Top Ten Tuesday: A Reading Wishlist

Top Ten Tuesday is weekly meme created by the lovely folks at The Broke and the Bookish. They created it because they're "particularly fond of lists" and since I also enjoy lists, I've decided to participate in this fun feature.

I found this week's prompt to be quite interesting: a reader's wish list. What do I want authors to write about? Is there a certain type of character I wish would pop up more often? Are there issues, locations, plot lines, and time periods that I want to see in books? I put my thinking cap on and came up with some things that I wish would appear in the books I read. Let me know if you've heard of any awesome titles in the categories I come up with that you think I might like. I read mostly adult but will happily check out YA and NA books too! What's something that you'd love to see in a book?

Tall girls
Background information: I'm 6' tall. Not only is this tall for a female, it's tall for a male (last I checked the average male height is 5'10"). I'm totally cool with it (except when I have to buy clothes, especially pants) but I find that society and books are not. I bet there are only a handful of books that I've read when the author has explicitly stated that the heroine is tall (and doesn't mean tall like 5'6"). It's especially bad in the romance genre because women are supposed to be all tiny and cute and protected by their big, strong man (who, by the way, is usually only about 6' tall). Argh. Sure, this is a totally personal preference but I would love to see more tall ladies in the world of literature.
I have to give a shout out to one of my favourite authors, Anna Garner (who also writes under the name Libby Mercer). She's a fellow tall girl and a couple of years ago wrote a fabulous post about how she makes the effort to write tall main characters. I think she may be my spirit animal.

Canada
I feel like I have to really explain this one. I know there are tons of fabulous Canadian authors who write books set in Canada. But there are also many Canadian authors who set their stories in the US or elsewhere. There aren't many non-Canadians who write books set in my country and I have no idea why. I also find that there are hardly any (traditionally published) women's fiction titles set in Canada. That's why I was thrilled to bits when I came across Winter Wonderland by Belinda Jones (review here), a chick lit novel that takes place at the Quebec winter carnival. Can I get a little more Canadian lovin' from the authors out there?

Stories about girls in their mid to late twenties who still don't have their shit together
I know there are books like this out there. I just think there should be more. I say this because I'm turning 27 this year and I feel like I'm no further along than I was when I finished university at 22. Usually when books feature characters who are 25-30 those characters have a job, a house, a man, and sometimes a dog or even a baby. I can hardly look after myself let alone a kid. *shudders* (though my rabbit is doing quite well, don't worry.) I just think there are more and more people who are my age who have yet to figure out the whole career thing and I don't think that's being illustrated in novels. Which leads me to...

New Adult books that aren't all sex and angst
New Adult has great potential and I absolutely love the idea of it. What I don't love is the current trend. It seems like New Adult has become synonymous with sex/angst/bad boys/messed up girls. There are some awesome books that fall into that category, don't get me wrong, but that's only one genre under the title New Adult. I'd like to see more chick lit themed NA and I'm sure others would love some paranormal/fantasy/dystopian type NA titles as well. Fingers crossed this starts to change and we see other genres emerging that focus on characters who are 18-25.

Sports
I haven't found enough novels that have a sport playing a key role or have athletes as the main characters. I've read two that stand out, The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou and Gold by Chris Cleave, and I absolutely adored them. I think there should be more like these. Both of those, funnily enough, feature characters who are trying to get to the Olympics (both summer games but different years). Let's play ball, authors!

Traveling
I know there are lots of books like this. I just want more. Simple as that :)
I'm not much of a traveler myself and I've recently discovered that I like to do some armchair exploring along with the characters who go on road trips, cruises, train rides, and so on. (This was thanks to Just One Day and Just One Year. I couldn't get over how much I enjoyed the travel aspects of the book.)

Librarian and author main characters
I cannot tell you the last book I read that featured a main character who was either a librarian or an author. I like books, I like those professions, and I'd like to read more about both.
Other jobs I'd like to read more books about: travel writers, journalists, and event planners.

Art history fiction
There are some out there, I know. The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan has been sitting on my shelf for far too long. But I like the idea of taking a painting, sculpture, artist and fictionalizing it a little bit. I really like art history and I like to see it woven into a novel.
Also acceptable: movie and television history novels.

Fairy tale retellings for adults
Do these exist? There seem to be a ton of YA novels that put a twist on fairy tales but I can't think of any that are written for adults (yes, I know adults can read YA).

Scotland
I've never been to Scotland but I will go someday. I'm a Stewart for crying out loud. I think I'd like to read more about characters who travel to Scotland who are not originally from there. I know these books exist so give me your recommendations!