hi there I'm Jen. This is Remembered
Reads and this is going to be the
booktube top tens tag. The booktube top
tens tag is a project of Jason from old
blues chapter and verse where he's
attempting to compile the top 10 books
for as many booktubers as possible. So if
you haven't done this yet and you are a
booktuber please take a look at his
channel. Because I think it's a really
interesting project that he's doing and
it hasn't spread as widely as I think it
could. So I'd love to see more people do
this. The rules of the tag are just to
list your top 10 favorite books whether
they are the most influential or the
best or your favorites is up to you and
I've seen people take it in all three
directions and combinations of them I
was tagged to do this by Rachel Morrow
whose own tag really surprised me
because it wasn't at all in line with
what she normally reads and I think seen
that come up a few times and I find that
really interesting I had a hard time
both limiting myself to ten books and
two ranking those tens so it's taken me
months to get around to doing this but
then I saw Claudia from spinsters
library do this the other day and she
had an unconventional way of putting her
rankings together I decided I'd take
inspiration from that and stop
overthinking the ranking and just go for
it the rules of the tag are fairly broad
in that you can pick any style of
writing the main rule is that you can't
pick a compilation so it can't be The
Collected Poems of someone or the
collected plays of someone you would
need to pick one release of poetry or
one play if you were going in that
direction if it's a collection of short
stories you need to pick one of them and
on the flipside you can pick a series
and I think the examples he uses are
Angels in America and Harry Potter but
beyond that it can basically be anything
for myself in order to keep it down to
ten I gave myself some additional
restrictions the first restriction was
that I was limiting it to fiction
because otherwise I was going to spend
forever even just dividing up for
example what is my favorite First World
War memoir would I pick goodbye to all
that which i think is hilarious would I
pick Seven Pillars of wisdom which i
think is probably in large part or at
least in some part made up but is really
beautiful
would I pick testament of youth which i
think is really meaningful so I wanted
to not have that worry unfortunately
that means I can't I also can't include
a book that had a huge impact on my life
in a practical way which is Gerard
diamonds the third chimpanzee which I
read when I was in my last year of high
school and it determined a lot of the
educational choices that I made in
post-secondary it also means I can't
pick The Adventures of RJ which is a
really brilliant biography of tanta
writer err che in the style of 10/10 and
it's just a brilliant both a great
biography of his life but also such a
brilliant reflection on the impact that
he had on specifically franco-belgian
comics but also just comics in general
so I can't pick those but those five are
favorites of mine I also wanted to
restrict myself to books that I can
genuinely say that I've been enjoying
for more than five years because I have
read some brilliant books over the past
couple of years especially I would say
last year both the best and my favorite
book that I read was Tracy Lindbergh's
birdie which I thought was a masterwork
in terms of both style as well as being
compelling in terms of content as well
as having some social importance but
having only read it a year ago how do I
compare that to something that I've been
a fan of for twenty years or longer
so I decided that can't count a couple
of my other recent favorites are
therefore not making it onto the list of
shyam Salvador's the hungry ghosts and
anthony de saw is kicking the sky are
not going to be eligible for this I also
made the really tough decision that I
wasn't going to count books if it the
series was uneven which means that I
won't be including basically four of my
favorite books of all time are bookends
on two trilogies where I didn't enjoy
the middle section so that and those
would be Pat Barker's regeneration
trilogy in which I love both
regeneration and the ghost road almost
equally but I was not a huge fan of the
I in the door
I admire it stylistically and I think it
dealt with interesting topics in an
interesting way but I just wasn't a fan
of that volume and when ivory
I reread the other two and not that one
we just do bad because I think in a lot
of ways that is a masterwork but I can't
honestly say that the full trilogy is my
favorite and I can't really separate the
two bookends from each other and in this
in exactly the same way Robertson Davies
Deptford trilogy which which consists of
v business the manticore and world of
Wonders has two of my favorite books on
either end and then one that I just
don't enjoy in the middle I found the
manticore to be pretentious and the main
character in it to be obnoxious and not
in a way that was interesting to me
whereas I adore both v business and
world of Wonders and I was tempted to
put one of those two on the list but I
found that when I think about those
books I don't remember what happened
with each character separately those two
are very much tied together in my mind
so I can't separate the series out and
and be fair about it because I can't
tell which was which so that was tough
because I really those two really are
some of my favorite books but I can't
put the series on this list and I can't
find a good way to separate them out so
that should be on the list but it can't
be so having listed all of those books
that I had to take off the list this has
