#Sonderbooks25 – Stand-outs 2008 and Working as a Librarian!

Sonderbooks25 0

Happy 25th Birthday to Sonderbooks! Yes, as of last month, I’ve been writing Sonderbooks for 25 years! So I probably should step it up with my #Sonderbooks25 project of revisiting the Sonderbooks Stand-outs from previous years, and adjusting the older pages to the new phone-friendly format.

And I’ve finished the Sonderbooks Stand-outs 2008 page!

I read some wonderful books that year! In February 2008, I began working full-time for the first time since my firstborn was small, and working as a full-fledged librarian managing a small youth services department at the closest library to my house.

Reading the reviews I posted that year reminded me that in those days, a committee chose books as a system to book talk in the schools before the Summer Reading Program. It was my first ever year book talking (with many more to come), and I zealously read the chosen books, reading some wonderful books I might otherwise have never found. Looking at those reviews reminds me of how much joy I got out of really working as a librarian, doing what I loved, with a calling I cared about.

But then I realized that since 2007 was the year I started the Sonderbooks blog (and I was using the blog to determine which year reviews were posted), it was also the year I started my Sonderquotes blog and my Sonderjourneys blog. So of course I decided to read the posts from 2008 on those blogs – covering the 2007 posts first.

In both blogs, there were some strange character artifacts – I think from when I switched web hosting companies. I’d gotten them fixed on the main blog, but it turned out I needed to do it manually on these two, as long as I was reading them.

The Sonderquotes reading honestly inspired me. I was still trying to adjust to my new life without my husband, and was reading uplifting books about finding joy and thriving and not getting weighed down by resentment. Going through them years later still lifted my heart. Some of the books will show up in my 2009 Stand-outs, because I’d only begun to read them in 2008, but the especially good ones that show up in Sonderquotes from 2008 include Forgive for Love, Tell Me No Lies, Beyond Codependency, This Is Not the Life I Ordered, The Return of the Prodigal Son, and Staying Connected to Your Teenager.

I also reread my Project 52 posts that covered 2008. There were four – Becoming a Librarian, My graduation and my oldest’s graduation, Divorce, Phase 7: Negotiations, and New Home and New Beginnings. Then it dawned on me that as long as I’m reading the posts, this would be a good time to update the Project 52 Landing Page with those posts.

So all that slowed me down. My challenge now: Can I finish #Sonderbooks25 before I hit Sonderbooks’ 26th birthday? But whatever the answer, at least I’m having fun doing it.

But now, besides the ones above, let me highlight a few books from the 2008 Sonderbooks Stand-outs that I intend to reread sometime in the near future:

Chalice, by Robin McKinley, was recently acquired by our library as an eaudiobook, so that one’s a no-brainer. I’ve been rereading other Robin McKinley books lately, and she never fails to enchant me.

I’m not sure completely why it grabs me from this list, but I also want to reread Italian Lessons, by Peter Pezzelli.

And I have to say, my Stand-outs in Picture Books were exceptional that year. Maybe because now I was regularly doing story times? I still highly, highly recommend Timothy and the Strong Pajamas, Millie Waits for the Mail, A Visitor for Bear, and Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes. And that seems to be the year I discovered Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie books, which are just the best!

The Children’s Nonfiction Stand-outs are also exceptional. Kadir Nelson’s We Are the Ship, Jon Scieszka’s Knucklehead, and Bruce Goldstone’s Greater Estimations are all classics still worth looking up.

So, yes, it was sobering to look back on 2008 – the divorce negotiations were angry and bitter – but it was also inspiring. I was working at a job that is my calling, and I had dear friends and wonderful books to get me through!

Review of Austenland, by Shannon Hale

Austenalia, Fiction Review, Romance, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Austenland

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, 2026. 326 pages.
Review written August 29, 2026, from my own copy, ordered via Bloomsbury.com and signed by the Author at the National Book Festival
Review of original edition written in 2013.
2007 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#2 Romance Fiction
Starred Review

Shannon Hale has revised Austenland and Midnight in Austenland! So of course I had to buy new copies. And rereading it fits in perfectly with my plan for #Sonderbooks25, celebrating 25 years of writing Sonderbooks, to reread selected Sonderbooks Stand-outs from previous years. The fabulous news is that she did the revisions in preparation for writing a third volume, Christmas in Austenland, coming out this Fall, which of course I already have preordered.

