Top Ten Tuesday Rewind—Must-Read Words and Topics

Happy heavenly 71st birthday to George Harrison, wherever his sweet, beautiful soul may now be. May his memory be for an eternal blessing.

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly feature of The Broke and the Bookish. A full list of instructions and future themes can be found here. This week’s theme is Top Ten Tuesday REWIND!, a revisiting of a prior topic you’d like to do again or may have missed. I chose the topic of 30 April 2013, “Top ten words/topics that will make me pick up or buy a book.”

1. Japan. I’d love to read/find more Japanese historicals or contemporaries. I’ve been a Nipponophile since I was fourteen, and plan to write some Japanese historicals once my queue is finally empty or simmering down.

2. China. I’ve always enjoyed Chinese historicals when I’ve read them, though I’ve read even fewer Chinese historicals than Japanese. There’s so much territory to mine, not just in terms of eras, but types of people. I’d also love to read something about non-Chinese in China, like the French, Russians, Jewish Europeans, British, or Americans who formed much of Shanghai’s population till the 1949 Revolution, or a missionary family in the 19th or early 20th century.

3. Immigrant stories. I love books about new or recent immigrants to the U.S., either historical or contemporary. With a contemporary, one is also more likely to find a new story, like about immigrants from India, Iraq, or Ghana. It’d also be a nice change of pace to read a story about immigrants to a place like Canada, England, or Australia. Not all immigrants came to America! In my late teens, I devoured Maisie Mosco’s five-book family saga Almonds and Raisins, about two Jewish families, one Austrian, one Russian, who come to Manchester, England around 1905.

Also, bonus points if a U.S. immigrant story isn’t set in New York City. As much as I love reading about historical New York, when normal people could still afford to live there, it wasn’t the only city immigrants settled in! How about Pittsburgh, Boston, Cincinnati, San Francisco, a small Midwestern farming community, or Chicago?

4. Russia. Pretty self-explanatory.

5. Iran. I have a new interest in Iranian history and culture after putting some of my characters in my WIP in Iran to escape the Great Terror. It’s sad how many people don’t realise that Iran was a very modern, Western, secular country until the 1979 Revolution.

6. Sisters. I always loved stories of sisters growing up, like the Little House and All-of-a-Kind-Family series. It’s probably one of the reasons why I tend to make my own sibling lineups predominantly female. It’s a refreshing change of pace to read about family relationships instead of books where family is a minor detail.

7. The early post-WWII years. So many books about the Shoah or the WWII homefront stop at or soon after the liberation, when a story that was at least as dramatic and compelling was just beginning.

8. Left-handedness. I’m a sinistral chauvinist, and always include at least a few lefties or ambis among my casts of characters. I get a special thrill when I encounter someone else’s fictional lefties, whose handedness isn’t just a minor detail.

9. Armenia or Armenians. I’ve been an Armenophile since the Spring of ’95, when I was 15 years old. I get so excited when I find historical fiction, memoirs, or non-fiction about the Armenian experience.

10. Art and artists. I’m an amateur artist, and love finding stories about other amateur artists or serious professionals. Bonus points if we share some of our favourite artists, like Paul Klee, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, or Gustav Klimt.