basically turned into a top 20 but now
we're into the actual top 10 so here we
go in 10th place is drunk through Hong's
novel without a name which is said in
Vietnam in the mid 70s the main
character is someone who has been in
military situations for a decade and has
been peripherally at least in combat
situations in a colonial sense for
basically his entire life since it's the
mid 70s the French are gone the
Americans are gone the Civil War is
basically wound down and what happens
now in that final period hey this is a
book that I took out of the library and
then ended up buying because I wanted to
lend it to people it's both an
unconventional war story in that it it's
not about the kind of sudden ending that
you see in a lot of war stories where
people go home because this character
has been home the whole time and so this
is winding down
in his place and I also thought it was
very interesting to read and at the time
that I read it I think it was one of the
first war novels set during a modern war
that I'd read that was written by a
female author from the perspective of a
male which was interesting I've since
read a lot more within that genre but I
think it part of the reason it stood out
to me is because it was the first one
that I had read like that number 9 is
Herman Melville's moby-dick which I
always think of is kind of a ridiculous
mess of a novel and and I kind of love
that because if there is a story and
there's a plot and they're on the seas
and there's action and then let's take a
break and discuss how whales are mammals
but I'm going to call them a fish and
here's why have some more story then
let's talk about the color white culture
our story break let's discuss the uses
of blubber story break and the random of
the the randomness of that just has a
huge appeal to me also a ridiculous
appeal to me on a personal level is
because when I was reading this I had
the radio on and Billy Idol's white
wedding came on the radio while I was
reading the chapter about the color
white which has always been hilarious to
me and has nothing to do with the book
but but as always improved the
experience of the book for me because I
always tell people that story which
causes me to think about this book a lot
more than I would otherwise and number
eight is Peter s beagles the innkeeper
song Peter s beagle of course wrote The
Last Unicorn the film version of which
is actually one of my favorite films and
if I ever did a top 10 films list it
would be basically the only non war
movie on my top films list the
innkeeper's song is a more adult story
both in the sense that it takes a lot of
the serious issues that were the
undercurrent of The Last Unicorn
about regret and change and puts those
in the foreground but also in the sense
that is a lot more violent and has a
group sex scene in the middle so you
probably wouldn't give that to the same
eight-year-old that you might give The
Last Unicorn
even though thematically they are very
similar
at the time that I had read this I had
read a lot of epic fantasy that was big
on either world building or on
entertainment and some more thoughtful
fantasy that was meant to be deeper and
not necessarily as exciting and this
blended all of those things there is
commentary there are wizard battles
number seven is Orhan tommix my name is
read which is set in 16th century
Istanbul and is about politics and
culture and miniaturist s' and there are
chapters narrated by a dog and a horse
and and there are all kinds of weird
events and deaths and weird bits of
sexuality all mixed into one package
with a really interesting writing style
and a really interesting structure and a
really interesting merging of all those
elements so and it's brilliant
number six is CS Freedmen's this alien
Shore this is a science fiction novel
from the late 90s which is a combination
of theories about cracked space hacker
culture and also commentary on the way
people deal with disability and mental
illness and mixes it into a very
entertaining combination action piece
space opera with a little bit of a hard
sci-fi inspiration some of the
portrayals are a little bit dated but I
still think this is a brilliant piece of
science fiction I think it extends its
reach without being the kind of sci-fi
that wants to be serious and it's
beating you over the head and again as
with the innkeeper's song it both
embraces the fact of its genre while
still being willing to reach outside of
it which I think a lot of sci-fi makes
the choice for one versus the other
and this embraced all of them number
five is Michael Ondaatje is in the skin
of a lion which is his usual meta
historical Mass this is part of
something of a duology with the English
Patient there is some debate as to
whether it is or not it contains several
of the same characters so I consider
them to be
so I would include both of them in this
space but if you happen but if Jason's
doing the numbers here and he doesn't
consider this to be a duology I'm
picking in the skin of the lion over the
English Patient but I consider them to
both be together it is a great piece of
1930s Toronto drama ins and outs of
people's lives and some of the best
moments if you have ever been to Toronto
and you haven't read this you need to
because it will change the way you look
at the Bloor viaduct just aside from all
the literary and plot based fun that
exists in this because again it has that
it has style but also entertainment
number four is a choice that I almost
wish I didn't love as much as I do but I
had to include it and that is preacher
written by Garth Ennis and drawn by
Steve Dillon it is the religious
commentary and visual shock story about
a preacher who gained has the ability to