She says it started as just a little editing to update the technology, but ended up as a full-on revision. It’s been long enough since I last read Austenland – 2013 – that I didn’t really notice the differences, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story and still wish someone would make this place in real life. And yes, I read into the wee hours of the morning finishing it because it was too hard to stop. Even knowing what’s going to happen.

The premise is that there’s a country house in England where wealthy women can go and be immersed in the world of Jane Austen. They’re promised a romantic experience and get to attend a ball at the end. Handsome actors all make up a house party in Regency England.

Our heroine in this first novel, Jane Hayes, isn’t rich enough to pay her own way, but she is obsessed with the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Colin Firth. Her great-aunt Carolyn learns her secret – and in her will leaves Jane a trip to Austenland.

Once there, Jane’s journey loosely parallels Pride and Prejudice, complete with some clever banter, interesting first impressions, and a Wickham-like character. Some fun moments include Jane being asked to play the pianoforte and launching into “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater.” And the house party decides to put on a theatrical production (as in Mansfield Park), which puts couples together.

Something I love about the new edition is that it includes 48 pages at the back telling of Shannon Hale’s experience making the movie Austenland and getting to be present on the set in England. (The movie is great fun – of course I own that, too.) What a dream come true seeing her words come to life! She captures the magic of the experience beautifully.

When I was in line at the National Book Festival to get this signed, the person next to me was a Jane Austen fan and a Shannon Hale fan, but hadn’t heard of these books. Anyone this describes needs to read Austenland! And now they’re updated, with more volumes on the way!

shannonhale.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/austenland_2026.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Sabriel, by Garth Nix

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Sabriel

by Garth Nix
read by Tim Curry

Listening Library, 2002. 10 hours, 43 minutes.
Review written October 21, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Original review posted January 20, 2004.
2004 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Fantasy for Young Adults

As part of #Sonderbooks25, celebrating 25 years of posting Sonderbooks, I’m rereading many of my Sonderbooks Stand-outs from previous years and writing new reviews for the ones written before my 2006 revision of the website. The project is taking me much, much longer than I thought it would, because I’m reading more of my old reviews than planned and rereading (or listening) to more of the books – but I’m having a whole lot of fun with it, so what’s not to like?

And I don’t think I remembered just how good Sabriel is. I wish I could define why it’s head and shoulders above your run-of-the-mill current romantasy – because then maybe I could write one myself. But I’ll try to put my finger on some of the things that make the book so excellent.

First, Garth Nix does an incredible job with world-building. The world and the magic system is unlike any other fantasy novel I’ve ever read, and is incredibly complex, but he expertly pulls you along without ever a boring exposition drop. Sabriel has been brought up in a school close to the border with the Old Kingdom – full of Charter Magic – but her father has been teaching her the skills of an Abhorsen – a necromancer on the side of good who can send dead things back into Death.

But one day Sabriel gets a messenger from Death bringing her father’s bells and sword. She’s told she is the new Abhorsen. So Sabriel goes on a quest into the Old Kingdom to try to find her father’s body and free him from whatever trapped him in Death. And it turns out along the way, she is trying to save the entire Old Kingdom from the Greater Dead creature that trapped him there.

We get information about what she needs to do and how to do it as she goes – but it’s not done in a haphazard way. Sabriel starts with basic knowledge of how to use the Abhorsen’s bells against dead things – which she has to use in her journey. She finds broken Charter stones and decimated villages in her travels, and there are many terrifying moments when she is chased by powerful dead beings.

Yes, there’s a little bit of romance. The romance is shown to the reader rather than told. Though honestly, they could have said a little more about it – but I happen to like understated romance more than overstated romance.

And the story pulls you in, from Sabriel’s first small venture into death to save a friend’s pet to her frantic stand against a creature of Destruction. This book was even better than I remembered.

garthnix.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/sabriel.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

#Sonderbooks25 – 2007 Stand-outs and I’m a Librarian!

