Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish!

This week’s topic allows me to share some books from my reading of the past few years that I think should get “more air-time”.
 

1. A Beautiful Truth by Colin McAdam
618 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 5 stars

Set in Vermont and in a Florida primate research facility, this story is told alternately from the POV of humans and chimpanzees.

Wealthy young couple Walt and Judy, unable to conceive children, adopt a young chimpanzee who enjoys a pampered life with them. Meanwhile, in Florida, chimps have been studied (and more) for decades. These two stories tragically intersect.

This is an extremely powerful book that continues to haunt me, though I read it over two years ago.
 

2. Dog Boy by Eva Hornung
1,093 GoodRead ratings; my rating – 5 stars

I’ll repeat my comments of March 2013: Winner of the 2010 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Dog Boy is a marvel of experience and of emotion.

Four-year-old Romochka is abandoned in Moscow at the beginning of winter. Hungry and cold, he follows a feral dog to her lair – and so starts Romochka’s life as a dog. The premise sounds preposterous, but Hornung makes it work.

I can’t understand why this book didn’t win more awards.
 

3. Adé: A Love Story by Rebecca Walker
551 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 4½ stars
 

I mentioned Adé in a recent Six Degrees of Separation post, comparing it to Romeo and Juliet. It’s haunting and heart-breaking, and definitely not a “romance novel”. This tale, set in modern-day Kenya, deserves to be a classic of 21st century literature. I have not been as touched by a book in a long time as I was by Adé.
 

4. How High the Moon by Sandra Kring
1,114 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 5 stars

How delightful this book!

Isabelle “Teaspoon” Marlene was abandoned by her mother and left with mother’s boyfriend of one year, Teddy, who raises her. It’s summer 1955 and Teaspoon is 10 years old.
The relationships are exceedingly well done, and Teaspoon’s misunderstanding of adult terms (such as blackmail: a dark-colored letter) leads to some very funny parts.

Fresh voice, and humour, and warmth – oh my – a new favourite!
 

5. Incident at Hawk’s Hill by Allan W. Eckert
1,917 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 4½ stars

Set in the nineteenth century American mid-west, this is the story of a little boy who becomes lost on the prairie and spends several weeks living underground with an adult female badger. For some reason, I mistakenly thought it was a true story – and I found it highly believable. The boy was small and desperate; and the badger, grieving.

It doesn’t really “prettify” nature’s interaction with men (and vice-versa).

Newbery Honor Book. Recommended.
 

6. Wrecker by Summer Wood

411 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 4½ stars

The best way to find out about Wrecker is to read my review.

I was hooked on Wrecker from the first paragraph and could seldom put it down.

There are beautiful insights and rich emotion, caught in spare and lovely prose.

Just read it.
 

7. Altamont Augie by Richard Barager
55 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 5 stars

Richard Barager’s debut novel is set against the back drop of 1960s America, the Vietnam War, and the ever increasingly violent anti-war protests of the time. It is the story of David and Jackie, young people on opposite sides of those divisive issues, but who have a passion for each other that connects them through it all.

Barager has crafted a keenly insightful look into the politics of the 1960s, presenting both sides, but with a protagonist who represents a view that was decidedly unpopular among youth of the day.

When I first read Altamont Augie , I rated it 4½ stars. But since it provided much fuel for discussion in our household, was extremely thought-provoking and stayed with me, when it came time to review it, I upped my rating to 5 stars.
 

8. The Grace That Keeps This World by Tom Bailey
537 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 4½ stars

My 2005 pre-blogging reading journal remarks:

Wow. Just wow!

First, I love the different perspectives by different people.
Second, the setting and life-style are, if not appealing, certainly compelling.
Third, the plot didn’t go at all where I expected it to.

Set in rural Wisconsin.
 

9. The Last Rain by Edeet Ravel
26 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 4 stars

This novel is set on a kibbutz in Israel, mostly in the years 1949 and 1961.

The story jumps to various points of view and time periods, as well as formats (bits of a play, excerpts of committee meeting minutes, diary entries, and so on) at what is, at first, a dizzying—and sometimes annoying—rate. But piecing it together is all part of the plot, illustrating the complexities of any experiment to create a utopia.

When I finished the book, I wanted to start at the beginning and read it again now that I had the whole picture.
 

10. The Meadow: a Novel by James Galvin
1,218 GoodReads ratings; my rating – 4½ stars

 
From Amazon: “James Galvin depicts the hundred-year history of a meadow in the arid mountains of the Colorado/Wyoming border. Galvin describes the seasons, the weather, the wildlife, and the few people who do not possess but are themselves possessed by this terrain.

I read this for book club – and I’m glad I did!
 

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