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Unique Books — a Top Ten Tuesday list — 13 Comments

  1. Lovely list. I love the moment your high school self discovered the richness of time during the reading of Beowulf.

    One of the most unique books I read – well, story, really… it was a book of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations with a few other old, old things thrown in to make it long enough, and one of the supplementary pieces was a dialogue by Lucian entitled Icaromenippus, An Aerial Expedition, which contains, among other things, instructions on how to fly to the moon using a couple wings off of a couple different birds, and a scathing assessment of modern philosophy circa the second century CE.

  2. Great list! Love seeing the bible on your list! I feel like I’m the only one who hasn’t read Code Name Verity at this point. Must read this soon!

  3. Fun Home is a literary graphic-memoir by Alison Bechdel which is so good I recommend it to everyone. When you hear the words “graphic novel” the word literary rarely comes up but this one lives up to the highest expectations.

    The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt surprised me but it’s out of print probably because it is atypical.

    Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff is not the first young adult novel written in verse I’ve read but it was the most memorable.

    Orlando by Virginia Woolf is not my favorite novel by the author but it is, without a doubt, unique because it reads like a biography, the subject matter itself is unusual, and it has an index, much the way a non-fiction book would have.

    Any of the Discworld books. It’s not often I read a book that makes me laugh out loud but these books do every time! It doesn’t matter which one I pick up, whenever I need to distract myself from reality or need to lighten up a bit because life has become too serious, I can always rely on Pratchett for some fun.

    • Great list! Writers talk about the Bechdel test, but I hadn’t actually thought to read any of her books!

  4. What a great list. Your descriptions of what made each unique also reminded me that uniqueness is not only inherent to the book itself, but also in each reader’s reaction to that work. Thanks for stopping by and commenting on my list!

  5. I would’ve struggled with this Top Ten list myself, but I liked your choices. I still have not read Canterbury Tales, though I’ve read a lot about it. I’ve dipped into the Bible a lot, but not even tried to read it through.

    I would love to have a copy of the Grasmere Journal–I love books like that.

    I’ve heard Code Name Verity is great–it’s on my TBR list.

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