Sonderbooks25 0

First, Happy 25th Birthday to Sonderbooks!

Yes, it was August 5, 2001, that I sent out my first Sonderbooks email newsletter! So the actual 25th birthday is this week!

But I’ve been celebrating the 25th year for quite some time with #Sonderbooks25. I’m reading all my old reviews, year by year, and revising the old Stand-outs pages into the new phone-friendly format.

It turns out that, as I was hoping, this is much easier to do once I hit 2007 – when I switched to the new format and an accompanying blog instead of the old email newsletter format with separate “issues” that I posted at the same time. It took me only a half-hour to convert my 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-outs page to a phone-friendly format instead of the few hours it took with the older reviews that were set up completely differently.

I’m afraid it also helped that I didn’t get a lot of reviews posted in 2007. 2007 was the year I was in library school, getting my Master’s in Library Science. I finished at the end of the year. I also got a job in May as a half-time youth services assistant at Sterling Library for Loudoun County Public Library – and if I had ever given up writing Sonderbooks, that would have been the year.

I also went over my Project 52 posts that covered 2007:

First, the last half of the Welcome to Virginia post, as I was still settling in to Virginia. We actually moved to Virginia on August 18, 2006, so I’m coming up on the twentieth anniversary of that.

Then I’m a Librarian! covered finishing my Master’s in Library Science. I got a job as a librarian in February 2008.

I took a class on Web Design as part of my degree – so that was when I switched the format of Sonderbooks. Yes, that means it’s 20 years old, and I should think about updating it, but I was able to fairly easily convert that set-up to a design that will adapt to phones, so I will probably stick with this format. Anyway, I still like the colors I chose.

However, with all that going on in 2007 – the majority of 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-outs I never did write a review for. So several are on my list to reread, and if I reread one that doesn’t have a review yet, it’s time to write one. Let me mention some highlights:

I did recently reread Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days. It is also featured in many of my Sonderling Sunday posts, and the last time I did that, I got sucked right back into the story and kept reading until I finished it. Still one of my all-time favorite books.

I’m also already planning to reread Shannon Hale’s Austenland (not reviewed yet), because she revised it this year for modern times – and I bought the new edition.

Our library owns Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card on eaudio, so it’s in my queue, and I’m really looking forward to hearing that again.

I remember Jane Austen in Boca, by Paula Marantz Cohen, and Home to Italy, by Peter Pezelli, both as delightful reads, so I’d like to try them again and write a review this time.

For nonfiction, I think I’ll revisit Sacred Choices, by Christel Nani.

I’ve long been planning to reread Inda, by Sherwood Smith, write a review, and then tackle the rest of the series that it begins.

And The Gaslight Effect, by Dr. Robin Stern, I probably won’t reread (because, thank God, I don’t need it right now), but I do still strongly recommend to people in relationship difficulties. And it somehow strengthened me to read the detailed review and remember that no, you don’t argue with people who are trying to tell you you are the one in the wrong if you were hurt when they cheated on you. (Just as a wild example.)

I’m still a little sad about all those good books that never got reviewed. But it’s been fun to remember them by reading the reviews. Because I got so few written in 2007, first I went through all reviews posted on the blog in 2007, then all the reviews of Stand-outs that I hadn’t covered yet.

Next up: Reviews from books read in 2008, when I was working full-time as a librarian!

Review of The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy

Adventure, Fiction Review, Historical, Old Favorites, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Scarlet Pimpernel

by Baroness Orczy
read by Geoffrey Howard

Blackstone Publishing, 2006. 8 hours, 20 minutes. Book originally written in 1905.
Review written July 14, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Original review written October 24, 2001.
2002 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4, Fiction Rereads

As part of #Sonderbooks25, my celebration of my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks, I’m rereading many of my old reviews – at least one from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs. I’ve also found that many of my favorites have an eaudiobook version with my current library – so I’m rediscovering a large number of them as audiobooks. In addition, when those books I’m rereading were reviewed in my first five years of writing Sonderbooks, I’m giving them a new review in the new phone-friendly format.

