Top Ten Tuesday

I love lists and I especially love Top Ten lists so I'm excited to do this Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Favourite Book Settings:

1. Blackstock College (Pamela Dean's Tam Lin) - Can I go to Blackstock please? I want to see the ghosts and hang out on the floor with Janet and Molly and even Christina. The gorgeous architecture, awesome classes, and oh yeah, the boys who once Shakespeare's actors. I don't care about the Queen of Faery! I just want to have long conversations with Nick & Robin.

2. Colby Beach (Along for the Ride, What Happened to Goodbye & Keeping the Moon - Sarah Dessen) - I love the beach, and Colby seems the epitome of perfection. Always sunny with great waves, the Tip where people hang out, the bike shop, Clementine's, and Last Chance. Sigh. Happiness.

3. Narnia (CS Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia) - Do I really have to explain why? I used to check all the cupboards for a secret door to Narnia when I was little. Of course I can't tell you if I found one or not. ;)

4. Benden Weyr (Anne McCaffery's Pern Books) - I don't want to be a drudge! Just had to get that out of the way first. But a queen rider with a golden dragon all of my own in a gorgeous mountain top weyr? Being able to go wherever one likes when one likes? Beyond that, the society of Pern with its Harpers and Holderfolk and even Dolphineers (if you count some of the later books) is such and interesting one! I want to explore the world.

5. Prince Edward Island (L.M. Montgomery's Anne & Emily books) - Gorgeous scenery, small towns where everyone is on the look out, the White Way, Lake of Shining Waters, and Green Gables itself. Plenty of scope for the imagination. I was lucky enough to go to PEI before I was in sixth grade (Thank you Grandma and Grandpa!) and it more than lived up to Montgomery's descriptions.

6. Paris (lots and lots but more recently Stephanie Perkins' Anna & the French Kiss and Jennifer Donnelly's Revolution) - Paris is the best of all worlds and worst of many. The light, the architecture, the bridges, the churches, the history, the food, the Louvre! All books could be set in Paris.

7. Regency England with magic! (Mary Robinette Kowal's Shades of Milk and Honey) - the setting of this book instantly captured my imagination. Nearly all aspects could be drawn from Jane Austen's writing except the magic and illusions. I want to learn how to bend the light and stitch it off with tiny stitches or fashion a slipknot to change the illusion from one thing to another! Such a good book and such an amazing idea.

8. Regency England with dragons! (Naomi Novik's Temeraire series) - My fondness for Regency England can't be overstated apparently. But this is a completely different setting than the above. The Napoleonic Wars fought aboard dragon-back. So totally cool and so interesting to explore.

9. Hogwarts (J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series as if you didn't know) - I don't care if I'm too old. I want to go to boarding school at Hogwarts, play Quidditch, find the secret passages, deal with the moving staircases and mocking paintings, eat Feasts in the Great Halls, and learn how to do Charms!

10. St Vladimir's Academy (Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series) - Yes, another boarding school. I can't help that I've an affection for them. I just don't want to be there when the Strigoi invade, okay? Before that would be good.