struck me as endearing.

9.  Robin Castagna, from Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series-Robin is Alex's love interest, a musician who makes and restore guitars and other stringed instruments.  She provides the perfect compliment to Delaware's rather driven nature.  I was so upset when they split for a couple of books, but they are back together and all is right with the world.

8.  Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter-Poor Neville!  He just couldn't seem to catch a break, could he?  And I only loved him more after I found out what happened to his parents.  Such a sad story!

7.  Fletch, from Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster-OK, so he's a real person, and therefore not minor in the least, but I love reading about him as Jen writes about him.  He appears rather saintly, putting up with her snarkiness.  I admit to being convinced that Jen and I are destined to meet on the streets of Chicago and become besties, and then I would get to meet the sainted Fletch in person!

6.  The Town of Niniltna and The Park, from Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series-I realize that choosing the whole town is a bit of a cop out, but there are so many interesting, quirky characters in this series that choosing one is almost impossible.  This series makes me want to lace up my mukluks, grab my parka, jump on my snowmobile, and ride down a frozen river.

5.  Miss Celia from The Help-Poor trashy Celia!  She is so out of her depth in the world of privileged Southern women, and her poor, stupid husband just doesn't seem to get it.

4.  Windsor Horne Lockwood III from Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series-Win, as he is known, is a rich and powerful child of privilege who is completely amoral but fiercely loyal to the few people he calls friend.  What's not to love?

3.  Moira, from The Handmaid's Tale-I'm not sure if it is the fact that she was a lesbian, or the fact that she refused to accept her fate as a Handmaid and ran away, but whatever the reason I always felt close to Moira when reading this book.  What happens to her is tragic, but I would not have felt it so strongly if I didn't also feel a strong connection to her.

2.  Eeyore, from Winnie the Pooh-I know that he is all sad and stuff, but he makes me happy.  Perverse, I realize, but there it is.

1.  Lucy Farinelli, from the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell-She's slowly become a more major than minor character, but I loved her from her precocious, 10 year old start.  Kay's neice, only daughter of her flighty, many-times married sister, Kay has always taken care of Lucy as best she could.  Lucy is brilliant, a millionaire by 25, but emotionally stunted, especially after she is sucked in by the manipulative Carrie Grethen, who uses her love to try and kill Scarpetta.  She might be my current favorite character from this series.

Top Ten Tuesday Rewind-My Favorite Authors

This week's Top Ten, hosted by the gals at The Broke and the Bookish, is specially designed for those of us that occasionally miss a week of the action.  It's rewind time-a time to go back and create a post on a past topic that you didn't participate in when it was first posted.  After looking at the list of past topics for what felt like an inordinate amount of time, I rejected Favorite Best Fictional Couples and Best Villains, having posted on those for a different meme.  I finally settled on Favorite Authors, since I've mentioned them a lot but I'm not sure if I've ever actually written a post devoted just to them.  After each author I will list their books of theirs I have read and loved.  So, in no particular order, may I present...

1.  Toni Morrison-The Bluest Eye, Jazz, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Paradise, Love, A Mercy

2.  Alice Walker-Temple of My Familiar, The Color Purple, Possessing the Secret of Joy, Warrior Marks

3.  Octavia Butler-Fledgling, Mind of My Mind, Wild Seed, Patternmaster, Clay's Ark

4.  Barbara Kingslover-Animal Dreams, The Bean Trees, Prodigal Summer, The Poisonwood Bible, Pigs in Heaven, The Lacuna

5.  Chris Bohjalian-Midwives, The Double Bind, Before You Know Kindness, Transister Radio, Buffalo Soldier, The Law of Similars

6.  Margaret Atwood-The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride, Cat's Eye, Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Lady Oracle, Surfacing, Life Before Man

7.  Stephen King-Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, Dead Zone, The Stand, Firestarter, Cujo, Roadwork, The Dark Tower series, Christine, Pet Semetary, Cycle of the Werewolf, The Talisman, The Bachman Books, The Eye of the Dragon, Misery, Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, Rose Madder, The Green Mile, Desperation, Storm of the Century, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Black House, From a Buick 8, Cell, Lisey's Story, Duma Key, Under the Dome, all of his short stories

8.  Sheri S. Tepper-The Gate to Women's Country, Beauty, Gibbons Decline and Fall, The Visitor

9.  Neil Gaiman-American Gods, Anansi Boys, Good Omens, Interworld (YA), Stardust, Neverwhere, The Graveyard Book (YA)

10.  Roald Dahl-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The BFG, The Witches

Top Ten Tuesday-Characters I'd Name My Children After

Thank you, lovely bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish, for hosting this weekly meme that allows me to indulge in my love of all things listy!

This week's prompt is a chance to give some character love.  When my daughter was born in 1994, my then husband and I had a deal.  If the baby was a girl, could name her, but if it was a boy, he could name him.  We each, however, reserved veto power over the other's choices.  And that is the reason my daughter Briana does not have a literary name-I was overruled on Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice), Morgaine (Mists of Avalon) or Guinevere (also Mists-I was a bit obsessed at the time).  It's probably a good thing in the last two cases that I was vetoed, but I was only 24, so I plead youth.  Now, at the more "mature" age of 41, I've read a lot more, and have many more character to choose from!

