12 Books with an Occupation in the Title

Top Ten Tuesday is currently hosted by Artsy Reader Girl and has weekly topics for bloggers to respond to and share a love of all things books! I love thinking up my responses and the weekly blog hop to see what everyone else wrote!

This week’s prompt is for books with an occupation in the title. I had a look through the books that I own physically or digitally with a few occupation keywords, and this is what I found! Only 40% of them are Royalty, and 16% assassins… I think that’s good going.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

Jason Taverner woke up one morning to find himself completely unknown. The night before he had been the top-rated television star with millions of devoted watchers. The next day he was just an unidentified walking object, whose face nobody recognised, of whom no one had heard, and without the I.D. papers required in that near future.

When he finally found a man who would agree to counterfeiting such cards for him, that man turned out to be a police informer. And then Taverner found out not only what it was like to be a nobody but also to be hunted by the whole apparatus of society.
It was obvious that in some way Taverner had become the pea in in some sort of cosmic shell game—but how? And why?

This is the only book on this list I haven’t read, but I want to! It is one of PKD’s later novels.

The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick

In this sardonically funny gem of speculative fiction, Philip K. Dick creates a novel that manages to be simultaneously unpredictable and perversely logical.

Poor Pete Garden has just lost Berkeley. He’s also lost his wife, but he’ll get a new one as soon as he rolls a three. It’s all part of the rules of Bluff, the game that’s become a blinding obsession for the last inhabitants of the planet Earth. But the rules are about to change–drastically and terminally–because Pete Garden will be playing his next game against an opponent who isn’t even human, for stakes that are a lot higher than Berkeley.

I read this many years ago. I picked it at random from the collection I have on my Kindle, and I think it’s a bit of an obscure one! I remember enjoying it.

Rex Libris – I, Librarian Vol 1 by James Turner

The astonishing story of the incomparable Rex Libris, Head Librarian at Middleton Public Library, and his unending struggle against the forces of ignorance and darkness. Rex travels to the farthest reaches of the galaxy in search of overdue books. Wearing his super thick bottle glasses, and armed with an arsenal of high technology weapons, he strikes fear into recalcitrant borrowers, and can take on virtually any foe from zombies to renegade literary characters. In this first collection of Librarian adventures, Rex must confront the powerful Space Warlord Vaglox and retrieve the overdue Principia Mathematica while an energy manifestation of blood thirsty Vandals attempt to burn down Middleton Library, and all within, to the ground.

I haven’t thought about this for years until I was reorganising our home library last week. It’s a cute little comic book!

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

It opens with these simple, resonant words: “Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge.” They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura’s death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura’s story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

It took a (traumatic) holiday to finally get me to read this beast, but I loved it when I finally did.

Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb

In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma.

Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals – the old art known as the Wit – gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.

I think “assassin” and “apprentice” both count for this one! I know a lot of people love Robin Hobb, but I found this quite boring and was bitterly disappointed by the distinct lack of any actual assassinations!! The whole book was like a training montage leading to a huge anticlimax.

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless – mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted fans of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

I know I read it, I really don’t remember anything about it!

Rat Queens Vol 1 Sass Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe

Who are the Rat Queens?

They’re a pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hire and they’re in the business of killing all the god’s creatures for profit. Meet Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Smidgen Thief.

This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent, monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack!

Reading my 2017 Goodreads review for this, I found it fun, but I didn’t like the drug use (I did not specify, but from the tone of this, it’s probably weed).

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved–plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Before her passing, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon was indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time–and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars.

She’s a Princess and Diarist, so I think that counts twice. I have this on audio and really enjoyed it. Carrie had a great voice, and it was interesting to get her perspective on filming Star Wars before it became a huge hit!

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

It was on her nineteenth birthday that the soldiers came for Kelsea Glynn.

They came to escort her back to the place of her birth – and to ensure she survives long enough to take poasessions of what is rightfully hers.

.But like many nineteen-yeras olds, Kelsea is unruly, has high principles and believes she knows better than her elders.

Unlike most nineteen-years-olda, she is about to inherit a kingdom that is on its knees – corrupt, debauched and very dangerous.

Kelsea will either become the most fearsome ruler the kingdom has ever known… or be dead within the week.

I don’t remember much about this other than it was marketed to the Young Adult market when it’s definitely an Adult book. However, I really raved about how much I enjoyed it on Goodreads!

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

Brother turns on brother. The throne of England is at stake. The deadly Wars of the Roses have begun…

Elizabeth Woodville, a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition, secretly marries the newly crowned boy king. While she rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her two sons become the central figures in a famous unsolved mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the lost princes in the Tower of London.

They ruled England before the Tudors, and now internationally bestselling author Philippa Gregory brings the Plantagenets to life through the dramatic and intimate stories of the secret players: the indomitable women.

I do remember this being really boring, and I didn’t finish it!

Then some non-fiction

Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England’s Kings and Queens by David Mitchell

In UNRULY, David Mitchell explores how England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky sods who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.

Taking us right back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn’t exist), David tells the founding story of post-Roman England right up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies). It’s a tale of narcissists, inadequate self-control, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and at least one total Cnut, as the population evolved from having their crops nicked by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed king.

How this happened, who it happened to and why it matters in modern Britain are all questions David answers with brilliance, wit and the full erudition of a man who once studied history – and won’t let it off the hook for the mess it’s made.

I read this last year and loved it; my husband is currently working his way through it, so I’m getting snippets of a re-listen. It’s brilliant and actually about people having the occupation of King (or Queen, there are a couple..).

Casanova Was a Librarian: A Light-Hearted Look at the Profession by Kathleen Low

What do Casanova, Pope Pius XI, Benjamin Franklin and first lady Laura Bush have in common? At one time, all were members of the librarian profession. While librarians are often stereotyped as quiet, shy ladies who wear their gray hair in a dignified bun, that doesn’t reflect the variety and diversity of today’s library professionals. As of 2004, 159,000 people in the United States held the job of librarian. Although only 18 percent of that number was male, the median age for librarians was a young 47–far from the gray-haired, bun-wearing ladies of our imaginations! From pick-up lines to bumper stickers, this volume takes a light-hearted look at the many facets of the librarian occupation. Beginning with statistics, it enumerates gender divisions, personality types, salaries and educational requirements for various types of librarians including public, academic, school and special librarians. Other topics include specific occupational health risks, job-related recreation and novelty gifts for library professionals. Instances of librarians found in prose, poetry, film and musicals are also discussed.

I’ve had this book for about a decade, I believe it was a jokey Christmas gift from an ex that I never got around to reading. I’m I’m not a Librarian any more and also this is very US-Centric, so I think I’ll be donating it!