First, let me say that I love this book. Romance! Adventure! Cleverness! Strategic rescues! Outwitting the bad guys! Clever misdirection! I first read the book in high school and ate it all up. I have lost track of how many times I’ve read the book, but let’s just say that not one word of the audiobook was a surprise. It’s a novel about a band of Englishmen and their daring leader who rescue aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution.

However, writing in 2025, I need to list a few caveats and warnings to other readers. The book was written in 1905. There are several issues.

The biggest one is some frightful antisemitism. A Jewish character is portrayed as despised and contemptible, and pretty much deserving of that. I do have to say that any retelling I’ve ever read and the movies I’ve seen have taken that out. But it’s in the book and is not pretty.

The author was a baroness, so it’s not really a surprise she has deep reverence for the nobility – and some veiled disrespect for the “lower classes.” English working-class are seen as maybe not so bright, but loyal and good-hearted, but French peasants are dirty and despicable for revolting against the nobility.

As for women – well, many things are said about the power of a beautiful woman. But such a woman is frail and delicate, and that power is about her beauty and wit. Yes, our heroine in this book takes action after she unwittingly causes danger to someone she loves – but she can only do so by enlisting the help of men.

At this point, let me note that both retellings that I have enjoyed and reviewed did a gender swap to give a woman the swashbuckling, adventurous role of the Scarlet Pimpernel: Across a Star-Swept Sea, by Diana Peterfreund, and Rook, by Sharon Cameron.

Who is the Scarlet Pimpernel? He’s a master of disguise and a brilliant strategist for rescuing aristocrats from the guillotine. At the start of the book, we don’t know who he is, but we get to see a daring rescue executed before the book ends, with the odious French official utterly fooled.

The writing is full of sentimentality, which I didn’t mind in high school, and have to admit I still don’t mind today. But it also brilliantly begins in the middle of the action, setting up the situation by starting the book with a scene of aristocrats being cleverly smuggled out of Paris. Then we meet the pertinent characters at an inn on the coast in Dover. Even the romance is shown to us in the middle of a misunderstanding that’s six months old. Baroness Orczy knew how to take us right into the middle of the action and shows us back story as it’s pertinent and interesting.

There’s a reason this book has lasted 120 years.

Now, at the time, Baroness Orczy wrote a multitude of sequels. I’ve reviewed several. I found four in a used bookstore one day – and then since their copyright has long passed, I found several more on Amazon print on demand. Most are not as good as the original, but they reliably give swashbuckling adventure and tender romance – and I should read some more before I’m done with #Sonderbooks25.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/scarlet_pimpernel.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

#Sonderbooks25 – 2006 Stand-outs and Big Changes

Sonderbooks25 0

Happy 25th year of Sonderbooks! I’m celebrating #Sonderbooks25 by rereading all my reviews and changing the format of my Stand-outs pages to display better on phones.

And I’m up to 2006! I had suspected that this whole project would get easier after I passed 2005, and I was absolutely right. The big reason is that in 2007 – when I made the 2006 Stand-outs page – was when I took a website development class in grad school and revamped my website and added a blog. Before 2006, to convert the format, I had to pretty much rewrite the whole page, but to redo the 2006 page, I only had to substitute in a new frame – the basic format was the same. So it took me less than an hour instead of several hours.

On top of that, there weren’t as many reviews to read. 2006 was my last year before I started posting all reviews on this blog, and I was still posting them as separate “webzine” issues. But it was also my Year of Upheaval, so the only issues I posted were Sonderbooks 105 in March, Sonderbooks 106 in April, Sonderbooks 107 in June, and Sonderbooks 108 in December. In addition, some of the books that appear in my 2006 Sonderbooks Stand-outs didn’t actually get reviewed until 2007. (But I’m going to reread the reviews along with the year they were posted.)

