Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Beginnings/ Endings of books

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Some books have an excellent ending but sadly not-so-excellent beginning. Again some books have an excellent beginning but a rather disappointing ending. And again, some books have excellent ending AND excellent beginning. I'm listing ten of my favorite beginnings/endings.

                                  Beginnings

 1. Emma by Jane Austen: The book starts with the reader being introduced to Emma Woodhouse, ''handsome, clever, and rich''. The writing style, humor, and lightness immediately made me VERY engrossed to the book. And now it's one of my favorite books!

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: The first few pages of the book introduce us to the protagonist, Jane, the orphan who is mistreated by her aunt and cousins. Charlotte Bronte's vivid and engrossing portrayal of the young Jane, is amazing. The whole book is excellent, suspenseful, and sweet.

3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl: Roald Dahl introduces us to Charlie, his family members, and the poverty they live in. I love this book. Both the beginning and the ending, are excellent.

4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling: I love the whole Harry Potter series. And the beginning of the series was perfect. More, much more than perfect, actually.

5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: In the first couple of chapters, Mr Lockwood, one of the narrators of this novel, introduce us to the mysterious Heathcliff and his mysterious household. Mr Lockwood becomes curious about the identity and history of Heathcliff's family members, the identity of Catherine (whose diary Mr Lockwood happens to read while he spends the night at Wuthering Heights), and very soon Nelly Dean, the housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange, tells Lockwood about the sad and haunting history behind all these.

                                                            Endings

 6. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins: The middle part of Suzanne Collins's ''Mockingjay'' was filled with lengthy war descriptions, which were not that much attractive to me. However, the ending... oh, the ending, it was so excellent!!! It has become one of my favorite endings! It was so wonderful, so touching, so powerful.

7. The Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie: Amazing solution to the mystery! :)

8. The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit

9. Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley: Amazing, amazing, amazing, the whole book was! The ending was no exception!

10. Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks. The wonderful twist near the end was, umm, wonderful. :P The entire book was amazing. Touching and thought provoking.






 

Top Ten Tuesday: Topics that make me not to pick up a book.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is about the top ten words/topics that will make you NOT pick up a book.

I was thinking of as many topics as I can, but only came up with a few:

1. Sports: I've never loved sports. And I've never really involved myself with any sport activities. So I don't understand sports, nor do I love sport related books. I once picked up a sport-related book by R. L. Stine (one of my favorite authors), and I abandoned it after reading just two or three pages! :P

2. Heavy, overly serious nonfiction: History, biography, autobiography and memoirs are the only nonfiction genres that I enjoy. But even overly serious books about history, for example, books that describe historical incidences in so much details and with so much facts, don't impress me. In case of nonfiction, I like a simple read that I can enjoy and at the same time, that can give me knowledge. But if it is overly detailed, then I will not read it. (There are some exception though. There are some historical topics which I am very fond of. And I can read any books about those topics.)

3. Poetry: I have described in the ''Review Style'' page that though I do adore a few poems, I don't really read poetries that much. I will read any poetry written by Robert Frost and a few other poets, because they are so inspirational, but I generally don't enjoy, and don't read, poetry.

4. Typical novels about high school drama: I haven't read many high school books. But I have seen a lot of high school movies. And that made me really uninterested in the genre. The same innocent protagonists, bullies, or mean girls, and the handsome hero. (Some high school films were great, though, for example, The Perks of Being a Wallflower).

5. Economics: The word explains it!

6. Western fiction. Well, this may sound really weird, but I have never read a Western novel nor seen a Western movie. I know that it's horrible to judge a genre without seeing any movies or reading any books belonging to the particular genre, but the idea of this genre just does not fascinate me!

Well, I can really think of no more! :P 

(And, I should also note that this is my very first Top Ten Tuesday post :D )