control people with his voice and his
adventures in the American West it's
imperfect Garza has matured and evolved
a lot as a writer in the years since
then I've seen interviews with him where
he says he would have written this
series differently if he were writing it
now there has recently been a TV series
of this that's changed a lot and he's
been asked how do you feel about the
changes and in general he's very
positive about them because there were
just things that he would have done
differently some of it is clearly
Americans being written by a man from
Northern Ireland some of the dialect is
wrong some of the story bits that he
includes here he has done better in
other stories there is some commentary
on history in particular in hear about
the Irish struggle for independence and
also the American war in Vietnam
both of which I think he's done deeper
and more interesting reflections on
later in war stories and at battlefields
I think some of the religious commentary
he's done better later on but this has
just remained one of my favorites since
it was ongoing I read this originally as
it was coming out and I was thinking
about selling some of my individual
issues a few months ago when I
preparing to move and I sat there and
read through them and I still love this
just as much as I did 20 years ago so
huh I wish I didn't love this as much as
I did because I think Garth Ennis is one
of my favorite writers and I don't think
this is his best work anymore because
he's improved a lot but I just love this
series so yeah
number three is Erich Maria Remarque All
Quiet on the Western Front which I first
read when I was 14 or 15 it's the First
World War classic that I think a lot of
people are forced to read in school
I think I said I stole it from the
school library for a while I've it's one
that I've read in three different
languages for no reason just because I
was curious about how different things
would sound I don't have an objective
way to talk about this because I have
read it so many times over decades and
it's probably the book that's to blame
the most for my obsession with the First
World War which hasn't shown up as much
on this list as it normally would have
because of the restrictions I set myself
but over in the 2211 number you could
see that influenced a little bit more
book number two is que cela dijkers the
quiet violence of dreams this is one
that I was going back and forth between
calling first second and third and I had
to fit it in here because it is of my
top three of the book that I read the
most recently although I still read it
more than ten years ago now and it's one
of those books that works on multiple
levels it is partially the story of two
friends just living their lives
primarily in Cape Town in the early
2000s but it's also dipping in and out
of everything from political changes
both in South Africa and dealing with
immigrants from Central Africa and with
post-colonial forces from centuries past
but also dealing with mental illness and
sex and sexuality and class and also
soap opera drama where you sit there and
are compelled to wonder why these
characters going to hook up is she going
to get back together with that guy well
it's me while meditating on social
issues it's just brilliant because it
works on so many
and I love that and it is again one of
those books that I pick up and have to
start reading because it's just kind of
addictive that way I just love that one
and number one is black beauty by Anna
Sewell and you may sit there and say
isn't that just a horse book for
nine-year-old girls and if you believe
that you probably haven't read the
actual book you maybe read one of the
abridged versions for children or you
watched one of the TV series that took
the name and not much else
the closest adaptation to this is the
movie from 94 with Sean Bean and David
Thewlis in it because black beauty is a
fun horse story for kids who like horses
but it's also a meditation on how poorly
human beings treat horses and have
treated them historically it's also a
meditation on how poorly and how
exploitative Lee the upper and middle
classes have treated working-class
people there and then there are also
individual chapters that are meditations
on rural life or that are meditations on
the horrors of war if you're cynical
about that and you don't want to have to
read the whole book I suggest that you
google the old warhorse chapter from
black from Black Beauty in which the
main horse character is talking to a
horse who is a retired cavalry horse the
horse is essentially a veteran of the
Crimean War if you will and give that a
read and some of it might even seem a
little heavy-handed now because this
obviously was written centuries past but
it is a message that is not just a horse
book for children but it works that way
so if you are a nine-year-old girl who
loves horses here's a horse book but if
you're looking for something deeper
there is a lot going on here about
humanity and how terrible people are
it's about a happy way to end this list
anyway that's my response for the
booktube top tens tag thanks to Rachel
for tagging me and Jason for creating
this and Claudia for inspiring me and if
you have not done this yet I strongly
encourage anyone
with the channel watching this to do
this and to spread it around especially
if our reading tastes don't overlap much
because I think because of the group of
people who started doing this it stayed
within a small fairly small subset of
booktube and i wish it went bigger
because the results I think would just
get more and more interesting the more
people who are involved in it
so yeah if you haven't done it please
consider it that's it for now Joe