What was keeping me so busy that I wasn’t posting reviews? Well, you can read about that in my Project 52 posts –
Getting Back on My Feet – About starting the year in a German hospital with surgery for uterine adhesions, and my husband making plans to move to Japan so he could get away from me
Goodbye to Germany – about the wonderful going-away party my Sembach Base Library colleagues threw for me and the poem Elfriede wrote for me
Truth and Trauma – About the day the movers came, and my husband finally confessed it had been an affair all along (but now she’d broken up with him because he found out she was cheating on him) – but also that in the past he’d had a plan to kill me and bought the weapon
Welcome to Virginia – About moving to Virginia to be near two childhood best friends, being taken in by their church, starting a Master’s in Library and Information Science program, and starting to heal.

So yeah, it was a big year.

I also read some amazing books that year.

The two most life-changing books of that year I will not be rereading, but they were exactly what I needed at the time. I read NOT “Just Friends”, by Dr. Shirley Glass, before I knew my husband was having a physical affair, but that book helped me understand that it was completely fair to call him seeing the other woman behind my back an emotional affair. And it was empowering to be told that’s a traumatic revelation – because then I didn’t feel as bewildered by the symptoms I was having of obsessive thoughts and flashbacks. It helped me have compassion on myself and thus be able to heal.

The other life-changing book was Steven Stosny’s You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, which has since been retitled Love Without Hurt. This book helped me stop beating myself up when my husband’s words were tearing me down. It also helped me stop reacting to his anger and resentment with my own anger. It sounds trite – but Steven Stosny includes practical ways to direct your thoughts so you can build compassion for yourself and your spouse instead of resentment. Even if that’s one-sided. I needed this book the next several years as I had to keep interacting with my husband. (The divorce didn’t happen until 2010, and we were still navigating child visitation until 2012.)

Oh, and another good relationship one that I didn’t review until 2007 but is on the 2006 Stand-outs list is Forgive for Good, by Dr. Fred Luskin. This book helped me see that if I could forgive, it would stop my husband from continuing to have space in my mind and continuing to hurt me. (Though I also had to learn that you can’t pre-forgive, and I had plenty of new hurts to navigate.)

But here are some other books I plan to put in my still-growing pile of books from #Sonderbooks25 that I want to reread:

How We Choose to Be Happy, by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks – a nice reminder that our happiness can flow out of choices we make.

Waking the World – Fairy tales from around the world about women in midlife.

Diary of a Medical Intuitive, by Christel Nani – It was super interesting to read about emotional and physical connections when I had gynecological surgery shortly after my husband left me.

The Canterbury Papers, by Judith Koll Healey – wonderful historical fiction

Jane Austen in Scarsdale, by Paula Marantz Cohen – Read when I was just beginning to discover how much fun Austen-inspired fiction can be.

The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner – It’s probably time to give that whole amazing series a reread.

But yes! It was surprisingly lovely to reread reviews from that tumultuous year. (I wrote some very long ones back then.) I had forgotten about some of the other books that helped me through that time and some of the other books that diverted me when I needed cheering up.

So now I encourage you – Take a look at my reviews! I still consider all of the titles Stand-outs. So if there are some you missed – think about giving some of them a try! Good books don’t expire.

Sonderbooks25 – Revisiting 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-outs!

Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs 0

I’m still celebrating #Sonderbooks25 – my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks! In fact, in a couple months – in August – I will hit the actual 25th anniversary.

My original plan was to reread my reviews of the Sonderbooks Stand-outs for each year, choose one of the books to reread, and blog about one year’s Stand-outs each week or two.

Ha!

I began this project in January 2025, and now in June 2026, I have just finished going through my 2005 reviews.

Let’s just say the project expanded, because I was having so much fun.

First, I’m redoing the Stand-outs pages so that they are in phone-friendly form. This was much harder with years 2001 to 2005 (or so I’m telling myself), which were in a completely different form and had to be almost rewritten from scratch. I’m hoping it will be easier from here on out. But meanwhile: Here’s my new 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-out page.

But beyond that, once I got to reading reviews, I started reading ALL the reviews. And the first five years of that is also a bigger job, because at the time I was working half-time and had more time to read. Those early reviews were posted in Sonderbooks “Issues” with books from each category in every issue, and issues came out every three weeks or so. Those reviews are not on this blog, but you can find them on the Back Issues page. 2005 covered Sonderbooks #91 through Sonderbooks #104

And while I was doing that, it was fun to read about what happened in my life when I was reading those particular books, on my Project 52 posts.

