Tress of the Emerald Sea

 Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson, 443 pages.

The most unusual thing about Tress is how stunningly normal she is. But when the man she loves is kidnapped by an evil sorceress, and nobody else seems inclined to do anything, she decides that she will simply have to be the one to save him. She sails dangerous seas of spores, has pirate adventures, and will have to face both a dragon and sorceress to save her love, but someone has to do it. 

This delightful book was a reread for me (you can read my original review here), and I am happy to report that I like it at least as well on a second reading. The plot is a romp, and the characters are all delightful. However, beyond being a quite fun and funny book, there are a number of lines that resonated so deeply I had to stop and sit with them a while. I am also happy to report that the Orcs & Aliens book club overwhelmingly enjoyed it as well. A great book in general, and a good starting point for anyone interested in getting into Brandon Sanderson's books. 

Hum

Hum by Helen Phillips, 272 pages

This was my second time reading this thought-provoking science fiction meditation on AI, motherhood, invasive technology, and the socioeconomic woes of trying to balance all of those things when you've gotten fired from a job you inadvertently helped make obsolete. My thoughts from my first read haven't changed — this book is still amazing and an incredible example of how science fiction can make us consider the world around us. I can't wait to discuss this with the Orcs & Aliens on Monday!

Shades of Grey

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, 390 pages

Eddie Russett lives in purposefully antiquated caste-based world where your position depends solely on which color (yes, singular) you can see, with Purples riding high and mighty at the top. As a Red, Eddie is just a step above the drudge-working Greys, and when his innovations in queuing dare to challenge the infallible Rules, he is given a humility inducing task (chair census) and is sent to the rural East Carmine as punishment. However, once he arrives, Eddie's natural curiosity starts getting him noticed (and not necessarily in a good way) by the local prefects, as he finds more and more things that make him question the Rules.

This is a ridiculously difficult book to explain, and the paragraph above only captures a tiny sliver of the absurdity of this novel. Eddie's world is also full of references to deadly swan attacks and ball lightning, a distinct lack of spoons, and regular Leapbacks, which are governmental mandates to destroy anything too modern or technological. Like all of Fforde's books, this one is silly, smart, and too creative to be believed. It's also one of my favorites, and I was well overdue for a reread, especially since the long-awaited sequel came out last year and I have yet to read it. But guess what's up next!

Kiss Her Once for Me

 Kiss Her Once for Me by Allison Cochrun, 351 pages.

Ellie is broke, anxious, about to be evicted, and still secretly pining for the woman she had a magical day with last Christmas. Given these circumstances, it doesn't seem like the worst idea to go along with it when the handsome man who owns her job's building suggests they get fake married for a year to get around a nonsense clause on his inheritance. The 10% he promises Ellie would be enough to completely change her life, and she really needs to get out more anyway. The one catch is that she has to spend Christmas week in a house with his family. Then his sister turns out to be the girl from last year. And Christmas with his family is making her long for the kinds of things she never got from her own neglectful mother, and this arrangement is feeling more precarious by the day.

This is a reread (you can see my original review here), and I liked this delightful fake-dating rom-com at least as much a year later. I was even more struck the second time by how much I like the supporting cast. There is a very literal sort of found family at play here, and it makes for a very cozy Christmas read. This is in fact pretty much an ideal Christmas book for me I think, so I can see myself reading it again in the future.

The Fourth Bear

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, 378 pages

In the second (and sadly last) of Fforde's Nursery Crime books, Inspector Jack Spratt and his colleague Mary Mary are riding high off the success of their Humpty Dumpty murder investigation (detailed in The Big Over Easy) when a reporter who was investigating an exploded championship cucumber goes missing. Since that reporter is named Goldilocks and was last seen at the forest home of a bear family, the case falls squarely within the purview of the Nursery Crime Division, and Jack and Mary are on the case. Throw in a misguided theme park based on the Battle of the Somme, a powerful multinational company that has its fingers in EVERYTHING, Punch & Judy living next door, and a self-healing automobile, and you've got a classic Fforde story.

