"I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books." So says our protagonist, a 15-year-old girl who has just fled from her mother, reunited with her father, and been shipped off to boarding school. Mori is awkward and lonely, but confident in who she is, a mixture that is undeniably appealing. Her crippled leg (a souvenir from a car accident or a magic battle or perhaps both) gets her out of the physical part of her lessons, leaving her hours of uninterrupted reading time in the school's library. Mori is a devout fan of SF, and her diary reads as a love letter to the classic books in the genre, shaping her just as surely as the circumstances around her. Mori sees beyond the surface of things, an ability that makes her a critical reader, a keen observer of people, and able to see fairies. The magic in this book is unlike anything I've otherwise seen. It's a quiet magic, and the theory behind it is so well done that I started to wonder if perhaps everything I once believed was magic and later convinced myself was coincidence was truly magic, after all. Although the story is told from a teenager's perspective, the book is marketed as adult fiction, and it would be well worth reading in either age group. Mori's self-sufficiency makes me want to cheer, while her love of books and desire to understand magic set off my soulmate vibes.

Recommended by Danielle. 

Consummate world-builder Ursula K. LeGuin has just released the second novel in her Annals of the Western Shore series: Voices. Although the story of the two main characters of Gifts continues, this book is told by a new character, Memer, a 17-year-old girl that Orrec and Gry meet on their travels. The subject of this volume is language, history, myth and the danger of controlling literacy to subjugate people. These are short novels marketed for juvenile readers, but LeGuin never writes down to her readers. Try this hopefully continuing fantasy series.

Recommended by Bill. 

I could not put this book down. The idea itself is gripping enough: What happened to the gods who followed immigrants to North America? Who are the American gods? And with a battle between them on the horizon, what role does an ex-convict have to play? Although it occasionally borders on ridiculous, American Gods is relentless, balancing large-scale mythology with quiet moments of human relationship and small-town life. It’s engrossing, fun, and makes an interesting statement about American culture through the eyes of its non-native author.

Recommended by Lauren. 

Gene Wolfe is one of the finest craftsmen in fiction today. Many of his short stories are exemplary of the form. He will likely never be a contender for a Nobel (or even a Pulitzer) because of his chosen milieu. But he consistently demonstrates that the supposed limits of science fiction have no merit. In his novel Home Fires he addresses the question of true love and separation, pivoting on the issue of timing. Skip and Chelle married in a white heat of young love. But while Skip remains on Earth, pursuing what becomes a very successful law career, Chelle is a soldier, and she leaves him soon after the all-too-brief honeymoon to fight on another world, in another star system, and it is more than two decades before Skip sees her again. But for Chelle, her tour of duty lasts only months, and she returns still more or less a newly-wed, still young, to find a man who is much older and much changed. Skip takes her on a cruise to rekindle what he assumes needs rekindling and to discover if they still have a meaningful basis for a marriage. Clear-eyed and unflinching, Wolfe explores the meanings and consequences of choices in a world where timing is ever more complicated.

Recommended by Mark.