Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish that asks bloggers to create Top Ten lists on a variety of bookish topics. I have always loved reading these weekly lists on other blogs and thought it was about time I actually participated!

Top Ten Books People Tell Me I MUST Read

Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman – Ever since I read David Finkel’s emotional Thank You For Your Service, which deals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve been interesting in this topic. So, when I saw Jenn’s Bookshelves’ glowing review of this fictional story about the same topic, I knew I wanted to read it. I’m planning to get to it before the end of the year.

Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine Harden – I became interested in North Korea after reading The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, which I didn’t particularly like. The one thing I did like about it was learning about the challenges of life in North Korea for ordinary people. I was talking about this with my soon to be sister-in-law and she recommended Escape from Camp 14, the true story of “one man’s remarkable odyssey from North Korea to freedom in the West”.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng – Does it count as someone telling me I must read a certain book if a blogger writes a “must read” review?! Well, after reading River City Reading’s review of Everything I Never Told You, I immediately added it to my TBR list and just downloaded it to my Kindle for August vacation reading. 

The rest of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling – I read the first installment years ago and thought it was fine, but it didn’t make me want to read the six remaining books in the series. I included this on my recent Top Ten Books I’m Not Sure I Want to Read List and, did I ever get some comments! So many people encouraged me to finish the series…mostly because it doesn’t really get good in an “adult” way until Book 3. I think I probably will end up reading them…maybe to my children when they’re a bit older.

Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell – My youngest brother has finished reading two books since he graduated college and this nonfiction account of a Seal Team mission in Afghanistan was one of them. He can’t believe I haven’t read it. 

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – My future sister-in-law (and fellow bookworm) has been telling me to read this creepy sounding thriller about an abandoned orphanage on an island off of Wales.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – My mom is absolutely horrified that I’ve never read this classic. I guess I’m a little embarrassed about it as well!

Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd – Another pick from my Mom. My brothers were apparently required to read some portion of this 900+ page history of England for their summer reading in high school. Apparently, my mom also read the entire thing while she was nursing my youngest brother and said she really enjoyed it. Something tells me I may never get to this one, though…sorry, Mom.

The Martian by Andy Weir – No one I know personally has told me to read this by all accounts hilarious story of a man stuck on Mars. But, it’s been all over the book blogs, so I have finally downloaded it and am planning to read it while on vacation in August!

The Old Man and the Boy by Robert Ruark – This is my Uncle Chip’s favorite book and he keeps a copy of it on the nightstand at our river house. It’s about an older man, who emparts the wisdom of life to his grandson while fishing in the North Carolina woods. I tried to download it on my Kindle and found it’s not available in electronic form! Otherwise, I would have absolutely read this one by now.

Every Tuesday, fellow blogger Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where bloggers share the first paragraph of the book they are currently reading or thinking about reading soon.

I’ve seen a couple of glowing reviews about this book, particularly Shannon’s at River City Reading. I’m planning to start it after I finish my current book.

Plot Summary from Amazon
Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue—in Marilyn’s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James’s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party.

When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia’s older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it’s the youngest of the family—Hannah—who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened.

Here’s the first paragraph:

Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet. It’s 1977, May 3, six thirty in the morning, no one knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast. As always, next to her cereal bowl, her mother has placed a sharpened pencil and Lydia’s physics homework, six problems flagged with small ticks. Driving to work, Lydia’s father nudges the dial toward WXKP, Northwest Ohio’s Best News Source, vexed by the crackles of static. On the stairs, Lydia’s brother yawns, still twined in the tail end of his dream. And in her chair in the corner of the kitchen, Lydia’s sister hunches moon-eyed over her cornflakes, sucking them to pieces one by one, waiting for Lydia to appear. It’s she who says, at last, “Lydia’s taking a long time today.”

What do you think? Would you keep reading? Stay tuned for my full review…