Like with The Big Over Easy, this is a gajillionth-time reread, and I still love it. I'd forgotten how meta this book gets — Mary and Jack make lots of references to plot devices and the author, all of which go over the heads of the other characters — but it makes perfect sense if you've read Fforde's Thursday Next series. This is just  smart, silly fun in book form, and it's perfect for breaks from The Tale of Genji.

Light from Uncommon Stars

 Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, 372 pages.

This is actually my second time reading this book. You can read my first review, which I stand by, here (and also Kara's original review here). This wonderful novel is just as good the second time, and I even began to get a little more definition on why I liked it the second time around.

The troubles in this book are categorically much larger than the joys. Deals for the soul, intergalactic war and civilization ending plague, even the much more grounded harassment and abuse. How could things like noodles, ducks, and a kind word from a stranger stack up? And yet they do. Not only do the joys manage to balance the terrible weights, in the end they are all that matters. And I think that, as one of the central tenets of the book, this is part of what I find so soothing and beautiful about it. This book definitely makes the list of ones to reread when I'm feeling down.  

P.S. Something about this book reminds me of Everything Everywhere All At Once, so if you liked that movie this book may be a good pick.

The Way of Kings

 The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, 1005 pages.

This book is truly epic fantasy (if the thousand pages wasn't enough of a hint). The first book follows (mostly) three story lines. It is difficult to describe the story lines because they are all tightly tied to the very elaborate world Sanderson creates, but most of them involve strange powers that haven't been seen in millennia, since the Knights Radiant betrayed humanity. 

This is actually a reread for me, but it had been more than five years since I read the book, and I caught so many more things the second time (I was highlighting up a storm on my ebook). I love these books because in a way they feel like a sort of ideal of high fantasy (multiple plot lines, alien landscapes, magic baked into everyday life) but it also feels very fresh and new. Part of that freshness is from how character driven it is. All of the characters are very three dimensional, and most are struggling under heavy loads. I wouldn't necessarily have expected one of the best depictions of depression I've ever read to come from a high fantasy novel. I hadn't been planning on rereading the whole series all in a row, but after finishing this one I couldn't help myself from starting in on book two. There are currently four books in the series, and the fifth book (which is supposed to be the end of this arc) is anticipated next year (hence the rereading for things I've forgotten). I strongly recommend this book for anyone who likes fantasy and has a bit of time on their hands!

Piranesi

 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, 245 pages.

I actually wrote about this book almost exactly a year ago, so feel free to read that review for a comparative look and the complete summary. 

Rereading this book was an entirely different experience from reading it the first time, probably in no small part because I actually knew what was going on for the first half of the book or so. I think, upon a reread, I've come down on the side of liking the book (although my complaints from my first review still stand). There are so many really interesting things going on with perspective, as a concept, that I caught on my second read that I think gave a lot of depth to my overall experience. I'm very excited to talk about this one with Orcs and Aliens tonight, less because it is a very good book than because it is a very interesting one, and I'm very curious to see what other people have to say about it.

Every Heart a Doorway

 Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, 173 pages.

Children have always found ways to disappear into magical worlds. Worlds where they can finally feel like they fit. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. So where do they go after the adventure ends? One option is Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. No Solicitations. No Visitors. No Quests. Eleanor tries to help the children move on from their adventures and live without the world they will probably never return to. 

This was my third time reading this book, and it's still one of my favorites! I reread it this time for a book club (unaffiliated with UCPL this time) and I think it's an even richer experience when shared. It's an astoundingly human look at portal fantasies with stunningly lovely prose. It's also less than 200 pages. If you haven't read this Hugo winning novella yet, why not?

P.S. If you don't believe me Kara, Patrick, and Josh have all also written about this book.

