In my teens, I compiled a personal “100 books to read before you die” list and decided I would read them within a year. Not sure why I thought that was necessary. While I didn’t die by the end of the year, my joy in reading did.

One of the better things that came out of that 100 books list experience was that I briefly “reviewed” each one with just few of my initial impressions. I decided to do quarterly wrap-ups with similarly brief reviews of each book to better catalogue and share what I read on my blog.

And, yes, quarter one is very late.

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January

Reckless (re-released as The Petrified Flesh) & Fearless (re-released as Living Shadows) by Cornelia Funke

In December, I had the fortune of finding a second-hand hardcover edition of Cornelia Funke’s second Mirrorworld novel (the series has since been renamed Reckless) with the original title: Fearless. I have the first book in its original edition, as Reckless, so getting the second one in the matching format was a Christmas miracle. Of course, then I had to re-read the series.

I have actually reviewed the second book here, which I first read in the new edition, as Living Shadows. A line from that covers the first book well too:

This is portal fantasy and fractured fairy tales and an original fantasy world and parallel universes and alternate history all rolled into one. This is the more regal, matured distant cousin of Inkworld: Mirrorworld.

Fictitiously Yours, Gail

Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

A call to experience life for oneself. Sometimes, things cannot be learned second-hand. True knowledge of oneself includes knowledge of many experiences and modes of life.

I read this one for PewDiePie’s 2025 book club but didn’t finish it until January. (More about that in an upcoming post.)

Inkworld: The Color of Revenge, Cornelia Funke

The Color of Revenge returns to the Inkworld and focuses on Orpheus’ attempts to pay Dustfinger back using a new kind of magic: the ink of illuminations. With the extensive cast of original characters from the Inkworld trilogy disappearing one-by-one into illustrations made with enchanted ink, it’s up to Dustfinger to save them.

Even as a Dustfinger fan, I wasn’t in the frame of mind to enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. Although some of the newer elements like the witches and shapeshifters do expand the world nicely and continue the crossover with the Mirrorworld.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friederich Nietszche

The sage in the wilderness gains many insights but isn’t often appreciated in society. I sympathize with society in this case.

Another read for PewDiePie’s book club, which I also didn’t finish in time.

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February

The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami

I’ve never read Murakami but Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is on my list to read. Our library didn’t have it, so I checked this one out: speculative fiction about a library of dreams.

The climax happens at about 1/3 of the way through, then the book goes on and nothing much else happens. It is also written partially in the second person, which is not a complaint in and of itself. However, the style might have eclipsed the substance for me.

It took me reading the afterword to make sense of it–it is a rewriting/reimagining of a story that was also once rewritten/reimagined as (what do you know?) Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It also originally stopped after the first part, which is about where I felt like the actual story ended while reading it.

Overall, it wasn’t a promising first book to read by Murakami. I should probably read Norwegian Wood or Kafka on the Shore and leave this story and its uncertain iterations behind for a while.

The Golden Yarn, Cornelia Funke

Book 3 of the Reckless (formerly Mirrorworld) series. More lands and lore. A father is found and lost. A love is cursed before it begins.

A Tide of Galaxies, Becca Mionis

The conclusion of the Atlantis Chronicles which I have followed from the start.

Characters go through the wringer in this one: family expectations and abuses, medical trauma and body alteration, ghost ships and empty worlds, earth landings and space battles. …

This is the maturation of a well-cultivated trilogy.

See full review here.

The King of Attolia & A Conspiracy of Kings, Megan Whalen Turner

Part of my re-reading kick. I already re-read the first two books of the Queen’s Thief series, The Thief in August of 2023 and The Queen of Attolia in August of 2024, but let myself get derailed. (Yes, I was derailed for a year and a half–it’s called an MFA.)

So I jumped back in here with book 3, The King of Attolia. It is narrated by Attolia’s guardsman, Costis, who finds himself in an impossible situation as personal body-guard, go-and-fetch-man, and punching bag for the new King of Attolia, Eugenides or Gen.

The fourth book, A Conspiracy of Kings, is Sophos’ story, as he relates it to Eddis. He turns to Eugenides, King of Attolia, to reclaim his country and finds it may be just as critical to find a way to reclaim his friend, Gen.

(Can I just say I love Sophos?)

Lord Peter Views the Body, Dorothy L. Sayers

A collection of short stories with some cute conceits, including nearly an entire story in which we follow Lord Peter but the narrator never identifies him by name (he’s undercover). That was one of the less successful stories for me, but there are plenty of fun and clever plots throughout the rest, including a vengeful painting subject and a puzzle story hunting down an eccentric relative’s hidden inheritance.

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March

Thick As Thieves & The Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner

The fifth book in the Queen’s Thief series, Thick as Thieves has another far-flung narrator this time, Kamet from the Mede Empire. I admit this is my least favourite book of the series, though on re-read I came to enjoy the humour in Kamet’s anxious and persnickety narration.

The Return of the Thief is the conclusion to the series, told by a nearly invisible observer in the king’s court as the Mede Empire brings outright war against the Little Peninsula and its Annux, Eugenides. I have reviewed The Return of the Thief fully here.

The Obstacle Is the Way, Ryan Holiday

A nice overview of ideas of the stoics and thinkers in that vein. Some moments are a bit repetitive or preachy, but it is a prescriptive non-fiction book, so what can you do.

Timely for me after my foray into philosophy and Adlerian psychology. Overall, worth a read for a bit of reality-based motivation and inspiration.

Underdogs, Markus Zusak

I concluded my re-reading spate with yet another young adult series, which I have in an omnibus edition as Underdogs. This, however, is not in the fantasy genre, unless you count fourteen-year-old boys getting into a fight club a fantasy.

I forgot how achingly poetic the grit and grime of Cameron Wolfe’s life is. This is a criminally underrated trilogy by the great author of The Book Thief.

The Business of Being a Writer, Jane Friedman

A required text for my MFA, this is another prescriptive non-fiction read. Overall, the readability is good, though if you aren’t already invested in the topic, the writing won’t do much to get you there.

This book is comprehensive, giving ideas about developments in the writing world and how writers might still be able to make a living at it. I’ll have to let you know how that goes.

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That’s my 2026 first quarter wrap-up! I read 16 books (18 if you count Underdogs as three separate books): 11 (or 13) are part of a series, 8 (or 10) are re-reads, 2 are non-fiction.