1.  Claire-This comes from both The Time Traveler's Wife and Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.  Both women are  loyal, strong, and loving, which I think are good qualities to hope for in a child.

2.  Henry-From the Time Traveler's Wife.  Again, smart, loving, loyal...and we'll just leave the ultimately doomed thing behind.

3.  Hermione-Ah, if only I lived in Britain or was British myself, I could get away with this one.  Hermione is definitely the best of all of the Harry Potter characters.  Ron is sweet and Harry is noble, but Hermione was the one who ensured that things got done so Harry would still be around to fight Voldemort.

4. Lisbeth-Ok, this is mostly because I thought the name was pretty long before I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  But let's face it, Lisbeth can kick some serious butt, which is not a bad trait to have, at least metaphorically speaking.

5.  Peter-The oldest brother of the Pevensie children from the Narnia series,  Peter was brave and steadfast, unlike Edmund, the moody younger brother.

6.  Lucy-Also from Narnia.  Small but mighty, Lucy was all heart and loyalty.  Susan may have been older, but I don't think she was wiser than little Lucy.

7.  Alex-The Alex Delaware novels was one of the first mystery/thriller series I read, and I have always loved Alex's intelligence and compassion.  Plus he was completely accepting of his gay friend and police officer Milo way back before most authors were comfortable having gay characters in their books.

8.  August-I loved August Boatwright's character from The Secret Life of Bees.  Comfort-everything about her brings comfort and strength.

9.  Sam-After Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings books.  Best.Friend.Ever.

10.  Stargirl-OK, I probably would never actually have the nerve to do such a thing, but the main character of Stargirl and Love, Stargirl is everything I want my daughter to be.  Loving, idealistic, quirky, and completely comfortable with herself.

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Debut Novels

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the brilliant bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish.  This week's topic is "Best Debut Novels".  Having a good debut is a tricky thing.  It can be sort of like a one-hit-wonder phenomenon, or getting the "Best New Artist" award at the Grammy Awards*.  Sometimes the person goes on to have a long, illustrious career (Alicia Keys), and sometimes they don't (anyone else remember Arrested Development?).  I decided for the sake of my list that even if it was the only book that the author wrote, it counted as a debut novel.

*On an unrelated note, while researching the metaphor abovc, I discovered that Bob Newhart won the Best-New-Artist Grammy at the 1961 Grammys.  I'd love to know how that happened!

1.  To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee-I don't really need to explain this one, do I?

2.  Carrie, by Stephen King-OK, so I sometimes get confused with the timeline for the books written as him and the books written as Richard Bachman, but this is the first novel that was published as him, so I'm going with it.  Carrie was such a sympathetic character that you actually found yourself rooting for her to use her powers and destroy all of those horrible people.  Kind of set me up to be a Dexter fan, I guess...

3.  A Time to Kill, John Grisham-I've read many Grisham books, but none that had the impact (or originality) of A Time to Kill.  Apparently he should have just stopped while he was ahead.  While I enjoyed most of his books, he fell into the "Steele" trap-named after Danielle Steele, mistress of using one plot over and over again by changing the names and settings.

4.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling-Again, I think this is fairly self-explanatory, but This novel was so charming and engaging that for a while I knew way more adults who had read it than children.

5.  The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger-I loved this book so much that I was actually afraid to read her next book for fear that it wouldn't live up to the awesomeness that is TTW.  I'm reading Her Fearful Symmetry right now, and I while I am not quite as caught up in it as I was the love story between Claire and Henry, it is not disappointing me so far.

6.  The Kite Runner, Khaled Hoseini-I think that this, and A Thousand Splendid Suns, are two of the absolute best books of the new century.  Hoseini's writing is a revelation, and the stories are so compelling I don't know how anyone could fail to be engaged and moved.

7.  The Help, Katherine Stockett-Stockett couldn't have asked for a better reception to her first novel.  It's been on several "best books for book clubs" lists, not to mention about every blog I've ever read.  It deserves all of that attention.  I don't remember a book, other than maybe The Secret Life of Bees, that does such a good job spotlighting the effects of racism and oppression on women in the south.

8.  Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger-I heard an interview on NPR this weekend with Pat Conroy talking about an English teacher he had in high school in 1961 who had to fight the school board to get permission to teach this book, and it reminded me all over again how powerful it really is.

9.  The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien-While the Lord of the Rings trilogy might be considered his masterwork, this first novel is so much more accessible, and really helped my fantasy loving teen-age self committed to getting through the other books, despite how dense they sometimes were.

10. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison-While not my favorite of her books, or her best, as a first book this title is pretty remarkable.

Book Blogger Hop-Why Do I Read What I Read

Well, folks, with the Literary Blog Hop only happening every other week, I've decided to join Crazy-for-Books Book Blogger Hop on the off weeks for LBH.  Thanks to both The Blue Bookcase and Crazy-for-Books for hosting these events.  I've certainly found plenty of great bloggers out there as a result.