The Well of Lost Plots

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde, 375 pages

In this third Thursday Next book from Fforde (seriously, READ THE EYRE AFFAIR ALREADY) Thursday is waiting for her husband to be re-actualized and hiding out from vengeful criminals and shady corporations in the only place she can think of: the fictional world. Specifically, she's found an unfinished manuscript in the Well of Lost Plots, where all books are created, unbeknownst to their authors. As in Fforde's other novels, this one pulls together zany ideas and characters including a nursery rhyme character labor dispute, a mispeling vyrus that threatens to take out beloved characters, group anger management classes for the characters of Wuthering Heights, gradually-more-interesting generic characters as Thursday's lodgers, and a bit of ahead-of-its-time commentary on ebook rules for libraries (or at least that's how I read it). Gah, I love this series. It's so silly and fun and I get more jokes every time I read it.

Lost in a Good Book

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, 399 pages

**SPOILERS if you haven't read The Eyre Affair yet (which you REALLY should do, as it's been out for like 20 years and is one of the best books ever).**

Ahem.

OK, so Thursday Next saved Jane Eyre from the dastardly and diabolical Acheron Hades, but much to the chagrin of Eyre superfans and the fictional world alike, managed to change the ending in the process (though she made it better by many accounts). Lost in a Good Book finds Thursday dealing with the fallout, from a trial that takes place at the end of a chapter in a Kafka novel to having her husband eradicated from history as punishment for trapping a corporate goon in "The Raven." Oh, and she also has to deal with a growing number of murder-by-coincidence attempts on her life while she manages her newfound fame.

None of that probably makes any sense at all, but somehow, Fforde manages to take all these disparate parts and form them into a creative and fantastic sequel. Good lord, I love these books.

The Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, 374 pages

Thursday Next is a literary detective for SpecOps, the special branch of the police that handles those things that can't quite be handled by the regular police force. For the most part, she spends her time authenticating Milton and dealing with overzealous Baconites (the preferred term for those people who staunchly believe that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare's plays, and go door-to-door evangelizing this). But when an original Dickens manuscript is stolen, Thursday suspects that a certain ultimate-evil criminal is behind the theft and is put on the case.

I can't even count the number of times I've read this ridiculously clever and funny book. Filled with wordplay, pointed commentary about both classic literature and pop culture, and tons of creative oddness (A secret society dedicated to catching asteroids! Re-engineered extinct species as pets! Streetfighting gangs of surrealists and post-modernists! A new religion that worships the GSD, the Global Standard Deity!), I find something new to enjoy every time I read it. If you've spent more than 10 minutes discussing books with me any time in the last 15 years, I've probably recommended this book and its series at least twice. So I'll do it again: read this book. It's awesome.

Lamb

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, 444 pages

Those who are familiar with the Bible will generally admit that there's something of a gap in the gospels, leaving a large chunk of Christ's life unaccounted for. This hilarious novel takes a stab at filling that gap, as told through the eyes of Christ's foul-mouthed, womanizing, and generally unscrupulous best friend, Levi, who is called Biff. According to Biff (and Moore), at the age of 12, Josh (which is what Biff calls Christ) has no idea how he's supposed to be a messiah, so he and Biff seek out the three wise men who attended Josh's birth. If they knew that this kid was the messiah when he was born, perhaps they'd be able to tell him what to do now. What follows is a physical exploration of Asia — including the grand home of a magus, a Buddhist temple, and a poor village in India — and a theological trip through Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

This has long been one of my favorite books, but this time, I tried the audio version, read by actor Fisher Stevens. Stevens did a great job differentiating the voices and elevated the humor with his inflections. I highly recommend the book in either form, though be prepared for saltier language than you might expect in a "biography" of Jesus Christ.

The Sky Is Yours

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith, 457 pages

Take Manhattan, and throw in the following elements in equal parts:

• horrific prison mismanagement (think a walled-in neighborhood where all criminals, regardless of crime, are thrown together); 
• a disturbing fascination with reality TV and technology; 
• a hopelessly romantic teenage girl whose only purpose is to be married off to a rich husband;
• and a freaked out kid who grew up on a trash island.

Mix well and cook with intermittent fire provided by two ever-circling dragons flying above the city.

