Top Ten Tuesday: REWIND! -- A Past Top Ten Tuesday Topic (or Two)

It was so difficult for me to choose. I didn’t start participating in Top Ten Tuesday until the 13th topic. Then, for about 6 weeks from December to January I was feeling a bit rough from my pregnancy, so I missed a bunch of topics there too. I don’t participate every week either; sometimes the topic doesn’t grab me or I don’t have enough time. That left me with a few appealing options. So I decided to do two.

This is the first list: Top Ten Books of 2010. They’re pretty much in order (this is probably the only time that will happen). I didn’t do any kind of year-end wrap up. It wasn’t ever something I was interested in doing. However, after seeing What Red Read’s quarterly post, I might change my mind. Anyway, List One.

1. Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris
2. No Future For You, by Joss Whedon, etc
3. The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck
4. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
5. The Dark Tower: Treachery, by Stephen King, etc
6. The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
7. Under The Dome, by Stephen King
8. The Helmet of Horror, by Victor Pelevin
9. The Gum Thief, by Douglas Coupland
10. Android Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy & Ben H. Winters

This is the kind of list I’m usually more interested it. Characters are so important in a book; an okay plot can be propelled upwards by an excellent character. I actually found this one a bit difficult because I ended up with more than ten. So here are my Top Ten (Thirteen/Fifteen) Favourite Book Characters in no particular order.

1. Offred from The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
2. Elphaba from Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch Of The West, by Gregory Maguire
3. Drizzt Do'Urden from The Legend of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
4. Danica from The Cleric Quintet, by R.A. Salvatore
5. Katniss Everdeen / Peeta Mellark from The Hunger Game Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
6. Sookie Stackhouse / Pam, from The Southern Vampire Mysteries, by Charlaine Harris
7. Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice / Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen / Seth Grahame-Smith
8. Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
9. Lisbeth Salander from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but Stieg Larsson
10. Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
11. Princess Elizabeth from The Paper Bag Princess, by Robert Munsch
12. Violet Baudelaire from A Series Of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket
13. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter Series, by J.K. Rowling

When I hit 13, I had to stop myself from typing. There are so many more great characters I could have come up with. Oddly enough most of my favourite characters on this list are women. Is it a coincidence? I thought of Darcy and Colonel Brandon, but opted for the female leads instead. I also thought of Eric from the Southern Vampire Mysteries / Sookie Stackhouse series. There’s also Harry & Ron from the Harry Potter series. There are several fantastic characters from Lord Of The Rings… Okay. I’m just going to stop.