Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is books that have made you want to learn or do something.
1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
This one seems to crop up in almost every list or tag I do. It’s because I grew up with it and it’s inspired a lot of my likes and passions. One of the things that it has made me want to do and that I have accomplished to some degree is to become a really good archer, like Legolas. I still have a little work to do before I reach his skill, but I’m a pretty good archer.
2. The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare
Another one that I use often for my replies, but it’s one of my favourite series. And it has inspired, or perhaps rekindled a passion for the classics and for learning quotes because Will Herondale. These are things I’ve always loved, but I had neglected for a long time before reading the series.
3. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
This book has inspired me to start writing. I had had a story in my mind for years and years and I never really felt like writing it until I read Throne of Glass. After dashing through the series in a few days, I had a huge book hangover and I could not find anything that would take the edge off. And then I remembered the story that had been in my brain for so long and I realized that my main character was close to Celaena’s badassness so I wrote myself 50,000 words of ToG hangover cure in a few weeks.
4. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
I’ve always been a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and I was really inspired by the books and the films and also the BBC show – basically every encounter I had with the character of Sherlock Holmes has inspired me to be aware of my surroundings, to pay attention, to observe. There have been times when I would do it obsessively, but even just in general, I have always worked to be a good observer and I owe that to Sherlock Holmes.
5. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
This book has made me want to visit Prague. I mean, I’ve always wanted to see as many places as I could and I’ve always thought Prague would be a great city to visit, but after reading this, I REALLY want to go.
6. The Schwarzschild Radius by Gustavo Florentin
It’s a bit weird, because this has literally nothing to do with the book, but I just really wanted to know what the Schwarzschild radius is, so this book was the reason I spent hours reading about black holes and spheres and radii.
7. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare
This series has made me want to brush up on my Latin. Because Jace could ‘speak’ it and I remembered that I really liked Latin in school. This series has also made me want to learn how to use throwing knives and start martial arts again. It’s pretty obvious why, I should think.
8. The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
I’ve had an itch for looking up things about World War II and just the general global political occurrences of the 20th century ever since I started reading this book.
9. Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
I’ve always loved ciphers and logic puzzles. Reading Bitterblue sort of rekindled that love and made me want to learn more about ciphers, become better at decrypting them and just generally improving my logical thinking skills.
10. Neanderthal Seeks Human by Patty Reid
It’ll probably sound ridiculous, but I’ve really wanted to know what makes stain-resistant carpets stain-resistant ever since reading this book. I was a little bit upset that the question was posed, but never answered in the book, so I had to look into it myself (something known as Triexta – a corn-derived polymer – is as far as I could tell the best stain-resistant carpet fiber out there).
A Book Nerd 