The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home Heather "Anish" Anderson, 2019 Premise: A memoir about losing and finding yourself on the trail. I think parts of this book will be with me for a while. A popular suggestion on lists of "books like Wild" or "memoirs about hiking" or "memoirs from outdoorswomen" (all lists that pique my interest), Thirst follows Heather Anderson (trail name Anish) on her attempt to set a record for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in the fastest known time.  The story of that hike is beautifully interwoven with scenes from her life that lead up to it and reflections on her experience. At times Anish seems impossibly strong, at others foolish. Average people don't feel driven to run ultramarathons and walk for days on end. Her account feels honest, searching, vital.  She mentions a few times that she was chronicling her journey online in real time at the time, and sometimes I wished for a few more of those in-the-moment snippets. The n

A Restless Truth (The Last Binding, Book 2) Freya Marske, 2022 Premise: Sequel to A Marvellous Light. Maud is sailing back home to Britain, escorting an elderly relation and her parrot across the ocean. Only she's not really a relation, and she's hoping Mrs. Navenby will help her brother and the small group allied with him to foil those who would find the pieces of the Last Contract and use them to steal power from all of Britain's magicians. Unfortunately, murderers and thieves are also on board the ship, and Maud's only hope of help might be a beautiful stranger. First off, I adored the first book in this series. This one I liked quite a bit, but didn't quite love. Were there more sex scenes in this one? It felt like it. They weren't bad scenes, but I like my adventure romances to be generally weighted slightly more toward the adventure. That's not to say I didn't enjoy Maud and Violet's whirlwind relationship. They are both complex characters with

City of Bones Martha Wells, 1995 Premise: Khat is just trying to make a living in a city where he is unwelcome when powerful people decide they need his skills judging and discovering ancient relics. Unlike the pricey fragments Khat and his partner usually deal in, could these relics actually hold real power? This is the first book this year in a project called: "Read the unread books that are actually on my physical bookshelf because they were cheap at some point." I haven't bought physical books regularly in years, but I bought a bunch when we first moved to this coast. I recently decided I want to invest in hard copies of things I really love... and I also want to clean any random detritus off the shelves to make room. So, I need to read the books I've never read. I actually started this last year, but I got almost 1/3 of the way through The Prince of Nothing and decided I hated it, so that book went straight in the donate/recycle box. This book will likely end up

Tooth and Claw Jo Walton, 2003 Premise: A dramedy of manners. But make it dragons. For both good and ill, this book is precisely what it says on the tin. It's an old-fashioned story of inheritance, marriage arrangements, minor gentry and the fates of their children, and a society where things are changing. Only all the people are dragons.  The fact that they are dragons both does and doesn't affect the plot. There might be other reasons that a person wouldn't feel that they could challenge their rich brother-in-law, it doesn't have to be that he might be big enough to eat you if provoked. But in this world it is.  The dark sides of the characters' draconic nature are there to highlight the classism and sexism of old stories in this style. Aristocratic landowners literally have the right to eat sick children, and eating other dragons literally increases their strength and power. How the rich get richer, so to speak.  Meanwhile, female dragons can be forced into a sta

Well, I did it. I didn't think it would take eleven years when I started, but I read all 71 books that have won the Hugo Award for Best Novel to date . I am not counting and did not seek out the handful of "Retro Hugos" because those were awarded much later and part of the point of this exercise for me was seeing what books were celebrated in their first publication year, not by later audiences looking back.  It's been a long time in my life as well as the world, and so I wonder if any of my experiences of the first few books on the list would be the same now. My tastes and opinions have shifted and (I think) matured, partially through this very experience!  A few of the earliest books I read in their entirety in the gorgeous Rose Reading Room in the NYC Public Library, as they were "rare" copies that couldn't leave the building. The most recent books were read on the Kindle App on my phone, in my home on the West Coast.  It was interesting to watch vari

A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2) Arkady Martine, 2021 Hugo Winner - 2022 Premise: Sequel to A Memory Called Empire. Mahit tries to go home, but there is no turning back the clock on everything she's seen and done. Meanwhile, Teixcalaan goes to war against an unknown (possibly unknowable) threat. I liked this book a lot, but not quite as much as the first one. The first book was almost entirely from Mahit's perspective, while this follows a large number of characters, switching off chapter to chapter. This makes a certain amount of sense given the structure of the climax and the themes around groups and perspective, but I didn't find the story as compelling that way.  I did like following Three Seagrass and getting both her and Mahit's complex perspectives on their relationship (as friends/co-conspirators/coworkers/lovers/??). The other viewpoint characters were each interesting people, but spitting the focus watered down the emotional impact a bit for me.  Mo