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 is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

tags: death

8224 likes

“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

“When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

tags: choice, philosophy

398 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

“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

More of Connor’s quotes…