This week's question is:

Why do you read the genre that you do?  What draws you to it?

First things first-we need to ad an "s" to that word genre.  I read many genres, and all for different reasons.  Since I love lists, let's do this in list format.

1.  Contemporary Fiction-I read contemporary fiction because it says something about the state of our world and society RIGHT NOW.  One of the reasons I like Jodi Picoult's books is because through her (rather exaggerated) plot lines, she does explore social issues facing us in America today.   Medical ethics, school shootings, religion vs. secularism, issues of family and society-contemporary fiction, while not always the most profound, can usually be relied on to be thought provoking.

2.  Literary Fiction-I read literary fiction because it says something about humanity, which is usually transcendent of time or place.  Unless it shows how humans are affected by time and place.  At any rate, sometimes my brain needs more sustenance than others.

3.  Science Fiction-Hated science, love science fiction.  The best science fiction writers say something about the human experience in their work, and they tend to be rather action packed for those times when I want something fun and exciting.

4.  Fantasy-I have been a fantasy fan since I read the Narnia books in sixth grade.  I was given The Wishstone of Shannarah in middle school, and I was hooked.  For a while in high school that was pretty much all I read.I don't read as much now as  used to, but I'm still quite fond of mythical lands full of unusual races.  I think this is why I like role playing games like Final Fantasy and Fable so much.  It's like I'm in the story.

5.  Feminist Fiction:  Ummm....because I'm a feminist!  Toni Morrison, Alica Walker, Margaret Atwood, Sheri Tepper, Sylvia Plath, Marge Piercy, Octavia Butler...I feel empowered just typing their names.

6.  Mystery/Thrillers:  They are fun, and usually easy, and often have engaging recurring characters that I enjoy reading about over time.  Also, because my mother reads them and gives me all of her book when she's done with them.

Top Ten Tuesday-My Favorite Places to Read

Time for another Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week's topic is "Favorite Places to Read".  While not the most literary of topics, it does go to my belief that reading is more than a cerebral/emotional act.  It is also a sensual one, with the weight of the book in your hands and the smell of the pages.  This is one reason I personally believe that e-readers will never fully replace books.

It is probably foolish to begin this post on my favorite places to read right before I go to work, where I will not be curling up with a good book anytime today.  But with a great blog comes great responsibility, so I will persevere.  My favorite places to delve into a good book are, in no particular order...

• "My" Chair-Don't we all have one of these?  We have a small extra bedroom that we call the reading room (because calling it the library wold sound pretentious, and be a total exaggeration despite the 500 or so books stored there).  It is where I go for a quiet place when my daughter and partner are both watching TV. 
• My parents' porch in Northern Michigan-though clearly only in the summer.  Right now it is probably cold and snowy.  But in the summer it is glorious, facing out on the woods.  I can look up and watch the hummingbirds at the feeders if my eyes need to rest.
• My parents' study in Northern Michigan-though usually only in the winter.  It is warm and cozy and looks out on the snowy woods.
• North Bar Lake, Empire, Michigan-Are you seeing a theme here?  Some of my favorite places to read are also the places I go away to when I need a little relaxation.  North Bar Lake is a small lake connected to Lake Michigan by a narrow stream.  Sitting on the beach at North Bar, you can look through the gap and see the big lake-that is, I can see it when I infrequently look up from  my book. 
• Sitting on a boat-Yes, my parents also have a boat where they live (ahh, to be retired!), but it doesn't have to be their boat.  Really, any boat will do, as long as it's stationary and comfortable.
• Misquamicut Beach, Rhode Island-My extended family lives in Rhode Island, and when I was a young single mother with very little money (as opposed to what I am now-an older married mother who still doesn't have very much money!), I would drive from Chicago to Westerly, Rhode Island and stay with my Aunt Roseanne and Uncle Tom.  It was free-and it was 10 minutes away from one of the most beautiful beaches in New England.  Soft sand, enough surf to make swimming interesting but not dangerous-and a great spot to sit and read in the sun!
• Over a Meal-Yes, I am one of those people that would be perfectly happy eating just about every meal with a book open in front of me.  Since my family and friends actually want to, you know, TALK to me when we share a meal, I don't get to do this as often as I like.  I actually enjoy going to a restaurant by myself, because it gives me an excuse to read while I eat and not seem rude!
• In a cabin in the woods in the winter, preferably in front of a fire-Let me start by saying I have never actually experienced this.  We'll call it a reading fantasy of mine.  Round about the end of January, when the holidays are over and winter feels long and the school year is at its most tedious, I often think longingly of holing up in a small cabin alone, with a fire, a stack of books, plenty of coffee, and no cell phone or computer.  So if anyone has a spare cabin I can borrow in late January, let me know!
• On an airplane-While reading on a plane may seem more like a survival skill rather than a preferred activity, I look forward to plane trips because I know that there will be a period of at least a couple when I will have no responsibility except to sit in my seat and let the pilots and flight attendants do their job.  Being held hostage to the rhythm of the flight absolves me from the occasional guilt of reading instead of cleaning/homework/lesson planning.