Top 10 Tuesday: Every Breath You Take

October 24: Atmospheric Books (The Novelry explains this concept as: “A novel feels atmospheric when the setting and the narrative are deeply involved with one another; when characters and plot are physically embedded in their surroundings, …”)

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.

That Artsy Reader Girl

I cannot emphasize enough how much fun it was picking the quote for each title.

1

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

•First published November 6, 1939 • 258 pages, Kindle Edition • Classic, Mystery, Thriller

There was something magical about an island—the mere word suggested fantasy. You lost touch with the world—an island was a world of its own. A world, perhaps, from which you might never return.

Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None

Is there anyone better than Agatha Christie for atmosphere?

2

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

•First published January 1, 1973 •210 pages, Kindle Edition •Southern Gothic, Horror, Literary

To watch these things issuing from the otherwise mute pastoral morning is a man at the barn door. He is small, unclean, unshaven. He moves in the dry chaff among the dust and slats of sunlight with a constrained truculence. Saxon and Celtic bloods. A child of God much like yourself perhaps. 

Cormac McCarthy, Child of God

Possibly my favorite Cormac McCarthy story: keen sense of place and pure madness.

3

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

•First published October 16, 1959 •246 pages, Kindle Edition •Classic, Horror, Gothic

Gossip says she hanged herself from the turret on the tower, but when you have a house like Hill House with a tower and a turret, gossip would hardly allow you to hang yourself anywhere else.

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

The first of two for Shirley Jackson.

4

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

•First published October 16, 1847 •402 pages, Kindle Edition •Classic, Gothic, Historical Fiction

Because, he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you – especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, – you’d forget me.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

One of two stories that I have a feeling will appear on multiple lists this week.

5

Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite

•First published September 1, 1992 •383 pages, Kindle Edition •Horror, Gothic, LGTBQ

Tonight, as usual, she slipped in at nine-thirty and looked around for the friends who were never there. The wind blew the French Quarter in behind her, the night air rippling warm down Chartres Street as it slipped away toward the river, smelling of spice and fried oysters and whiskey and the dust of ancient bones stolen and violated.

Poppy Z. Brite, Lost Souls

Lost Souls has the feel of the mythic New Orleans right down to its bone marrow.

6

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

•First published January 1, 1980 •552 pages, Kindle Edition •Classic, Historical, Mystery

The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge did a diabolical thing because he loved his truth so lewdly that he dared anything in order to destroy falsehood.

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

I really struggled with this one. There did not seem to be any snippet that summed up the atmosphere better than the book in its entirety.

7

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

•First published July 16, 2013 •850 pages, Kindle Edition •Mystery, Horror, Thriller

It felt as if we’d been to war together. Deep in a jungle, alone, I had relied on them, these strangers. They’d held me up in ways only people could. When it was over, an ending never felt like an ending, only an exhausted draw, we went our separate ways. Be we were bonded forever by the history of it, the simple fact they’d seen the raw side of me and me of them, a side no one, not even closest friends or family had ever seen before, or probably ever would.

Marisha Pessl, Night Film

I had given the book only three stars; my issue, right after reading it, was the length. The story was engrossing, it just went on and on.

8

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

•First published September 20, 2011 •351 pages, Kindle Edition •Historical, Mythology, LGBTQ

“I will go,” he said. “I will go to Troy.”
The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood and grow young again.
He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.
“Will you come with me?” he asked.
The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.

Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

Ancient myth brought to life in an ancient place and time.

9

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

•First published September 21, 1962 •162 pages, Kindle Edition •Classic, Horror, Gothic

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

The second Shirley Jackson novel. I’ve always love it for the pure creepiness of the story.

10

Wuthering Heights by Emily Jane Brontë

•First published December 1, 1847 •400 pages, Kindle Edition •Classic, Gothic, Romance

My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

The second book I expect to see on multiple lists. I had never thought of Wuthering Heights as a romance, although it obviously is, I had always thought of it as a story of deep loss and grief.

Thoughts