#ArmchairBEA Day Three: Giveaways & Literature

Design credit: Nina of Nina Reads

Welcome to Day 3 of Armchair BEA.  Today topic is Literature and there is also a giveaway below so please continue reading!

When I sat down to write about this topic, I very quickly realised I know very little about it!  So first off I googled the term Literary Fiction and according to Wikipedia, Literary Fiction " is a term principally used for certain fictional works that are claimed to hold literary merit." It goes on to say that to be considered literary fiction, works must be "critically acclaimed" or "serious".

This made me a little worried because as mentioned in yesterday's post on Blogger Development & Genre Fiction, these days I read for relaxation and escape so I don't often real serious books or hard subjects etc ( at least not lately) but I studied English in High School and briefly at University so I figure I must have read some at some point.

So my next port of call was to look up some examples of literary fiction with the view I could use this as a jumping off point for my post. My first stop, Goodreads top 100 literary Novels of all time.  This made me smile with relief as many of these books I have most definitely read before :-) As I scrolled through the list, I noticed many classics there and as I kept scrolling i realised that less and less of them I had read.  In total I had read 13 from the list of 100 titles (oops). 

To try and make myself feel better the next thing I looked at was the Goodreads Shelf Modern Literary Fiction thinking maybe I had fared better with that list...Nope! Bearing in mind I only looked at the first couple of pages, this time there was only 1 or 2 on the list I had read.

So concluding that when it comes to literary fiction, I really do have to admit to knowing nothing I figure the best I can do is feature a few books in one or both of these lists that I would like to read one day.  I will admit though most of these I have probably heard of because there has been a movie made of it though I haven't actually seen all of them:

1. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak


I was lucky enough to meet see Marcus Zusak and the Sydney Writers festival about 3 years ago.  Among other things, he spoke about this novel and I have been meaning to read it ever since. Set in germany during World War II, this book has been acclaimed all around the world so definitely is on my list of one day reads.






2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This came out as a movie in the last 12 months and both the movie and the book have been critically acclaimed plus I love tigers :-)  So this is on my one day read list.

3. Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Set in the 17th century, this book was made into a movie a number of years ago starring Scarlett Johannsen.  Heard many many good things about this book and plan to get round to reading it one day








4.  American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Author Neil Gaimann has been recommended to me by many many of my friends and this book in particular.  I have even looked at it at the library but never quite gotten round to borrowing it.  Amond the awards this book has won is the Bram stoker Award in 2001 and the Hugo Award for best Novel in 2002







5. The Fault in our Stars by John Green

Everyone I know that has read this novel has recommended it as a must read and this book is still topping lists of bestselling books.  However given the subject matter, I am not sure I am ready to read this just yet. I will read this one day...when I am ready.







So that is my top 5 Literary Fiction novels to read.  In the above widgets are pictures of other novels I have either read or plan to read one day.

Last but not least, the giveaway.  I thought about giving away a work of literary fiction, maybe one of my top 5 then decided to leave it to the winner to decide what they would like to read.  

So open to all entrants that Book Depository delivers to or can receive e-books from Amazon, the winner of this giveaway will win book/s to the value of $10.  Please note that if you choose to receive anything other than a kindle e-book from Amazon then shipping charges will be included as part of the $10.

Just cross your fingers and follow the instructions on the rafflecopter form below :-)

Good Luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway