Tag: #WyrdAndWonder

#WyrdAndWonder is an SFF reading and blogging challenge through the month of May.

Categories
Best of List Memes

Eye of Newt: Fictional Food for Thought

A very intriguing prompt for this week’s Wyrd & Wonder: Eye of Newt! Magical ingredients, spell components or fantasy cooking… or any story tropes or character ingredients that make the perfect brew for the reader in us. This got me thinking of some of the interesting fictional cuisine items that I have come across in fantasy books!

Butterbeer | Harry Potter series

Lembas Bread | The Lord of the Rings

Wonka Chocolate Bars | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Queen of Hearts’ Tarts | Alice in Wonderland

Goblin Fruit | The Goblin Market

Death of Marat | Sunshine

Nobby’s Mum’s Distressed Pudding | Discworld series

Pop Biscuits | The Folk of the Faraway Tree

Groosling Soup | The Hunger Games

Just… some Honey | Winnie-the-Pooh

Any of these be your “eye of newt”? Did you recall any of these dishes? Did you ever try to give them some mundane world recipes? Did this post bring on some hunger pangs? Spill the beans! 😉

Categories
Best of List Memes

Predicted by the Stars (or what have you)

(Credits: Portal by Tithi Luadthong)
Hosts: A Dance With Books, The Book Nook, Jorie Loves A Story, Dear Geek Place, There’s Always Room For One More

Wyrd & Wonder has super interesting prompt(s) on the art of reading past, present and future by magical means. So, let me pick your brain on how to make some predictions. I could come up with 7 ways, none too dire, I hope!

Continue reading “Predicted by the Stars (or what have you)”
Categories
Best of List Memes Music & Poetry

Magic Mayhem Music

(Credits: Portal by Tithi Luadthong)

The wonderful Wyrd & Wonder reading/ blogging marathon is being hosted by Annemieke (A Dance With Books), Ariane (The Book Nook), Jorie (Jorie Loves A Story), Lisa (Dear Geek Place) and Imyril (There’s Always Room For One More).

This Sunday, the prompt is our favorite songs that we associate with the Magical. Some great food for thought – and obviously my chance to conjure up some music for magic and mayhem.

Scenario 1: You are a dark witch, brewing something strong

Yaima – Magician
Continue reading “Magic Mayhem Music”
Categories
Best of List Books Memes Starred Recommendations

Top 10 Underrated Books

This week’s Top 10 Tuesday has us looking at top 10 books that we recommend often to fellow bloggers and friends. Since May is also the month for Wyrd & Wonder, I’m going to stick to some underrated books from fantasy fiction that I do like to clobber people with.

Continue reading “Top 10 Underrated Books”
Categories
Best of List Books Memes Starred Recommendations

Wyrd & Wonder: Favorite Magical Systems

The wonderful Wyrd & Wonder has started off again, hosted by Annemieke (A Dance With Books), Ariane (The Book Nook), Jorie (Jorie Loves A Story), Lisa (Dear Geek Place) and Imyril (There’s Always Room For One More). Thanks so much to them for all the effort that goes into this!

(Credits: Portal by Tithi Luadthong)

This Sunday, the prompt is top 5 magical systems (or spells) that we have come across in books. Obviously, world-building plays a huge role, but my picks are based on certain really striking book scenes.

Continue reading “Wyrd & Wonder: Favorite Magical Systems”
Categories
Best of List Books Memes Starred Recommendations

The Woods Are Lovely, Dark & Deep #Wyrd&Wonder 2022

All of May 2022, the fantastic #Wyrd and Wonder 2022 meme is in play. Pick your very cool prompt, pick your matching SFF books. It’s all up to you whether you want to do the weekly posts, the book bingo, the readalong, or make a book tag of it all.

Wyrd and Wonder 2022
IMAGE CREDITS: tree wolf image by chic2view on 123RF.com

This year, the theme is all things forest and woodlands — and here’s a list of some of those forest setting books that I’ve found memorable. Here’s to Mother Nature, who is fascinating both on and outside of page!

Continue reading “The Woods Are Lovely, Dark & Deep #Wyrd&Wonder 2022”
Categories
Best of List Books Starred Recommendations

Five Star Reads in Five Words Each #WyrdAndWonder

(PEGASUS IMAGE CREDIT: Svetlana Alyuk on 123RF.com)

It’s time to wrap-up the wonderful Wyrd and Wonder challenge. The rule for this last prompt is to describe your five-star reads in five (or near five) words each. Well, I do keep a running list of all my favorite SFF reads HERE, but trying to describe them each in a phrase or less was a completely new exercise!

Continue reading “Five Star Reads in Five Words Each #WyrdAndWonder”
Categories
Books Starred Recommendations

The Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Bulfinch Encyclopedia of Mythology states that the twelve most illustrious knights of Emperor Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire were called Paladins. Lois McMaster Bujold took this term and applied it to the hero of her 2003 book, The Paladin of Souls, for which she got her fourth Hugo Award. 

Paladin of Souls is a fantasy work set in Chalion, a land where religious practice is split among the Five Gods: Father of Winter, Mother of Summer, Son of Autumn, Daughter of Spring, and the Bastard (God of Death). The Five Gods put a curse on Chalion a long time back, and people still suffer from the after-effects. The mythological world-building in this book is absolutely gripping.

Continue reading “The Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold”
Categories
Art & Illustration Best of List Books Memes Watchlist

Desert Island Reads #WyrdAndWonder

(PEGASUS IMAGE CREDIT: Svetlana Alyuk on 123RF.com)

For the Wyrd & Wonder challenge, throughout May 2021 we have a series of challenge prompts. I’ve managed to tackle most of these by now, and our favorite Desert Island Reads are next on the list. You choose 8 (audio)books, 1 piece of media, and 1 artifact.

As our hosts put it: “Imagine yourself cast away with nothing to do but read. Okay, so this doesn’t sound entirely awful – but choosing our limited island library is the real challenge. We’re not going to worry about solving the challenge of survival, just how to while away the days (weeks? months?) until we’re rescued.”

Continue reading “Desert Island Reads #WyrdAndWonder”
Categories
Books Starred Recommendations

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi is fantasy fiction but at its heart, it is a mystery. And what a mind-boggling, thought-provoking mystery it is.

A house with at least 7000 halls, giant statues, sea tides and migratory birds has only 2 inhabitants: Piranesi and The Other. Where have all the other humans gone? Does the House leave secret messages for Piranesi, even as he struggles to record all that he sees there? And why is The Other searching for secrets of immortality and other occultist knowledge?

Continue reading “Piranesi by Susanna Clarke”