Ten Top Tens!

These prompts came from the Carpe Librum 1 Year & 100 Members Celebration

10 of My Favourite Authors

• Terry Pratchett
• Neil Gaiman
• Anne McCaffrey
• Mark Hodder
• Agatha Christie
• Philip Reeve
• John Le Carre
• Philip Reeve
• Alan Moore
• HP Lovecraft

10 of My Favourite Books

• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
• The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett
• American Gods - Neil Gaiman
• Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
• Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
• Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
• Phantom - Susan Kay
• The White Dragon - Anne McCaffrey
• Otherland - Tad Williams
• Evil Under The Sun - Agatha Christie

10 First Line(s) From 10 Different Books

• "It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea." - Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
• "The Wind Howled. The storm crackled on the mountains. Lightening prodded the crags like an old man trying to get an elusive blackberry pip out of his teeth." - Maskerade by Terry Pratchett
• "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." - Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• "Mr Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he stayed up all night, was seated at the breakfast table." - The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
• "The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn't sure it was worth the effort." - The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett
• "Dirk Moeller didn't know if he could fart his way into a major diplomatic incident. But he was ready to find out." - The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
• "It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one." - Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
• "As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreaming, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." - The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
• "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel" - Neuromancer by William Gibson
• "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft

10 Mini Reviews of 10 Different Books

• Yellow Blue Tibia - Adam Roberts. A masterly cold war romance that will leave you as certain of the nature of reality as Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
• Small Gods - Terry Pratchett. A clever, cynical and poignant look at why gods stop doing miracles once they have an established priesthood. As relevant today as the day it was written.
• Color Out of Space - HP Lovecraft. Lovecraft's stories often lose their power when he describes the monster in detail or goes for the "it was too terrible to describe" line. But with Color Out of Space Lovecraft finally mastered the balancing act that is a truly scary tale.
• Dune - Frank Herbert. One of the best ever examples of universe building and hugely influential on so much modern sci-fi. A must read for any thinking person, absolutely NOT a book that you can understand from a mere film (sorry David Lynch!).
• Red Shirts - John Scalzi. Have you ever watched a sci-fi and wondered why no one seems to notice that it's always the same character who gets into trouble or that things always go south in the first 7 minutes of a diplomatic mission? Turns out some of them HAVE noticed, and they're pissed. Hilariously geeky look at inter-universal influences.
• The Penultimate Truth - Philip K Dick. The first time I've ever wanted to travel back in time to punch an author. An excellent book, but not for people who like completion!
• The War of The Flowers - Tad Williams. A modern take on the changeling concept and the true nature of Faerie. Really clever, compelling characters, great world building.
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre. George Smiley is no James Bond. He's the exact opposite of James Bond in fact and by the end of this spy thriller you'll love him for it!
• Anno Dracula - Kim Newman. Infinitely more interesting than the original by Bram Stoker, this is the tall of what would have happened if Van Helsing had been less efficient. Nice gentle introduction to the world of alternate histories.
• Stardust - Neil Gaiman, a return to the good old days when fairy tales were full of sex, violence, horror and magic. Don't accidentally read the adult version to your kids though, it isn't the movie. If you can find the original Charles Voss illustrated edition you'll cherish it forever.

10 Quotes About Reading

• "A good book shop is just a genteel black hole that knows how to read"- Terry Pratchett
• "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." - Oscar Wilde
• "For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you." - Anne Lamott
• “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr Suess
• "I was born with a reading list I'll never finish." - Maud Casey
• "Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably." - C.S. Lewis
• “In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.” - Mark Twain
• “A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.” - Lemony Snicket
• “Books are a uniquely portable magic.” - Stephen King
• “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” -Oscar Wilde

10 Book Worlds You'd Want To Live In

• The Net literary virtual reality from Tad William's Otherland Quadrilogy
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld Universe
• London Below from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere
• The Victorian Steampunk world in Philip Reeve's Larklight Trilogy
• Frank Herbert's Dune Universe
• Anne McCaffrey's dragon filled planet of Pern
• I'd have loved to go to Hogwarts, but sometime in the ten years of peace BEFORE Harry got there!
• Faerie in Tad Williams' War of the Flowers
• The Europeless alternate history of The Years of Rice and Salt
• Ann Rices's vampire rich New Orleans

10 Favourite Characters From 10 Different Books

• Wednesday from American Gods
• Lord Vetinari from The Discworld Series
• Severus Snape from Harry Potter
• Erik aka The Phantom Of The Opera
• Claudia from Interview With the Vampire
• Edward Fairfax Rochester, Jane Eyre's love interest
• The unnamed narrator of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca
• Hester Shaw the prickly heroine of Mortal Engines
• !Xabbu one of the heroes of Otherland
• Cadfael from Ellis Peter's medieval mysteries

10 Books I Want to Read, But Haven't Yet

• Beowulf
• Odd and the Frost Giants - Neil Gaiman
• A Red Sun Also Rises - Mark Hodder
• Happy Hour in Hell - Tad Williams
• Swiftly -Adam Roberts
• The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
• The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time - Mark Haddon
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M Valente
• Pride And Prejudice and Zombies - Seth Grahame-Smith
• The Court of The Air - Stephen Hunt

10 Books I Read Most Recently

• Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Suzanna Clarke
• The Gospel of Loki - Joanne A Harris
• Red Shirts - John Scalzi
• Where's My Shoggoth - Ian Thomas
• The Long Earth - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
• Fringe: The Zodiac Paradox - Christa Faust
• The Ocean at The End of The Lane - Neil Gaiman
• Professor Moriarty: the Hound of the D'Urbervilles - Kim Newman
• Expedition to The Mountains of The Moon - Mark Hodder

10 Favourite Dewey Codes

• 847
• 730
• 401
• 753
• 646
• 521
• 774
• 344
• 564
• 935