But 2005? That was the year my life fell apart as my husband left me. So It took five Project 52 posts: Heartbreak, Please, Let Me Fix It!, Into the Wilderness, I’ll Always Have Paris!, and Separation and Spain.

[And – as it happens, the day after I reread those posts – on vacation in France – I just revisited the Abbaye de Royaumont in a full circle moment. It was at the Abbaye in November 2005 that I decided to become a librarian and keep writing and gained hope about my life, even though it was falling apart at the time. It was awesome to go back and say to my past self – The librarian thing and the writing thing? They turned out even better than you dreamed!]

I should add that this is the first year the two lists have changed slightly. Last year, because of reading Sheila Wray Gregoire’s work, I took down my reviews of two 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-outs on marriage, Love and Respect and For Women Only. I’ve got links as to why on the pages, but I did leave them out of the new Stand-outs page.

As for the individual books, there were some incredibly good books among the 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

The one that most changed my life, that was absolutely the most crucial for my well-being was The Script: The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat, by Elizabeth Landers and Vicky Mainzer. That was the book that finally helped me realize that despite what my husband said (even though I still believed him he wasn’t having an affair) – it was not all my fault that he was divorcing me. I was not, in fact, impossible to live with. That was all part of The Script. I won’t be rereading that book. Rereading my detailed review was enough.

There are several books that are going in my I-definitely-plan-to-reread-these pile:
Confessions of Super Mom, by Melanie Lynne Hauser
Q & A, by Vikas Swarup,
The Folk Keeper, by Franny Billingsley (met her at Royaumont!)
Once Upon a Midlife, by Allen B. Chinen
Writing About Your Life, by William Zinsser
Walking a Literary Labyrinth, by Nancy M. Malone (I brought this one along on my France trip and already finished rereading it. Review will post soon.)

2005 was a tough year to live, but it was a great year for reading!

I hope 2025 readers may discover some of these gems.

Sonderbooks25 – 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs

Sonderbooks25 0

It took me a long time, but I’ve finished reading all the reviews I wrote in 2004 and made a new phone-friendly webpage of the 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

I began #Sonderbooks25 at the start of 2025 – celebrating my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks by revisiting my old Stand-outs. My original plan was to just go over the reviews of the Stand-outs and choose one book to reread from each year. But, well, it got out of hand. I read all my reviews posted in 2004. They cover Sonderbooks #70 through Sonderbooks #90. This was before I started the blog – or had even heard of blogs – and was posting ezine “issues” every two or three weeks.

And ah! 2004! This was the year before my then-husband started his affair and my life blew apart. I’ve also reread my posts about that year in Project 52 – this post about the start of 2004, and this post about the second half of 2004. There’s a super painful side to those posts, as I was so clueless that my husband was on a path out of our marriage – but on the other hand, it was a wonderful reading year!

I read some fabulous books that year. I’m envious of my past self only working half-time and having significantly more time to read.

I’ve been mostly rereading Stand-outs I can find as eaudiobooks with my library system. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke was the one book I chose to reread for this project, and ended up being a little disappointed, as you can read about in my new review. I also reread Sabriel, by Garth Nix, which was not disappointing, though I haven’t posted the new review yet. And I reread all the Picture Book Stand-outs, and was rather impressed that they lasted well enough that my current library system still has a copy of each one of them.

But oh my goodness, there are so many books I want to reread from that year! Little by little, I’m planning to work a few of them into my future reading, even though this project will move on to my 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

But I’ve gotten great joy out of reading those old reviews. It reminds me of a great joy of my life – reading – at a time when I was young and happy. I’m so glad I started writing Sonderbooks and can relive what those books meant to me. And let me encourage you to browse those 2004 Stand-outs – you might find some new favorites of your own. For the most part, these ones have stuck with me, and it was a treat to revisit that joyful part of my life.

