Top Ten Tuesday: Father’s Day

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly themed post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This is my first time doing TTT, and I’m excited! 🙂

This week’s theme is Father’s Day. This is perfect, because my dad has had a huge influence on my love of reading. My dad was also a reader for a very long time. He has a great love for Stephen King and all things horror, so now I have a great love for Stephen King and all things horror. For my Top Ten Tuesday, I’m going to list 10 books from my TBR list that remind me of my dad, and are topics that I think he’d enjoy to some extent. Here we go!

Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Through Time by Lee McCann
My dad has always had a thing for Nostradamus and I got this book for free, so it’s perfect!

Fascinating glimpse into the life and career of the enigmatic physician whose books of prophecy have intrigued readers since their publication in the 16th century. Presents modern interpretations of his most astonishing prophecies-many imminent in the next ten years!

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
This is a series my dad has always loved, so I’ve been meaning to read it forever! I have his old copies of most of the series, but don’t have a matching copy of this one. I recently bought a kindle version when it was on sale, so I’ll probably get around to reading it soon.

This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Through Jean M. Auel’s magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear.

A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly–she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza’s way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.

Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
A classic Stephen King book, I don’t think I need to say more.

Thousands of miles away from the small township of ‘Salem’s Lot, two terrified people, a man and a boy, still share the secrets of those clapboard houses and tree-lined streets. They must return to ‘Salem’s Lot for a final confrontation with the unspeakable evil that lives on in the town.

Papi: My Story by David Ortiz
Okay, this one is a little off-genre, but my dad is a HUGE Sox fan, so it still makes sense.

David “Big Papi” Ortiz is a baseball icon and one of the most popular figures ever to play the game.  As a key part of the Boston Red Sox for 14 years, David has helped the team win 3 World Series, bringing back a storied franchise from “never wins” to “always wins.” He helped them upend the doubts, the naysayers, the nonbelievers and captured the imagination of millions of fans along the way, as he launched balls into the stands again, and again, and again.  He made Boston and the Red Sox his home, his place of work, and his legacy. As he put it: This is our f*ing city.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
My dad also loves space and science!

While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel
My dad lives in the woods of New England, has an unbelievable amount of wilderness survival skills, and would probably love to be a hermit, so.

Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality–not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.

The Book of Cthulhu edited by Ross E. Lockhart
Back to horror!

The Cthulhu Mythos is one of the 20th century’s most singularly recognizable literary creations. Initially created by H. P. Lovecraft and a group of his amorphous contemporaries (the so-called “Lovecraft Circle”), The Cthulhu Mythos story cycle has taken on a convoluted, cyclopean life of its own. Some of the most prodigious writers of the 20th century, and some of the most astounding writers of the 21st century have planted their seeds in this fertile soil. The Book of Cthulhu harvests the weirdest and most corpulent crop of these modern mythos tales. From weird fiction masters to enigmatic rising stars, The Book of Cthulhu demonstrates how Mythos fiction has been a major cultural meme throughout the 20th century, and how this type of story is still salient, and terribly powerful today.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
My dad also loves learning about indigenous folks.

In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.”

Dune by Frank Herbert
Sci-fi! He also loves sci-fi.

Set in the far future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary dynasties are controlled by noble houses that owe an allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides (the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and heir of House Atreides) as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the ‘spice’ melange, the most important and valuable substance in the cosmos. The story explores the complex, multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion as the forces of the empire confront each other for control of Arrakis.

That’s only 9, but I kind of ran out of things I thought my dad would actually like. Regardless, I had fun doing this and can’t wait until next weeks’ TTT!

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