Peat

Three was revisiting CS Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for the first time in a very long time. Surprisingly pleasurable - really hits some fun mythic and family notes.

Somehow I'm only reading the full text of On Fairy Stories for the first time. If there's any other essays by great figures of fantasy people think are fantastic reading, throw them at me. I feel that Le Guin in particularly has a bunch of great ones but I don't know which ones are which.

Sorry to hear it's going that way.

What's the book at least?

I was the opposite way and surprised at how much I did enjoy it the last I read it and I genuinely have no idea why. I even paid full attention to Frodo in Ithilien which I never normally do.

Now, The Farthest Shore, that was a big old "wait why do I now find this really tedious"

If there is a better live intro to a metal song than

"The good that men do is oft interred with their bones, but the evil that men do lives on"

Then I am unaware of it. Granted, stealing from Shakespeare makes it easy, but hyped I get anyway

Two was a reread of Saad Z Hossain's The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, one of my favourite novellas - wickedly funny, wickedly imaginative, and very thoughtful

Since I've some updates from other people doing this, here be the Peat reading thread with everything I devour this year.

Cos I don't want to miss out.

Numero Uno this year was Jim Butcher's Turn Coat, which was where I felt the Dresden Files creaking a bit around all the stuff it had accumulated.

Jonathan Wallis: Jonathan Wallis: A three-dimensional image of a book cover against a green wall and on a wooden table. The book is a scene of a ship stick with the title the curse of Dragon tail Island. There is a captain in a white cotton shirt and try corn hat, holding a couple next to him is a large half or with green skin holding rum barrels. There is also a dwarf and a major who holds a magic staff. The backdrop is a blue sky and clouds with ropes and pulleys.

🦜🏴‍☠️⚓WEIGH ANCHOR: PUBLICATION DAY!⚓🏴‍☠️🦜

Excited to announce my latest book: THE CURSE OF DRAGON TAIL ISLAND. My first fantasy (and romance 🌶️🌶️)!

A revenge-fueled tale of clashing cutlasses, monsters & magic, second-chance romance, and salty sea adventure.

LINK: www.jonathannevair.com/curse-dragon...

The Man Who Stopped the Sultan Read courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. It’s out at the end of January, 2026. This book is pretty great. For a reader even vaguely interested in the Europe and Ottoman Empires of the 14…

A biography of an intriguing military engineer at the crossroads of medieval/early modern warfare AND a look at the interaction between European powers with the Ottoman Empire under Suleiman...

randomalex.net/2026/01/21/t...

Idle Thoughts on Fantasy Archetypes: The Knight It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but since I’m editing a book about a knight right now, it’s been on my mind. Funnily enough, one of the ways it’s been o…

In which I tried to investigate what I thought was a fantasy archetype and now wonder if it actually is one

peatlong.wordpress.com/2026/01/13/i...

I need this because I'm I'm gearing up to retry the book after lowkey hating it the first time I read it.

Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Reading “The Last Unicorn” by Peter S. Beagle The first essay in Ballantine Adult Fantasy: A Reading Series, which looks at Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn (1968): a supremely beautiful, memorable, and critically energizing masterwork of fa…

Today is the first anniversary of my launching the Ballantine Adult Fantasy reading series, which started off with this essay on Peter Beagle's THE LAST UNICORN. I'm really proud of this one, in which I highlight how we might read this wonderful novel in the contexts of late 1960s America.

My new hobby is writing lengthy posts on sports forums then deleting them when I realise it'll get me sucked into an argument that will change absolutely nothing about anything.

Dang that really sucks.

A mug of tea casting a curved shadow on paper, with a drawing of a seated child reading a book positioned on the paper to make it look like the child is sitting on the shadow, leaning against the handle of the mug. Art by Debbie Ridpath Ohi.

How do YOU discover books to read? Have your reading habits changed in past year? Pls take a few minutes to answer this anon, multiple-choice informal survey:

reading-2026.paperform.co

I'll post results on my blog. One goal: to help book creators. Thank you! 🩷📚
#BookSky #EduSky #KidLit

wildsymposiums.tumblr.com/post/8053590...

Relevant to all my fellow Discord users. Although honestly if all my Discord communities want to leave there, that'd be cool too at this point.

Top 10 Books Read in 2025 New year, new list. The first thing I have to say is that 2025 was a bad reading year for me. I found books I liked, but nothing I really, really loved. I also had a number of massive disappointmen…

Here's my top books read last year

peatlong.wordpress.com/2026/01/02/t...

One of the sweetest things anyone has ever said about me.

Anti-Peat's Favorite Albums of 2025 - The Goat Review The Goat Review presents an annual special: Anti-Peat's Favorite Albums of 2025. Find out what music our melodeath two-face can't leave behind while he chucks 2025 into the garbage fire where it belon...

My top albums from 2025

goatreview.org/anti-peats-f...

another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls

The Great When by Alan Moore In a way, I only discovered that Alan Moore was writing urban fantasy set in London by mistake. I was going through his Goodreads author page trying to discover some other work that I was sure exis…

In which I take a trip through Alan Moore's dingy fantastical London

peatlong.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/t...

This is why mine are in a spreadsheet.

Yeah, fair. Jimenez reminds me of some of the weirdo authors playing around with myth and alt history in that period more than the 80s/90s commercial stuff.

I need to give West a second try. I liked the bit of the book I tried, just got distracted.

I'd put She Who Became The Sun and The Spear Cuts Through Water in a similar category for length and well writteness. Latter even has some of the atmosphere.

But yeah, sadly rare.

I'm guessing your cat went with the Rorschach answer?

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delany I read The Einstein Intersection due to a fortuitious intersection of book friends talking. On one Discord, someone mentioned the book and it’s 60s pop-culture restylings of Orpheus, which re…

Samuel R Delany's The Einstein Intersection fires off a bottomless well of ideas at warp speed, for better and for worse

peatlong.wordpress.com/2025/12/22/t...

Today, the best parenting help books that should exist in SFF

You Only Need One Hand: What Your Kid Does And Doesn't Need by Darth Vader

A Hero And A Zero: Raising Children of Differing Capabilities by Denethor of Gondor

Staying Close: Tight Families Make The Right Children by Cersei Lannister

Book Review: In the Name of Honor (Vows and Valor Book 1) by Courtney Collins and Clarke Collins What would you risk to save someone you loved from a fate worse than death?A half-elven princess, grieving the loss of one father and fearing for the other.A loyal guardsman, torn between his oath …

I read In the Name of Honor by Courtney Collins and Clarke Collins.

If you're a fan of epic fantasy, this might be the book for you. Full review ⬇️

#bookblogger #ShadowSparkPublishing #epicfantasybooks

Die Hard and Muppets Christmas Carol reign supreme here

Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson As an aficionado of the archives, I’d been hearing of Jennifer Roberson’s Sword-Dancer on and off for some time. It’s one of those 80s books that never ruled the world but gained …

Jennifer Roberson's Sword-Dancer is a solid slice of 80s sword & sorcery with some fascinating gender dynamics

Also a bit of a kissing book

peatlong.wordpress.com/2025/11/13/s...