Feature & Friday (2)

This week we were asked to recommend some of our favorite back-list books - books that are at least a few years old (5-10 years old rather than classics).  This is TOTALLY my jam!  ...seriously, my original list was like 30 books long which is ridiculous.  So I've limited myself to books between 5 and 10 years old, written by an author who is famous for other books. (I know.  I'm crazy.  But I got myself down to 7 books!)  So with no further ado, here's some books you should totally check out!

Abarat by Clive Barker

Some of you might know Clive Barker of Hellraiser fame, but really you might know him from anything - he not only writes novels (primarily adult, but also YA), but he's also an artist (each Abarat book contains around 200 of his own art work), works on video games, movies, and even comics.  He's done everything.  Abarat, is my favourite of all his works (although admittedly as not much of a horror fan I haven't read many of his adult books), and is really one of my favourite works EVER.  Sadly, not many people seem to know about this series, and I am here to tell you you need to.  I won't go on because I've talked about these books many, many times on the blog, so feel free to search :)

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale 

Many of you know Shannon Hale from The Goose Girl, the first in her Books of Bayern series, or from her Princess Academy series, or even from her tons of adult works.  She writes in so many different genres, and so far I've loved everything I've come across!  This book most resembles The Books of Bayern series, and if you loved The Goose Girl, you are very likely to love Book of a Thousand Days.

Cat Street by Kamio Youko

Kamio Youko is the author of one of the most famous shoujo mangas of all time - Hana Yori Dango (Boys Over Flowers).  It was started back in the 90s, and it became so popular that not only is there an anime version, but there's also a live drama Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese (I believe version).  I've even heard they're doing an American adaption soon!  Not many people know of her other manga, Cat Street.  I personally had a lot of problems with the storyline in Hana Yori Dango (bullying/abusive relationship in particular), so I actually prefer everything about this series.  The characters feel more realistic, the relationships are better, the artwork is understandably more modern - if you like manga, this series is definitely worth checking out.  Unfortunately, it's not published in English so it's scanlations only for us poor non-Japanese readers.

The Double Bind - Chris Bohjalian

The Double Bind was my very first Bohjalian novel and I was absolutely stunned after reading it.  I seriously didn't even know how to process the world again.  Most people know Bohjalian from his book Midwives, which also had a movie adaption.   This book feels unlike anything I've ever read before, and I don't want to say much because knowing things about it will spoil the book.  It's also in a very different style than Midwives.  I find that Bohjalian writes two types of books generally - historical fiction, and books that explore the grey areas of morality.  This is unlike either of those.  The story, the suspense...you just need to read it to understand how insanely awesome it is!

Hoshi wa Utau (aka Twinkle Stars in English I think?) - Takaya Natsuki

Takaya Natsuki is the author of another insanely popular shoujo manga - Fruits Basket.  Again, anyone who's read any shoujo manga has likely read Fruits Basket.  Hoshi wa Utau is much more recent, and still ongoing to my knowledge.  It is being published in English, yay!  It's a lot more reflective than Fruits Basket, and the art is just gorgeous.  It's definitely one of my favourite current mangas!

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman is probably best known for her novel Practical Magic (which is one of the very few I haven't read).  She also wrote The River King (which was my first Hoffman novel) which was adapted into a movie...which I haven't seen.  Any of you know if it's any good?  Oops, getting sidetracked.  Alice Hoffman is definitely one of my absolute favourite authors.  At this point I've read over half of her novels (and she has many), and I've loved every single one of them.  The Ice Queen is probably my favourite out of all the ones I've read so far, but any of her novels are definitely worth checking out.  They all (or almost all) have varying degrees of magical realism which is my favourite genre, so I'm a bit biased.  She's got beautiful prose, real characters....they're great.  Basically.



Peeps by Scott Westerfeld



I'm sure almost all of you have heard of Westerfeld's Uglies series or if you haven't you might have heard of Leviathan or his Midnighters series.  But some of you might not have heard of Peeps, which happens to be my favourite take on vampires.  Vampires are actually caused by a parasite and REASONS (too complicated to go into, but really cool and backed up by scientific world building stuff).  Every other chapter has information about real world parasites which is...creepy...but also super interesting.  But vampires!  And science!  It's so cool!!!

And that's it for my very specific range of recommended back list books!  What books did you recommend?  Leave me a link (really, without a link I Disqus doesn't take me to your blog)!