Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! This is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where a new top ten list hits the web every week!

This week our topic is …

BOOKS I’VE READ BECAUSE OF RECOMMENDATIONS

I’m going to limit my choices to those books I’ve read due to recommendations from fellow bloggers or my Goodreads’ friends.  If I opened it up any further than that, this list would be way too difficult to narrow down to only ten, because I’ve read a large majority of books due to others telling me how great they were.

10. READY PLAYER ONE

Who didn’t recommend this novel to me a few years ago?  That would be a better question for me to ask myself.  Everyone was in love with Ernest Clines tribute to the 1980s and nerdom in general.  So I read it.  Finished it even.  All I can say is that I won’t be recommending this book to anyone I know or going to see the movie.  So this recommendation was an epic fail for me.

9. LEVIATHAN WAKES

This sci-fi space opera was recommended to me by lots of people.  I went into my read hoping (and expecting) to love it. Unfortunately, I was left a little perplexed by why everyone loved the series so much.  Yet another recommendation which did not work out at all.

8. THE BLADE ITSELF

Once I began reading grimdark, this author is the one I was told I had to read.  Lord Grimdark was the ABSOLUTE KING OF GRIMDARK!  Nothing else came close to comparing to his brilliant characters and genre defining themes.  When I didn’t really dig his Shattered Sea trilogy, everyone told me I had to read this book to understand all the love Abercrombie got.  Well, I read the book.  I still don’t understand.  Guess, it’s just me.

7. THE UNREMEMBERED

I just finished this novel, so it is fresh in my mind as I write this.  And the only reason I picked up Peter Orullian’s updated version of The Unremembered was a blogger I follow recommended it.  What made the recommendation more persuasive was the honest acknowledgement of the book’s flaws.  Once I was warned not to expect the next Game of Thrones, I was able to really see the cool parts of the narrative.

6. THEFT OF SWORDS

Upon my return to reading fantasy about four years ago, Michael J. Sullivan was a name I immediately began hearing.  Since my handful of friends knew I had always loved classic fantasy back in the day, they told me I had to give this author’s books a try, because they fit my previous tastes.  And I really enjoyed this book and several others penned by Mr. Sullivan.

5. THE VAGRANT

Great post-apocalyptic fantasy/sci-fi series here.  I mean, Peter Newman’s novel is exactly the kind of genre blending story that I love to read.  And I would not have ever picked it up if not for a handful of Goodreads friends and bloggers who kept raving all the time about how great this novel was.  You were right, guys.  You were right.

4. MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE

Like Joe Abercrombie and Michael J. Sullivan, Brandon Sanderson was an author whose name was whispered in my ear time and time again once I returned to the fantasy fold.  There were lots of places where I could have started my journey with Sanderson, but this was my choice.  And I have to admit really enjoying this book — though the ending was so good I can’t seem to find any desire to read the rest of the trilogy.

3. WHEN THE HEAVENS FALL

This was a book which completely slipped my notice when released.  If not for one of my blogger friends out there, I would never have given another thought to this novel, but he was dedicated and tenacious in promoting how awesome this book was, how amazing this series could be.  And since I had to know what was so great about it, I got my hands on the book and found myself on the ground floor of the new Malazan, because Marc Turner’s Chronicle of the Exile is shaping into just that sort of sprawling, interconnected, and kick ass series.  Yeah, you can consider that a recommendation!

2.  BEYOND REDEMPTION

I’m going to give credit for this recommendation to the same blogger who turned me on to When the Heavens Fall.  Yet again, I had totally missed this grimdark lovers delight when it was first released, then I read some posts about how amazingly creative and different Michael R. Fletcher’s book was, and now I am a huge fan of this author.  Great guy and fabulous writer.  Anyone who hasn’t read this book needs to give it a try now, because book two The Mirror’s Truth is going to be released in next few months.

1. PRINCE OF THORNS

No single person recommended this novel to me.  Rather many people talked about, wrote about it, expressed their opinions of it (both good and bad) on Goodreads and the blogosphere.  After having heard so much about Jorg Ancrath’s story, I had to read the damn thing for myself, and while I really disliked Jorg most of the time, I thought Mark LAwrence’s writing was superb and this book amazing.  So this is a recommendation that everyone who mentioned PoT online can share in, because without all your love and angst I would never have picked it up.