Makes: one cynical, funny science fiction novel. Devour at will.

I read this book for the first time last year, and blogged about it here. I feel much the same on this reread as I did then (still loved it, still tickled pink at the character names), so I won't say much more in this post. I'm curious to see what the Orcs & Aliens think of it tonight though.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, 759 pages

This book wraps up Harry Potter and Friends' epic fight against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Death Eaters. This was my eleventy-billionth time reading this book, but the first time my 7-year-old daughter had experienced it, so it was again a wonderful experience. Now the problem becomes: what can we read together that could possibly follow this?

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling, 652 pages

Well, my daughter and I are almost through our read-aloud of the Harry Potter series, having finished Half-Blood Prince. While this is, in my opinion, the darkest of the books — what with Voldemort rising, mysterious and nearly deadly accidents occurring at Hogwarts, Snape toeing the line of good and evil, and Harry's obsession with Malfoy — my daughter loved it. We're both excited to start on the final volume of this series, and sad that our journey is coming to an end. But we've both loved our time spent curled up on the couch with Harry in the books and Harry our cat snoozing nearby.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling, 870 pages

My daughter and I are up to Book 5 in our trip through Harry Potter's adventures. This book finds Harry experiencing the hormones, angst, and frustrations of being 16, combined with the return of Lord Voldemort, whose existence is vehemently denied by government leaders (much like climate change is an unnamed country across the pond from Harry's homeland, but that's a different story altogether). While this book has the most evil villain in all of the wizarding world, it's also my least favorite of the series, due to a side plot and character that I feel are wholly unecessary, as well as the idiotic voice I chose to employ for the aforementioned villain. (But saying it's my least favorite Harry Potter book is like naming a least favorite tropical vacation site: it's not as good as the rest, but I'm OBVIOUSLY still going to enjoy myself immensely.) Suffice it to say that my vocal chords and I are ready to start on Book 6.

The Invisible Library

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman, 341 pages

Irene is a Librarian for the Invisible Library, a huge collection of books that tie together and stabilize alternate worlds. Fresh off a harrowing mission, Irene is given a new apprentice, Kai, and tossed back into the field to retrieve a specific copy of a collection of fairy tales. Upon entering the new alternate world — a steampunky Victorian-era London, complete with annoyingly elaborate dresses and a Sherlockian detective — Irene realizes that this simple mission is a lot more dangerous than it seems, as is Kai. Soon she's solving the murder of a vampire and fending off fae, werewolves, and rogue Librarians.

I've read this book before, and it holds up on a second reading. This is such a fun adventure, in a world so fully realized and fun, with fantastic characters. Ah, I love this book (and the series it kicks off). I can't wait to hear what the Orcs & Aliens have to say about it in April!

Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, 173 pages

Possibly the goth-est girl at her old high school, Nancy has just arrived at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, a boarding school where she hopes to fit in a bit better — and where her parents hope she'll return to the bubbly, colorful girl she once was. Because Nancy's parents don't believe that she passed through a doorway to another world, an underworld where she served the Lord of the Dead. In fact, none of the parents who send their children to Eleanor believe that their kids traveled to another world, despite the fact that all of them did travel to an underworld, or a fairyland, or a land filled with vampires and mad scientists.

In this first book in her Wayward Children series, McGuire introduces her readers to a wealth of complex characters and their diverse worlds, despite never leaving school grounds. It provides a great starting point for this series, which is one of my favorites. I can't wait to talk to the Orcs & Aliens about this one on Monday night!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling, 734 pages

Harry's in his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and through an odd fluke, he ends up as the fourth champion in the Triwizard Tournament, despite the fact that he's three years too young and, as the name implies, there are only supposed to be THREE champions. As expected, he's flung into a series of dangerous magical adventures that he must use his (or Hermoine's) wits, bravery, and skills to fight through. This is my millionth (approximately) time through this book, but it was my daughter's first time, and she loved it. As soon as we closed this one, she ran off to grab the fifth book. These books just do not get old.