Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week a new ‘top ten’ challenge is posted – anyone can join in. This week’s topic is ‘Top Ten Most Vivid Worlds/Settings In Books’. It made me really think about books that have been memorable because of the setting. Here’s my ecclectic list:
1. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden – the descriptions of the kimonos are so exquisite, you feel you could reach out and touch them.
2. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank – needs no comment. I first read this book when I was very young and it stays with me thirty years later.
3. A Widow for One Year by John Irving – for a modern literature take on Amsterdam’s Red Light District.
4. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – for an eerie look into the future.
5. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain – with detail like this, you might never eat in a restaurant again.
6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt – the miseries and the joys of growing up poor in Ireland.
7. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris – the ‘joys’ of working in an open-plan office?! The detail is so painstakingly real you might not want to go to work the next day.
8. All the Rivers Run by Nancy Cato – riverboat life for early settlers in Australia.
9. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – another glimpse of the future – this one less likely but chilling nonetheless.
10. Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany – the dry Australian landscape is described so perfectly, you can almost taste dust in your mouth.
The only one of these that I’ve read is The Handmaid’s Tale and the world in that one is definitely chilling. I’ve been meaning to read Memoirs of a Geisha and Never Let Me Go for quite some time. And I’m pretty embarrassed that I’ve never read the Diary of Anne Frank.
Don’t miss Memoirs! It’s amazing (although I read it long before all the hype so I may be biased). And Anne Frank… well I reckon that’s essential reading 😉
This is a really interesting list. I have had Never Let Me Go on my too be read list for a long time. I started listening to it once on audio, but didn’t finish. I love Handmaid’s Tale as an answer on this list. Gilead is terrifying.
I din’t LOVE ‘Never Let Me Go’ but it did make me think. And the ‘world’ that was described is hard to forget simply because in so many ways it’s the same as how we live now and in a few significant ways it’s very, very different! (Hence making you think).
I almost put Anne’s Diary on my list… and Handmaid’s Tale, I wish I would’ve thought of it!! Cool list!!
My TTT
There were so many I thought of afterwards as well – especially Alice in Wonderland (although I like Through the Looking Glass better) and Room.
hmm, quite a few of these I have heard of but never read. Glad you really liked them!
Here’s a link to mine!
What fantastic classics you picked. I love them all!
-Cassie
Great list! I’ve been meaning to read A Handmaid’s Tale forever now…need to bump it up my to-read pile lol
Here is my TTT for this week
Oh, I completely agree with Diary and Angela’s Ashes. Not too sure I want to read Kitchen Confidential now 🙂