Top Ten Tuesday 2/12/19: Favorite Couples In Books

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.

This week’s TTT topic is Favorite Couples In Books.

Happy cold and snowy Tuesday everyone. With Valentine’s Day around the corner the romantic in me could not resist this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic. Romance is my reading catnip, it really is. This became a favorite genre from when I was a tween reading Harlequin love stories featuring cowboys on the ranch sweeping damsels in distress off their feet. My taste in romance novels has definitely changed throughout the years. I enjoy reading about unconventional couples who somehow make it work and I actually prefer bittersweet endings. It was hard to narrow my list down to just ten but here are a few of my favorite literary couples…..

 

1. Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. These two are possibly my favorite literary/film couple of all time. I never get tired of watching GWTW. I love the tension between these two and the way they fall in love.

 

2. Adrienne and Paul in Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks. I ugly cried the last time I read this one.

Top Ten Tuesday 2/13/18: Complicated Love

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.

This week’s TTT topic is Love Freebie (Romances, swoons, OTPs, kisses, sexy scenes, etc.)

10 of My Favorite Complicated Love Stories

I’m a sucker for romance, it is one of my favorite genres. I gobble it up in literature and in film. But I am really a sucker for unhappy endings and complicated love that just burns the house down so to speak. I love it when the couples have to work hard for it, it feels like they earned their love and it feels more true to life.

Today I am listing 10 of my favorite complicated love stories. The kind of love that is meant to be but the timing isn’t right or there are miscommunications and other things involved that keep the lovers apart. Some of these finally have happy endings but most don’t. There are also a few movies thrown in here for good measure. All are based on novels except for the one film.

1. Love in the Time of Cholera is one of the most complicated love stories I have ever read. These people have to wait decades to finally reunite.

2. The Great Gatsby
Why Gatsby? Why are you so besotted with Daisy? She doesn’t deserve it. Everything he does is to win Daisy back into his life.

3. Gone with the Wind is a favorite classic, both the film and the novel. In think Scarlett O’Hara is one of the most unlikable heroines in any book I’ve read. She is her own worst enemy and this comes full circle in the end. P.S. I love Rhett. I purchased the hardcover vintage copy above one day at a library book sale for like .50 cents. I wasn’t even looking for it, that’s what I call good book karma 🙂

Top Ten Tuesday February 9: Top Ten Great Love Declarations in fiction

February 9: Valentine’s Day is next week…let’s do a Valentine’s Day themed freebie!

This week’s TTT topic is right up my alley. I could be here all day. 

In no particular order, here are my Top Ten Favorite Love Declarations in Literature.

 

1. “We loved with a love that was more than love.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee

 

2. “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
―Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

 

3. “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.”
-Captain Wentworth in a letter to Anne, Persuasion by Jane Austen….
Can I just take a moment to say, that Jane Austen penned one of the greatest love letters in all of literature when she wrote Persuasion. Okay, moving right along to GWTW…

Kissing: A Field Guide by Violet Blue

source: free review copy via the publisher
Kissing: A Field Guide by Violet Blue
published: Cleis Press (February 11, 2014)
genre: non-fiction/self-help
pages: 131
rated 5 out of 5 for being sweet, informative and funny

Blurb:
Kissing is an art form. A great kiss can stop traffic, start a five-alarm fire, and feel like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Get your smooch on with all the different tricks and tips in this handy guide. Bestselling author and columnist Violet Blue helps readers choose — and perfect — their very own unforgettable kissing style. Learn how to time a kiss perfectly, how to deliver (and receive) a first kiss, and how to ask for kisses with body language. Recognize when someone wants to kiss you, when to build tension, and when to take your kiss to the next level. Discover all the secrets and foolproof techniques for the perfect kiss in this indispensable guide to an overlooked sensual art.

My thoughts:
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this fun little “how to” book put a smile on my face. Like violet Blue states “kissing is an art form” and she is right.

Within these pages you will find detailed kissing tips as well as information on how to identify different types of kissers, like the rock star and the yuppie and different types of kisses, like the good-bye kiss and the lusty kiss. Kissing do’s and don’ts are included as well as what to do when things go wrong during smooches, like biting too hard to finding the person is a bad kisser.