Top 10 Tuesday – 2011 Anticipated Reads

Top 10 Tuesday: the greatest thing to hit Tuesday’s since…  Sorry we got nothing.  Why not just head on over to The Broke and the Bookish and join the fun.

This week’s question: Top 10 books we’re anticipating to read in 2011

Many people have commented over the past few weeks how charming it is that we’ve start a book blog as a couple.  Well, up until Top Ten Tuesday came along we would have been inclined to agree.  Unfortunately, we found out the hard way that agreeing on one consolidated list is much more difficult in practice than on paper.  It took a heated arm wrestling contest and another episode of Evan crying in the fetal position before we came to the realization that splitting the Top 10 Tuesday duties was necessary.  Therefore, we can now reveal that this week’s list was created by Evan with a fair amount of partiality…  

For the few people that actually had the stomach to endure that laborious explanation, we give you our most anticipated reads for next year.

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – To be honest we’re excited to finish this entire flipp’in series.  We feel marked as the only two people with a blog who have not read this book.  All that changes now (or at least at the start of next year)!
2. The Discworld Series – Unfortunately, The Color of Magic left us wanting.  We understand that many Fantasy book bloggers are now glaring at their computer screen and gnashing their teeth, but we weren’t impressed.  Next year we plan to give this series another shot and have already committed to reading Mort and Wyrd Sisters. 
3. Hunger Games – Similar to the explanation provided in choice number 1, this novel has our YA dystopian senses salivating all over the house.
4. Les Miserables – Okay, so this might not have anyone else doing literary cartwheels, but we’ve heard plenty of good things about this classic.  (Literary cartwheels are much the same as standard cartwheels, only with a book in hand, preferably not an e-reader.  Erin was last seen performing this maneuver after the completion of book 9 in the Georgia Nicholson series)
5. Jamaica Inn – We absolutely loved Rebecca, and are excited to give Ms. DuMauier a second go.
6. James and the Giant Peach – To be specific we are very excited to read this to our 5 year old son.  We’re trying to introduce him to literature without totally overwhelming and freaking him out.  He enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and we’re determined to read him another Dahl.  Currently, we’re stuck in the Jigsaw Jones mystery series rut…
7. A Passage to India – We recently posted about our spirited feelings towards A Room with a View and are quite excited to see if Mr. Forrester can deliver again.
8. The Angel’s Game – We (Evan) absolutely loved The Shadow of the Wind, but for whatever lame reason, we have not read the sequel.
9. A Thousand Splendid Sun – We bawled our eyes out during the reading of The Kite Runner and if rumors are correct, we expect nothing less from Mr. Hosseni’s second novel.  Bring on the Häagen-Dazs.    
10. About 45-55 gems we’ve yet to discover – Considering our goal is to read close to 100 novels next year we believe it’s reasonable to expect 45%-55% of our selections to be literary gold.  We look forward to the new discoveries!

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