FF: Cookies and a Good Book

Which One First?

Merry Christmas to you all. I hope to spend part of today curled up with a good book, cookies, and a cup of coffee. For your amusement, at the end of this, I offer “Find the Roary.”

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines. The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

The Wood Wife by Terri Windling. A lovely book of mythic fantasy that is also a tale about the cost of inspiration. Despite being firmly rooted in a specific time period and a specific setting, it does not seem in the least dated.

The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan. Audiobook. Apollo and Meg return to Manhattan where their journeys began. Possibly the oddest thing about this book is the repeated mentions that only six months have gone by since the first in this series. These kids should have seriously PTSD with what they’ve been through. And, perhaps they do. I enjoyed, and there were hints as to what the next series may be about.

Tales of Ancient Persia retold by Barbara Leonie Picard. Good translation. I was familiar with many of the tales of Rustem, but I had never read the larger context in which they developed.

In Progress:

Armenian Folk-tales and Fables retold by Charles Downing. I enjoyed the translator’s note at the beginning. I’ve just started the story.

Wild Magic: Immortals Book One by Tamora Pierce. Audiobook. I’ve read this series, but I don’t think I’ve ever listened to the full cast audio production.

Also:

And here’s Roary! If you can find him…