Fiction:
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher is a somewhat dark fantasy with many fairytale elements. Marra is the youngest princess of a tiny kingdom with a good harbor; her mother has bargained for their safety with the eldest and, when Damia dies in what might not have been an accident, her second daughter, Kania. Marra is shuffled off to a convent where she is happy out of the endless gaze of the public, learning needlework and shoveling stables; at least until she learns that Kania is being abused. Marra puts together a ragtag team including two elderly magical women and a soldier/diplomat, accomplishes some impossible tasks, and saves the day with her knowledge of weaving. Necessary spoiler: the [not entirely alive] dog made of bones does not die. This might be my favorite of Kingfisher’s books so far.
Clockwork Boys (Clocktaur War Part 1) by T. Kingfisher is essentially part one of a single book. Experienced forger Slate, assassin Brenner, a young genius priest, and a former Paladin who was once possessed by a demon set out on a mission that will almost certainly lead to their deaths as they attempt to discover what the seemingly unstoppable enemy Clockwork Boys are and how they might possibly be defeated. When the book ends, the Clockwork Boys have been seen once, from a distance, and the team has just arrived at Anuket City where they hope to find more answers. I am not sure why this book and its sequel were not simply published as one book.
The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War Part 2) by T. Kingfisher deepens the worldbuilding as the team attempt to discover the source of the Clocktaurs and who controls them, while also searching for a missing priest. My favorite part was the gnoles, a sapient species who look a bit like large badgers, and have moved into Anuket City in great numbers, taking on a wide variety of jobs that humans find undesirable. Via a gnole saved by Slate in the previous book, the gnole population proves vital to solving the mystery and gaining access to the titular wonder engine. I enjoyed the story a lot, and still think these two books should be one.
Nonfiction:
Roddy McDowall: An Actor’s Life — From “How Green Was My Valley” to “Lassie” to “Planet of the Apes” by Samuel Garza Bernstein meticulously represented the breadth of McDowall’s career, from childhood movie star to stage and television stalwart, to more movies and eventual voicework. He was apparently a genuinely nice person who loved being a social connector; his social gatherings were legendary and he was diligent about his correspondence. However, the entire book is in present tense, which I found distracting and didn’t really understand the use of. Also, I felt some of the long lists of people’s names needed to be either trimmed or given more context. I understood McDowall knew a lot of people who didn’t necessarily know each other fairly early on, but once I knew that, reading an entire page at a time of nothing but names felt like a bit of a slog. McDowall left detailed archives, and I would have appreciated a bit more curated detail.
