Top Ten Tuesday [Twisted and Questionable Edition 18+]

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created over at 👉 The Broke and the Bookish.👈

Go check out their blog when you’ve got a minute, it’s fabulous!

For my Top Ten Tuesday post I’m going to list some of my most twisted and disturbing reads that I have come across over the years. There’s a few different genres here, ranging from horror and erotica, to crime and religion. It’s quite a mixed bag, but please BE WARNED, THESE BOOKS ARE NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART OR THE EASILY OFFENDED!!

(Click on the pics to take you to their Goodreads pages!)

The Dark by James Herbert

My first EVER horror book. I was 13 years old and utterly blown away by this. (As were many of the characters in the book, but in a VERY different way!)

The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey 

This book is strangely mesmerising! LaVey’s ideology was the perfect partner back in the day when I’d first discovered Black Sabbath, Slayer and Megadeth! It was THE go-to book for us metal-heads at school circa 1988. Not only is it pretty controversial, we also had it confiscated so many times by the deputy head! Oh Mr Ellis, you were such a spoil sport!

Public Disgrace at the Club by La Marchesa

Ok, this really is a dirty little book. At 39 pages this Kindle smut was outrageous! It was free, I was bored, and I’m not at all embarrassed by my choice of short story. Although I couldn’t read it in public, that would be a disgrace. Obviously. Next….

Sweetpea by C J Skuse

Oh how I love you my Sweetpea, one of my best of 2017. (Sounds like I’m starting an ode….) It’s offensive, sweary, bloody, violent and genius. Read it. That’s an order!

Cold Calling by Haydn Wilks

This is just so wrong on so many levels.  I gave it a 4 star review. Pretty sick stuff!

 

 

 

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

Deranged isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind.

See also : Barmy
See also : Genius

The Book of Paul by Richard Long

I have never read ANYTHING like this and I don’t think I ever will again. This is possibly the most intelligently grotesque horror story I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on. I can’t unsee some of the scenes, absolutely not for the squeamish. A five star book.

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

Poignant, candid, and so brutal. This one was my first ever book written by a Japanese author. It certainly opened my eyes! I’d love to visit Tokyo, and thankfully, reading this hasn’t put me off!

 

 

Wind Up Toy by David Owain Hughes

A quote from my Goodreads review says enough about this one really;

“I need to clean my thoughts with an electric sander and brush my tongue with Colgate mixed with hydrochloric acid. Although I do rather like this bad taste.” 

I gave it 4.5 stars! I guess I’m a bit twisted and questionable sometimes! 😂

 

Captive in the Dark by C J Roberts

A very dark erotica with a very disturbing subject. I was testing some reading boundaries with this one. Although it had abuse, kidnapping and sexual violence as it’s main subject, it was incredibly well written, but I don’t think I’d want to read anything like this again.

 

 

Well, there we have it! My Top Ten Tuesday with a twist and leaving you with questions perhaps! (This girl reads some weird shit, I know!) When it comes to books, I like to test those bookworm boundaries, after all, wouldn’t it be boring if we all just read Harry Potter and fluffy romance. (I’ve not read HP or fluff, just for the record.)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and tell me, IN CONFIDENCE what your twisted reads are in the comments below. I won’t tell a soul. Promise. 😉

Top Ten Tuesday – My Best Bookish LOL’s #OwlBeSatLaughing

I love a book that’s an absolute hoot to read, (see what I did there?!) but I do have to be in the mood to read funny stuff. So I thought I’d share my top ten funniest reads so far for the Top Ten Tuesday meme that was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish.

First off, we have possibly one of THE funniest ‘Books About Books’ that I can ever recall reading. Jen Campbell’s Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops. I currently have #2 on my bookshelf and I’m looking forward to reading it when the mood takes. I’ll probably be reading it soon because I’m a bit of a miserable owl this time of year, and it will cheer me up because I really don’t like Christmas very much!

Now we have yet another book about books, Craig McLays Village Books. It isn’t funny all the time, but the characters in this were superb, with dry wit and cracking one-liners, this had me chuckling away numerous times.

Aww, this one, it has such a special place in my heart! 💜 I used to read this to my daughter 20-odd years ago. She loved it so much. Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by the brilliant Lynley Dodd. A simple rhyming picture book, with animal characters that are fantastic!

Another kids book next, the superb Roald Dahl’s  The Twits. I loved this as a child, and also read it during ‘Dahl week’ at the pre-school I used to work at. The class all sat on the reading mat, and me doing my best twittish voice overs is something I’ll never forget. All those little faces smiling and giggling away, it was truly magical!

Something a bit different next in line, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. I watched the film of this before I read the book. It starred Robert Redford and Nick Nolte and I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I bought the book second hand. I had a right good old laugh second time round! Unusually for me, I did prefer the movie, but the book was still delightfully funny.

The next one is Peter Kay’s autobiography, The Sound of Laughter. I just adore Peter Kay, he’s the same age as me so everything he talks about in his book is so relateable. GARLIC BREAD?! GARLIC BREAD?! (You’ll only understand the comedy value of this foodstuff if you’re a fan! 😂)

And while I’m on the subject of autobigraphies, next in line is Is It Just Me? by the super hilarious Miranda Hart. Again, I can relate so much to Miranda, she’s around my age and her book was SUCH FUN!😂

This next book is on my Best of 2017 list, as not only is it utterly hysterical, but also very dark and un-PC. The fantastic C J Skuse’s Sweetpea. This one could possibly be ‘up there’ as one of my favourite books ever. Now THAT’S an accolade is it not?! We all know how hard it is to name favourite reads, but this is by far, a book I will never forget and will re-read for sure.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has won countless awards. This wonderful story has a main character with Asperger’s Syndrome, and Mark Haddon did a grand job of writing about such a sensitive subject with shed-loads of humour. I enjoyed it so much that I read it again STRAIGHT AFTER finishing it! What does that tell you?! As the cover suggests, it was outstanding. And so darn funny!

And now for my final top ten LOL book, which is #4 in a series. The first three I have yet to read, and I usually never read a series out of numerical order! This was on NetGalley when I first joined and I fancied something a little different to my normal choice of genre so I requested it. And I’m so glad I did because Inspector Hobbes and the Bones (Unhuman #4) by Wilkie Martin was totally nuts! I rarely choose fantasy, but this just sounded odd and entertaining, and I loved the cover art. To best describe this one I’d say it was a Cosy Crazy Crime Fantasy Comedy Mystery! I really must read the first one to get some background on the characters. It was bonkers and quite unique.

So, my first ever Top Ten Tuesday post is done! I’m not the most organised blogger, so whether I do another #TTT any time soon remains to be seen. My posts are a bit random, but I like it that way. At least then I’m not committing myself to blog on days I don’t feel like blogging!

Thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear what your favourite funny reads are. Drop me a comment below if you fancy 😀