So I did no top five
Wednesdays in May, yeah… sorry. But now it’s June, and here we go. Top Five
Wednesday is a concept created by Gingerreadslainey. And this week’s topic is
your top five favourite books of the year so far. So my list is composed of
just books I’ve read this year, so not necessarily books that have been
released this year, which will become very apparent with the first book on this
list. Anyway, off we go.
Yeah, it’s fucking
amazing. Jane Eyre is the gothic masterpiece of Charlotte Brontë. It’s a fake
autobiography about Jane Eyre, an orphan who grows up in a boarding school
where she has a sort of auspicious beginning, being accused of lying and being
a demon child. She does become a beloved part of the school. When she’s 18 she
becomes a governess for a young girl named Adele, the ward of a man named
Rochester. They fall in love, but can’t be married because Rochester has a wife
he’s hidden in the attic. Jane Eyre refuses to be dependent on a man. She is
dirt poor but she will not take Rochester’s money. She will not be his
mistress, because it is a tenuous relationship and who is to say Rochester will
not get tired of her. She’s amazing, bit pious, but she’s a badass, and the
book is amazing.
This is the first book in Brandon Sanderson’s
Stormlight Archive series. It is amazing. It is full of magic and wonder and
amazingness. It’s just amazing. It’s not a good place to start with fantasy.
It’s really complex and for a long time, the whole book technically, there are
things you can’t understand, and you just need to roll with it. My best friend
said that for Fantasy you should really move through stages, and start on
somewhere simpler, and then move onto more complex stuff. In which case this
should be on the sort of advanced stage. It’s incredible. The characters are
amazing, the cultures, Oh Em Gee. The world building is just amazing. Brandon
Sanderson is incredible.
David Mitchell is a genius. This is his latest book
and it is about these two immortal races that wage a sort of time war in the
background of the world. And it’s about a young woman named Holly Sykes who is
in the centre of this war. It’s incredible. It’s an amazing book. Mitchell
writes sort of short stories and then strings them together into a novel. This
book starts with Holly’s perspective, and then are told from the perspectives
of people who are in Holly’s life. And it seems very normal, and then something
weird happens at the end of every perspective, and then they just don’t mention
it ever again. It’s good. It’s fun, and cool, and weird.
I’m a weird science enthusiast. By which I don’t mean
I’m weird, I am, but I mean “weird science.” I like people who ask weird
scientific questions and try to answer them. I especially like it when people
who aren’t exactly moral do this. Because who needs ethics? This is based on
hypothetical questions, and the answers aren’t really found through
experiments, but through maths. It’s great. This is who I am. It’s written by a
former NASA scientist, who now writes the webcomic XKCD. There he also answers
weird science questions people send him. I listened to the audiobook, which is
read by Wil Wheaton. I kind of want to read it too, because it has diagrams and
stuff. It’s funny, it’s weird. People ask weird questions; like what would
happen is there was suddenly a portal that sucked out all the water on earth?
And his conclusion is essentially that Holland, no longer threatened by being
drowned or washed away, will take over the world. Because of course. It’s
great. I told a Dutch friend of mine about that, and she was not surprised. She
just said; yeah, makes sense.
This was my first Adichie book and it’s great. It’s an
immigrant story. Ifemelu and Obinze are Nigerian teenagers in love. They plan
to go off to America together, but Ifemelu gets a scholarship and a visa and
goes before Obinze and they drift apart. It was an interesting look at race in
America, and how different it is for blacks that are born in America, of black
parents, as opposed to an African immigrant. They sort of experience their
blackness, and racism differently. Since I’m not black, or an immigrant, or
American, or indeed African, I don’t really have a first hand perspective on
blacks in America, or immigration, but I found it fascinating. I love studying
people, you’re learning a lot of weirdness about me, I studied anthropology,
and I like seeing how people sort of interact and crash. Because Ifemelu is
very different and has a different experience of blackness than black people in
America she observes a lot about that. And I love that, because I’m weird. I
should read more immigrant stories. Anyway.
So these are my top five favourite books so far this
year. Hope you enjoyed this list. What are your favourites? What weird things
do you like?
Jane Eyre by Charlotte
Brontë
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
I’m a weird science enthusiast. By which I don’t mean
I’m weird, I am, but I mean “weird science.” I like people who ask weird
scientific questions and try to answer them. I especially like it when people
who aren’t exactly moral do this. Because who needs ethics? This is based on
hypothetical questions, and the answers aren’t really found through
experiments, but through maths. It’s great. This is who I am. It’s written by a
former NASA scientist, who now writes the webcomic XKCD. There he also answers
weird science questions people send him. I listened to the audiobook, which is
read by Wil Wheaton. I kind of want to read it too, because it has diagrams and
stuff. It’s funny, it’s weird. People ask weird questions; like what would
happen is there was suddenly a portal that sucked out all the water on earth?
And his conclusion is essentially that Holland, no longer threatened by being
drowned or washed away, will take over the world. Because of course. It’s
great. I told a Dutch friend of mine about that, and she was not surprised. She
just said; yeah, makes sense. 
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie