Top Ten Tuesday Rewind

It's Tuesday, which means it's time for Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week is their Top Ten Tuesday Rewind, which means that I get to go back into the TTT archives and pick a prompt I hadn't done before or that I wanted to do again. Since I missed A LOT of TTT prompts, I'm choosing to do one that I missed out on doing before I returned to blogging.

This week's prompt: Top Ten Books I'd Give a Theme Song To

1) Looking for Alaska by John Green/"Holland 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel: It's kind of interesting that I would choose this as the theme song for this book considering that it was featured in another John Green novel, Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I just think that it fits well with the themes of Looking for Alaska and the characters in the book.

2) Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon/"Worst Day Since Yesterday" by Flogging Molly: I swear I'm actually going to finish my review of this book (it's been sitting in draft form since last October), because I know there were several people looking forward to reading it. The disastrous events of the weekend that this book covers fit really well with this song of regret and sadness.

3) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak/"Paris Is Burning" by St. Vincent: Okay, so The Book Thief doesn't take place in Paris. But it does take place in World War II and I think that this song is hauntingly beautiful, just like Zusak's novel.

4) Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk/"Fast Fuse" by Kasabian: This song's fast pace and lyrics about destruction and chaos are a perfect match for a fast-paced book about destruction and chaos.

5) The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman/"Danse Macabre" by Saint-Saens: This is one of my favorite pieces of classical music, both to listen to and to play. Its spooky atmosphere lends itself well to Gaiman's book, especially the scene where the townspeople dance the Macabray with the inhabitants of the graveyard.

6) Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger/"Prisoner of Society" by The Living End: While the story of Catcher in the Rye takes place in the era of jazz, The Living End's "Prisoner of Society" is perfect for Holden's bratty "don't tell me what to do" attitude.

7) 50 Shades of Grey by E. L. James/"Master and Servant" by Nouvelle Vague: I've only read about five chapters of this book (I finished Catcher in the Rye about an hour and a half before I finished my shift at the bookstore, so I decided I'd start reading one of our copies just to see what all the hype was about), but I know enough about it to know that this song would be a great theme song for it. I first heard it in Secretary, one of my favorite movies ever, and it just screams sexy to me.

8) Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett/"It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by REM: I'd say this one's pretty self-explanatory (and kind of cliche).

9) Love at Absolute Zero by Christopher Meeks/"Lovefool" by The Cardigans: Gunnar Gunderson is pretty much the definition of "lovefool." Plus the quirky atmosphere of this song reminds of the book's own delicious quirkiness.

10) Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris/"The French Song" by Jesse Matheson: It's probably a little weird to give a theme song to a book of essays, but part deux of this book reminds me so much of this song (for which there isn't a good video out there and that makes me sad). After Matheson sings a bunch of stuff in French that doesn't make any sense, you find out in the chorus that: "I'm trying my best/I want to impress/And so I'm saying every single French word I know." Basically it's a song about a guy wanting to get laid and thinking that saying things like "computer" and "banana" in French are going to win this girl's heart. It just reminded me of Sedaris' hilarious story about trying to explain Easter in French and failing miserably.

Phew. That was actually a lot harder to do than I thought.

-Gabe