TTT: Books with Colors in the Title

By Eliot, on August 4th, 2020

It’s Tuesday. Time for another Top Ten.

Instead of doing a Google search for “Books with Colors in the Title” (this week’s Top Ten Tuesday challenge), I decided to mosey through my book shelves and see what colorful tomes I could find.

Quite a Year for Plums (Bailey White). Plum is a color, no? Hilarious but sentimental (in a good way) and sometimes even sad, White’s distinct voice come through again. (But, there’s nothing like hearing her true story-telling voice on NPR or from an audio book.) This is the second time White’s made an appearance at my TTT lists.
Save Me the Plums (Ruth Reichl). Another “plum” book. Reichl has been in three out of four of my TTT posts. And, she appears in this list twice. This book describes the last days of Gourmet.
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (Ruth Reichl). You’re getting a two-fer today of Reichl. Reichl traces her journey (pre-Gourmet) from the LA Times restaurant critic desk to the New York Times. Because she was afraid she would be given preferential treatment if she dined as herself, she created elaborate disguises to hide her identity.
Under the Lilacs (Louisa Mae Alcott). I have many, many books salvaged and pilfered from my grandmother’s attic. I believe this is one of them. I have not read Under the Lilacs, but it is a children’s novel. (I had no idea until I Googled this. I am now intrigued to read it.)
Four Blondes (Candance Bushnell). Wow, that’s quite the jump isn’t it? From a children’s novel to the Sex and the City author. 🙂
Standing in the Rainbow (Fannie Flagg). I read this long ago. I do like Flagg’s story-telling style. Set in 1946 in a small town in Missouri, Flagg’s characters are quirky and eccentric but real. (I might be stretching it a bit, but I’m counting “rainbow” as a color.)
White Oleander (Janet Fitch). Another jump here. From Flagg’s idyllic small town life to a tale of murder and growing up the hard way in the foster care system. Again, I read this a long time ago but I still remember some of the poetic descriptions and use of language.
Portrait in Sepia (Isabel Allende). Allenda was on my TTT “Authors I’ve Read the Most” list. This continues a family saga started in Daughter of Fortune but can absolutely be read on its own. It follows Aurora through a childhood of broken promises to her adulthood as a photographer in San Francisco. There’s a bit of mystery involved in the tale as well.
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck). Is it a fruit or a color? I’m sticking with color today. This is another old volume from my grandmother’s attic.
When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple (Ed. Sandra Martz). This is an anthology of poetry that we gave to my other grandma for a birthday present. When she passed, the book was given to me. I actually remember reciting the title poem at a first grade assembly. Why I was assigned to memorize a poem about an old lady as a six-year-old, I will never know. What was Mrs. Travers thinking? 🙂

Check out Top Ten Tuesdays. I’ve kind of become obsessed with making these lists. Next Tuesday’s theme is “Books I Loved but Never Reviewed.” I review everything on GoodReads so this will take some thought.

Aside: I just scrolled through my TLC Book Tour and the old Blogging for Books posts for others. Unfortunately, most of these books have either been given away or lent out and were no longer on my shelves.