Top Ten Tuesday -- Best Books YTD

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic: the best books I've read so far in 2013.

The first 2 were 5 star reads. The rest were top 10 in no particular order.

1. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
2. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
3. A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
4. Bitter Brew by William Knoedelseder
5. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
6. The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro
7. An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym
8. The Merry Heart by Robertson Davies (read, but didn't write up yet)
9. Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
10. Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my husband's favorite books, and I totally understand why. It is clever, it is funny, it is full of important truths ("...one of the nicest things about mathematics, or anthing else you might care to learn, is that many of the things which can never be, often are.") and excellent advice ("Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.") which are thoroughly mixed into a fabulous adventure so you don't realize you are learning lessons until each one is done. The way Juster sneaks the expected phrase into the story in unexpected ways is also wonderful: "And pounding forward with a rush came the ugly Dilemma, snorting steam and looking intently for someone to catch on the ends of his long pointed horns, while his hoofs bit eagerly at the ground."

"The Phantom Tollbooth leaps, soars, and abounds in right notes all over the place, as any proper masterpiece must." --Maurice Sendak

Classics Club Readathon

I have never done a readathon, and am not totally clear on the rules, but as I understand it the idea is to read for 24-hours which sounds excellent. This readathon begins at 8am EST with a kick-off post on the Classics Club blog and we will be reading for 24 hours after that!

I had everything set up for this project: groceries for crockpot Taco Soup purchased, my husband expecting to be at the office that day, and and a stack of classics from my list ready to begin. Then my husband's work project got sorted out and we were invited to a private tasting at a local brewery that evening and I am going to have to choose between beer and books on Saturday.

I think I will join in the readathon during the day, and will go to the beer event in the evening. That still gives me a solid 9 hours of reading time.

I am about 75 pages into The Woman in White, so I will be reading that and I want to re-read Murder in the Cathedral so I can finish the blog post I started about it in November. If I need a break from Wilkie Collins, I may set it aside and pick up on of the children's classics on my list (The Phantom Tollbooth or Alice in Wonderland perhaps).