Connor

https://www.goodreads.com/catchthesewords

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Connor is Currently Reading

Connor is currently reading

Running Blind: An Alternative View of the London Marathon

by Simon Webb

bookshelves: currently-reading

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(58%)
— Jan 11, 2026 04:36AM

Jan 11, 2026 04:36AM

Connor is currently reading

The Chaos Court, Anniversary Edition

by Jake Burnett (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, arc, children-s, ebook, read-in-braille

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— Oct 13, 2025 12:49PM

Oct 12, 2025 02:42PM

Connor is currently reading

Sabriel (Abhorsen, #1)

by Garth Nix (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: young-adult, fantasy-or-sci-fi, childhood-favourites, currently-reading

Reading for the 4th time

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Connor said: " Sabriel is about to graduate from her boarding school in Ancelstierre. She is considering going to university, though that would mean moving further from the Old Kingdom and losing her connection with magic. She plans to discuss her options with her Sabriel is about to graduate from her boarding school in Ancelstierre. She is considering going to university, though that would mean moving further from the Old Kingdom and losing her connection with magic. She plans to discuss her options with her father. But when he fails to show up to meet her, and sends his tools with a dead creature under his control, Sabriel realises that something is very wrong. Her father, Abhorsen, a necromancer who binds the dead instead of raising them, is trapped in death. Sabriel sets off to find him and set him free.

I've loved this series for such a long time. Garth Nix is one of those rare authors who always writes books that I enjoy. And the Old Kingdom feels like home. There are so many things to love about this book. Sabriel is quietly competent. She isn't perfect and she's often faced with moments of indecision, but she uses logic and what knowledge she has to find a way out of the problem at hand. Joining her is Mogget, a rather grumpy talking cat that may be much more than that, and later on a young man, who has been magically imprisoned for many years. It has all the things I love in a fantasy novel.

And yet it doesn't feel tired or like just another book. The magic system is detailed and unique. The setting is written with care, with a history to be uncovered. And the characters are truly a delight to spend time with.

The bond Sabriel has with her father is a deep one. Despite being away from him at school they have always found time to see one another. And it is that bond and her desire to help him that motivates Sabriel. Reading this after reading Terciel and Elinor, where you get a little of Sabriel's father's story, adds an extra layer to all of this.

I loved this book as a teenager because it was fresh and exciting. I still love it all these years later. And I read it with a heavy heart, having recently lost one of my own parents. The messages in the book about death, that we all have a time to die, even if it isn't when we might hope, will stay with me.

If you haven't read the series I recommend starting here and then visiting the prequels later on. And I hope you love it as much as I do. ...more "

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(75%)
"This is actually devastating. More so than reading it as a child. Perhaps because I've read the prequel, or perhaps because I have now experienced the loss of one of my own parents. It hurts." — Dec 20, 2021 03:07PM

Dec 21, 2021 07:02PM · see review

Connor’s Quotes

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

tags: planning

1744 likes

“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters

tags: family

3268 likes

“People, you'll find, aren't usually all good or bad. Sometimes they're just a little bit good and a whole lot bad. And sometimes they're mostly good with a dash of bad. And most of us, well, we fall in the middle somewhere.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere

170 likes

“I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams... And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they wont' just be able to take one, they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight...”
― Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials - The Trilogy: The Golden Compass / The Subtle Knife / The Amber Spyglass

tags: love, physics

885 likes

“I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

tags: mary-malone, morality

1078 likes

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