Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Top Ten Tuesday: My Reading Wish List


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.   This meme features a different top 10 list every week.   This week's list is:


Top Ten Things On My Reading Wish List 
(if you could make authors write about these things you would. Could be a specific type of character, an issue tackled, a time period, a certain plot, etc.)

(1) More Harry Potter books!  I'd love J.K. Rowling to write a series featuring Harry's parents, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin during their later years at Hogwarts, as well as when they were members of The Order of the Phoenix.  

(2) More Fantasy Fiction in the vein of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I've noticed an increasing number of urban fantasy works in the Fantasy section of my favourite bookstores lately and less epic fantasy.  We need more epic fantasy I say! 

(3) Young Adult novels that don't feature a love triangle.  While I'm not a young adult I do, on occasion, enjoy reading YA novels.  I'm tired of the inclusion of love triangles though, especially when the girl picks the guy I wasn't rooting for (I'm looking at you Katniss Everdeen).

(4) More Historical Fiction set in less popular time periods and featuring little known historical figures.  I'll read historical fiction set in just about any time and place so long as the story sounds good, but let's face it, some eras are overdone (I'm talking to you, Tudor-era).   I'd love to read more historical fiction set in Scandinavia, Africa or India, for example.  I would also love to see more historical fiction authors explore historical figures often overlooked by the genre. 

(5) More Historical Fiction set in Canada.  This one relates to my previous wish list item.  Canada is not an overly popular setting for historical fiction, even by Canadian writers.  But Canada has an interesting and varied history and I would love to read more about it through historical fiction.   

(6) The inclusion of end notes in works of Historical Fiction.   This one is inspired by a novel I recently finished, The Iron King by Maurice Druon.  While full of historical detail, the narrative of this novel is never weighed down by characters explaining to one another events or issues with which they would already be familiar.  Recognizing that while the characters would be familiar with them, the reader may not.  This is where the end notes come in, as they were used to convey necessary historical background to the reader.   Readers already familiar with the history of a particular novel can skip the end notes, while those who don't can use them if they want to learn more.    I think this is a great approach and one that should be adopted by more authors. 

(7) More Chick Lit featuring smart, independent women who don't obsess over designer labels and salivate over shoe sales, and who have solid careers in areas such as education, medicine, law or finance rather than in the fashion industry or media.  One of the reasons I stopped reading chick lit is because, while the stories could be good fun, I had a hard time relating to the main characters.  

I have only seven things on my reading wish list, but I'd be very happy if each of them were realized.

What things are on your reading wish list?

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