Top 10 Tuesday : Books I Enjoyed That Are Outside of My Comfort Zone

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

September 3: Books I Enjoyed That Are Outside of My Comfort Zone (i.e., a genre you don’t typically read or subject matter you’re not usually drawn to)

Modding this a bit to 5 books I’ve enjoyed outside my comfort zone and 5 books I want to read that are outside of my comfort zone.

First, the five books I’ve enjoyed outside of my comfort zone are as follows-

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Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I don’t often read about middle-aged characters doing domestic things. Maybe if they were being actively haunted by ghosts or thrown into a dystopian/apocalyptic/killer bunnies types of settings there’d be some interest, but otherwise things can get depressingly realistic. Let me just say Big Little Lies is 460 pages, nearly 500 pages, and I finished it in what felt like one engaged sitting and immediately wanted to read more.

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The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

This is the only memoir I’ve read. It’s written in a novel-like way though, so perhaps unconventional as far as memoirs go. Haven’t any plans to read more memoirs in the future but this one was worthwhile.

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From Sand And Ash by Amy Harmon

Just checked my Goodreads favorite genres section and recently added Historical Fiction. Technically there have been other historical fiction books I’ve liked but From Sand And Ash was the book that had me saying, yes, this genre is one I’ll follow. It’s more of a historical fiction/romance hybrid but the historic part of it was not my usual cup of tea.

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All Systems Red by Martha Wells

I just don’t read sci-fi unless it has a lot of unusual ingredients baked into the mix (Never Let Me Go comes to mind.) But actual spacey high-tech sci-fi? Not a usual preference. Unless we’re talking about Xenogears and Xenosaga, but that’s another subject altogether. All Systems Red is a pretty good entry point into sci-fi since it’s a short and cohesively written novella.

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A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

This is the mother of all books I never intended to read. Honestly, reading this on a Kindle is what saved the day. There is a feature (going to talk about it in a future ereader/ebook-related post) called Word Wise that streamlined my understanding of a lot of high fantasy and medieval terminology in a quick way. Absolutely loved this book, am still enthused for the sequel, and the door has officially been knocked down for getting into longer and more adult fantasy. There are books I’ve enjoyed since that might have been quick DNFs had this book not opened my mind to them.

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5 books outside of my comfort zone I want to read

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

I remember seeing a number of her poems and being quite confused and unimpressed. I’ve since read and watched some reviews of this book and one of her newer books and the emotion people have put into their feelings toward this book has definitely been eye-opening. Also, some of her poetry covers topics that are dear to me so definitely considering this, among some other modern poetry collections. As someone who often doesn’t “get” poetry, it would be fascinating to finally connect to some.

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Mistborn : The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Just want to read something by Brandon Sanderson and this seems to be the consensus on a good place to start. Not committed though, if anyone thinks there is a better starting point of his work feel free to let me know in the comments.

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The Martian by Andy Weir

Zero interest in space, space crafts, or space traveling but passionate reviews have me adding this one to the TBR just in case.

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Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Don’t know why I want to read this so much. I think it was a random passionate Goodreads reviews that enthralled me. This book is finally on sale on Kindle and I’m thinking on it even though the preview I’d read seemed tedious. If any of you have read this book I’d very much like to hear your thoughts. It’s WW1 literary fiction if I remember correctly.

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I tried- and failed- to read Sense and Sensibility some time ago. My success with classics has been random, but it won’t hurt to get up and try again. Pride and Prejudice seems more appealing anyway.

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Most gracious thanks to all of you for reading this installment of Top 10 Tuesday. Have you read any of the books mentioned or want to read them? I’d love to hear your thoughts as always.

Until next time-