Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in.
This week’s theme is technically Ten Books I Wish I’d Read as a Child, but I’m expanding it to younger, let’s say including college. I couldn’t think of very many books I wish I’d read as a child, but I’ve got a few fantasy big names I know I might have liked if I’d tried them sooner.
A lot of the childhood books that people from English-speaking countries remember fondly just weren’t available when I was a kid. Up until my mid-teens I was reading either what my mum brought over from her work trips in the UK, what my school library had, and what this tiny little English Bookshop had. It was very random, book 3 only of a trilogy random. I think around when I was finishing middle-grade, was when ebooks started being widely available and local bookshops started bringing in more English books. I never read in Romanian if I could avoid it, that was simply not cool enough for me.
- Redwall by Brian Jacques – a lot of people remember the food fondly, I’m intrigued, but not enough to actually read them
- His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
- Bartimeus by Jonathan Stroud
- The Belgariad by David Eddings
- Warriors by Erin Hunter – this is the one I’m most salty about. I’d love a series about warrior cats, but everyone I’ve asked seems to agree that it doesn’t hold up very well for adult reading
- How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
- Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson – I even bough Gardens of the Moon after seeing it recommended so much. But, I soon realized, there’s no way I’d currently have the patience for that. I’m confused enough at my day job, I want to read books that are kind to the reader. I have no desire to be dumped into a great big world where I don’t understand what’s going on. But back in highschool or college? Would’ve loved that.
- Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind – I was such a teenage edgelord, I would’ve thought BDSM-fantasy-land was the coolest shit. I kinda wish I had read it, if only for the evil chicken scene.
- The First Law by Joe Abercrombie – everything I hear about the writing makes me think I’d love it. If I had read it in my grimdark phase in Uni, I might have loved it. Now I’m just done with bleak books.
- The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang – same as a above. Especially since this is based on a real war, history-interested high-school me would’ve loved it. Adult me is not going near it.
If you like posts with lists why not check out a few more:
That’s a shame about Warriors. It stinks when you miss a great series whose appeal is largely age-locked. If it helps, while I was always too old for that series and so don’t know a lot about it, I remember thinking it reminded me of Ratha’s Creature and Tailchaser’s Song (and possibly Gabriel King’s “Wild Road,” though I’ve not read that one) — have you read/heard of either of those?
I don’t know anything about Sword of Truth but the low-rated reviews on Goodreads for the first book in the series are giving me life, as the children used to say.
I was an adult when I read His Dark Materials, well, I guess I was an adult when they were published, but I wish they’d been written when I was younger, I know I would have loved them just as much😁
I had How To Train Your Dragon and the first His Dark Materials book on my list this week too!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/28/top-ten-tuesday-261/
I wish I’d read the His Dark Materials series as a kid, too.
My TTT .
I’ve heard all sorts of good things about The Poppy War. It’s one I want to read at some point.