Well I'm a little late with this post. What else is new. I was hoping to get it up here by the first of October, but then, you know, Life.
Sadly, I don't think I'm going to hit my goal of 100 books this year. My writing is top priority and that hasn't left me too much reading time of late. So I'm shooting for 75 books, which I should easily make. Anything over will feel like icing on the cake rather than falling short of my goal.
Sometimes we have to compromise.
A couple of these 3rd quarter books were for novel research purposes. Most notably Ship: The Epic Story of Maritime Adventure and Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution.
I also did a couple of re-reads to prepare for new book and movie releases. Those were To Kill a Mockingbird and The Hunger Games.
Here are the standouts of this quarter along with the full list at the bottom.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
This is easily and by far one of my favorite books of the year. I devoured this book, much like the Dragon is purported to do to young girls in Agnieszka's valley. Uprooted reads like a lost fairy tale, newly discovered centuries later. I don't even feel like I can do this book justice with my own words, so I'm just going to paste here the description from Naomi Novik's website:
"Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”
Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.
Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.
The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.
But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.
I cannot recommend this book enough and everyone I know who has read it absolutely loves it.
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
I put this one off for a long time. Mainly because I knew once I read it, that I would have to probably wait an eternity for Winds of Winter to be released. I mean, we already have waited for what seems like an eternity. I've been a fan of Martin's series since long before the HBO series blew us all away. If you've only ever watched the show, I recommend giving the series a serious go. There's so much that could never be included on television. So much history and events that make the story richer and more complex. This is one of my all-time favorite series.
The Assassin's Blade, Throne of Glass & Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas
These are the first two books of Sarah J Maas's Throne of Glass series, about Calaena Sardothien, a girl with a mysterious past, who is forced to compete for the position of the King's Assassin in order to save her life. Throne of Glass focuses on the competition while Crown of Midnight begins to explore Calaena's past. I love these books and I'm currently reading the third in the series, Heir of Fire.
So those were my favs. Here is the entire list:
52. Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
53. Uprooted - Naomi Novik
54. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (re-read)
55. Go Set A Watchman - Harper Lee
56. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
57. Ship: The Epic Story of Maritime Adventure
58. Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution
59. A Dance with Dragons - George R.R. Martin
60. A Demon in the Woods - Leigh Bardugo
61. The Assassin's Blade - Sarah J Maas
62. Throne of Glass - Sarah J Maas
63. Crown of Midnight - Sarah J Maas
64. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins (re-read)