I haven't participated in Top Ten Tuesday over at The Broke and The Bookish in quite a while, but I like this week's topic:


1. "The _______'s Wife/Daughter"
I adore most books with this title structure.  Why?  Perhaps because I am a wife...and a daughter?  Plus, titles like these almost always equate to women's fiction, which I love.

2. Marital Strife
Okay, this is NOT something I aspire to, but my interest is always piqued by a book with marital strife as a major plot mover.  I like to think it's because my marriage is so blissfully wonderful that I have to look elsewhere to read about such things.  :-)

3. Babies/Pregnancy
Again, this is completely selfish in nature, but as a mom I love to read about mom-related and baby-related books.  Most of them are written either from a very humorous perspective (I love to laugh at my own mom mistakes, why not others' as well?) or an introspective one (moms muddling through child-rearing and trying to figure it all out).  I enjoy either side.

4. Travel + Humor = Win
I'm a lover of travel.  And travel can be hilarious sometimes.  Miscommunicating in countries where you don't know the language, not knowing local customs, missing connections--these all have the potential to be funny (in hindsight, at least).  A travel memoir that embraces this is a winner.

5. Food-Related Nonfiction
I've already waxed poetic about food memoirs, but my love extends to all things food-related.  I am a horrible chef, but my stepfather was trained at the Culinary Institute of America, so I harbor a fascination for this area of reading.

6. "Psychological Thriller"
This term is pretty broad, but I think the spirit of Gone Girl captures it fairly well.  The more twisted and unexpected, the better.

7. Zombies
This has absolutely no relation to anything in my life.  I just have a really sick fixation on the zombie apocalypse.  I have an escape and survival plan in place, it involves baseball bats and an Ergo carrier.

8. Female 20-Somethings In Their Post-College Years
I am slowly (gracefully?) exiting the 20-something age group, so perhaps this preference will soon change.  But I always find books in this category to be relatable to some area of my life...either in career building, wedding planning, friend-keeping, etc.

9. Collegiate Setting
What can I say?  I adored all 4 years of my college experience, and now I work at a college.  College settings are very, very familiar to me.

10. Set In/Near My Hometown
I should basically just say "Wally Lamb novels" because no one else sets their books in southeastern Connecticut.  But if they did, I would totally read them!  No matter what the genre!  SECT in the house, boiiiiiiii.

What do you think, readers?  Do you share any of my preferences?  What are your insta-read topics?

I think all book lovers are also author stalkers, some of the time.

Let's hold up a minute--I am not advocating that you go camp outside Suzanne Collins's bedroom with a pair of binoculars.  Creepers.

What I mean by "author stalking" is this: you've read all (or nearly all) of this particular author's work.  Whenever they release a new novel, you scramble onto Amazon and pre-order it months in advance.  You gobble it up in one sitting on the release date.  And once you finish, you immediately take to Google/Goodreads/etc. on a massive searching expedition to find out when their next novel is going to be released.  (And of course, you devolve into a weepy pile of disappointment when you find out that either a) it's not for another 2 years, or b) there is no news on an upcoming release AT ALL.)

Here are a few of my top authors to stalk, in no particular order.

Jon Krakauer


I don't read a ton of nonfiction, but Krakauer is the KING of nonfiction.  His last book, Where Men Win Glory, is on my favorites-of-all-time list.  Even his short diatribe about Greg Mortensen (Three Cups of Deceit) is a captivating read.  But news of his upcoming ventures are MIA.  I Google search all the time in the hopes of finding something.  I'll be first in line when his next one is announced.

Jodi Picoult


JP is one of my favorite authors.  I know some people aren't that into her work because it does tend to follow a formula ("ripped from the headlines" premise + legal battle + twist ending = novel).  However, I LIKE her formula, and while I don't 5-star all of her books, I love most of them.  She's a fun one to stalk though, because she releases pretty much every March right on schedule, so the only real mystery is what the next topic will be.  (Psst...her 2013 book is called The Storyteller, read more here!)

Audrey Niffenegger


Another book on my favorites-all-time list is The Time Traveler's Wife.  Everyone's heard of that book though--much less attention was given to her second novel, A Fearful Symmetry, which was masterful.  Her novels are such a haunting blend of whimsy, love, and sadness.  She doesn't publish often, which makes stalking difficult, but it sounds like her next book (The Chinchilla Girl in Exile) is going to be interesting...if they ever announce a release date.  Ho-hum.

Emily Giffin


I already reviewed her latest one, Where We Belong , last week.  After every Giffin novel, I'm already searching for the next one.  It's those darn endings; she is a master of the good chick-lit ending!!  Too early for any news on a new one yet, but I'll be waiting.

Stephen King


This is a gimme. What SK fan DOESN'T stalk around for his new release(s)?  And they get so much hype, it's hard not to hear about them anyway.  This is kind of a cheating answer though, because there's so much SK work out there, I can just read one of his past novels to get me through until his new one comes out.  I just found out that Doctor Sleep (the sequel to The Shining) is being released on my 30th birthday (9/24/2013), which I think is a nice present from Mr. King.  The Well-Read Redhead salutes you, sir.

Anita Shreve


The Pilot's Wife?  All-time-faves list.  And I've loved nearly every other Shreve novel I've encountered (other than A Wedding in December, let's just pretend that one doesn't exist).  Her last one, Rescue, was great, but it came out in 2010...no word of a new one yet...((taps foot)).

So, admit it--what authors do YOU stalk?