Kindred by Octavia Butler Fiction — Historical / Fantasy Beacon Press, 2004 (25th Anniversary Edition) Paperback 287 pages From the back cover: Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white […]

The Magicians by Lev Grossman Fiction — Fantasy Plume, 2009 Kindle edition 428 pages From the publisher: Like everyone else, precocious high school senior Quentin Coldwater assumes that magic isn’t real, until he finds himself admitted to a very secretive and exclusive college of magic in upstate New York. There he indulges in the joys […]

Graceling by Kristin Cashore Young Adult Fiction — Fantasy Graphia, 2009 Paperback 480 pages From the back cover: “Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight–she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she […]

The Wise Man’s Fear (Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 2) by Patrick Rothfuss Fantasy DAW, 2011 Hardcover 993 pages In The Name of the Wind, the first book of the Kingkiller Chronicle, we met the hero of the story: Kvothe the Arcane, Kvothe the Kingkiller. We learned of his present persona, Kote, who owns and runs the […]

The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) by Patrick Rothfuss Fantasy DAW Trade; Reprint Edition, 2009 Paperback 672 pages Kote is the owner and innkeeper of the Waystone, located in the small, country village of Newarre. He and his helper, Bast, don’t get much business at the inn during the day and their […]

*Friday’s Five Books is a bi-weekly post on Between the Covers that highlights book recommendations from the reading community. Hi, I’m Alex, and I’m a bookaholic.  It started with just a few books read to me here and there when I was little, and has since spiraled into a full-blown addiction.  Suffice it to say […]

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman Fantasy — Urban Harper Perennial, 2003 Paperback 400 pages From the back cover: Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk.  His small act of kindness propels […]