Meme: Top Ten Tuesday

The Top Ten Tuesday meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. If you like my list, visit the main site and click on to some of the other lists.

First I have some predictions: I predict that Fitzwilliam Darcy will appear on at least three lists and Rhett Butler on at least two. Lord Peter Wimsey and Mr. Rochester may appear as well, but I hope not Heathcliff. However, you will not find any of these well-loved gentlemen on my list ;-)

Here are 10 literary crushes of mine, past and present, platonic and romantic, in no particular order – except the first one, who can always make my knees tremble.

Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon, from These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer. I love to read about bad boy heroes, and this is the archetypal reformed rake.
William of Baskerville. This may seem like an unusual choice, but I was very taken with this character when I first read The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco), because of his honesty and fairness and sharp intelligence. Any relationship would have to be a platonic one, as he is a monk. Disclaimer: This choice was not influenced by Sean Connery hotness.
Davy Dempsey. Another bad boy. I found him scary-sexy in Welcome to Temptation, but he had mellowed out and become rather attractive once he got his own book (Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie).
Sir Kenneth from The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott. A very old crush of mine – I think I was about 14 when I first read the book. It has a very romantic and highly implausible adventure plot, but oh boy, Sir Kenneth is the epitome of the chivalrous lover.
If I had to name one Austen hero I have had a crush on, it would be Mr. George Knightley from Emma. For his sense of humour, practicality and patience.
Roderick Alleyn, from the Ngaio March series, especially as he is in the early books before he meets Agatha Troy.
Commissaire Adamsberg from the books by Fred Vargas. He is often morose and depressed, but at his best he is funny and very, very sexy. Definitely influenced by Jean-Hugues Anglade hotness.
Inspector Montalbano from the books by Andrea Camilleri. I love a man who loves good food.
Roarke, from the In Death books by J.D. Robb. Yet another bad boy and an archetypal romance hero: sexy, rich and very intelligent.
Hugo Darracott, from The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer. For his naughty sense of humour.

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down

Icelandic folk-tale: The Devil Takes a Wife

Stories of people who have made a deal with and then beaten the devil exist all over Christendom and even in literature. Here is a typical one: O nce upon a time there were a mother and daughter who lived together. They were rich and the daughter was considered a great catch and had many suitors, but she accepted no-one and it was the opinion of many that she intended to stay celebrate and serve God, being a very devout woman. The devil didn’t like this at all and took on the form of a young man and proposed to the girl, intending to seduce her over to his side little by little. He insinuated himself into her good graces and charmed her so thoroughly that she accepted his suit and they were betrothed and eventually married. But when the time came for him to enter the marriage bed the girl was so pure and innocent that he couldn’t go near her. He excused himself by saying that he couldn’t sleep and needed a bath in order to go to sleep. A bath was prepared for him and in he went and

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove

Reading in Reykjavík

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