Review of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

by Susanna Clarke
read by Simon Prebble

Macmillan Audio, 2006. 32 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written November 24, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Originally reviewed October 26, 2004.
Starred Review
2004 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Science Fiction and Fantasy

I reread (via listening) this book as part of my celebration of #Sonderbooks25 – my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was my favorite new book for adults that I read in 2004.

I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t as enamored with the book as when I read it the first time – it’s definitely not my favorite book of the year this year, or even close. But I still thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the story and getting caught up in Susanna Clarke’s highly detailed alternate world. Let me talk about the good things, but also why I’m not raving about it this time around.

The book is long. The first time I read it, the only way I could bring myself to tackle it was one chapter per day while I read other books – until I got about halfway through and was more obsessed. This time around, it required two separate checkouts of the eaudiobook, with a wait in between. 32 hours! But the length is also a strength. The incredible detail – with footnotes! – of the alternate-reality England during the Napoleonic Wars is an incredible feat of world-building. Simon Prebble feels like the perfect reader for the book, reading it with the voice of a scholarly old gentleman that just suits the story perfectly.

The story takes you through first Mr. Norrell and then Jonathan Strange being the first practical magicians that England has seen in hundreds of years. We’ve got hints about the Raven King, who used to control magic in England. We’re warned about the Faery realms and see the drastic consequences when Mr. Norrell messes with fairies – but consequences that he keeps secret from everyone else. We watch those consequences play out, and we watch Jonathan Strange do magic to win the war with Napoleon – and then diverge from his teacher. And eventually, we watch the prophecy happen about the two of them bringing magic back to England. And always a nefarious fairy causing trouble behind the scenes.

The book is immersive, and listening was a great way for me to tolerate the great length. So why was I not as enraptured this time around?

First, I already knew about the amazing world-building, so I took it more for granted this time. I did notice this time the blatant racism and anti-Semitism. It probably accurately reflects attitudes in England at that time, but was still unpleasant to read about. And there was a “historical” story told about the magic of Native Americans – including footnotes – that felt like a demeaning caricature. So I do feel like I should warn about that.

But I also realized that I didn’t remember how it ended – and was kind of let down when it did. Yes, many threads come together, but I didn’t think the ending was terribly satisfying. And then I realized that I didn’t really like any of the characters much. So the world-building and the delightful scholarly tone is the best part of the book. And they do carry the book the entire 32 hours, but it wasn’t quite as wonderful as I had remembered.

All the same, if you’re ever in the mood for a great big doorstopper of a fantasy novel that is not a romantasy but does present an amazing alternate world of magic – Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is worth reading. And, yes, rereading.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/jonathan_strange_and_mr_norrell.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

2025 Sonderbooks Stand-outs

Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs 0

Happy New Year! My 2025 Sonderbooks Stand-outs are up!

I can hardly believe it myself, but this is my 25th year of posting my favorite books read in the previous year! That’s a long run, and I’m not planning to stop any time soon.

Because of celebrating #Sonderbooks25, I did much more rereading than usual this past year, but I decided to limit the 2025 Sonderbooks Stand-outs to books I’d read for the first time. (Since most of the rereads were already Sonderbooks Stand-outs from a previous year.)

Here are my stats: I read a total of 528 books this year. But before you get too impressed, a large percentage of those were picture books. Here’s the breakdown:

Fiction for adults: 39
Nonfiction for adults: 34
Fiction for teens: 66
Nonfiction for teens: 9
Fiction for children: 45
Nonfiction for children: 87
Fiction Picture Books: 248

Total: 528

In the totals above, I reread 29 picture books from previous Stand-outs and reread 23 other books.

A lot of the children’s nonfiction are picture books, so you see that’s not as dramatic as if I were reading 500 adult books.

Some comments about my reading year:

I’ve really transitioned to audiobooks as my main way of consuming books. It’s a big switch for me, but now I have a habit of writing reviews ahead of time, and then every evening I do the mechanical task of posting a review while listening to an audiobook, getting a nightly story fix. I also listen while driving and while doing housework.

I’m not sure if I remembered to note them all, but my spreadsheet says that 92 of the above books were audiobooks.

I do still read as part of my daily devotional time – so you’ll see an abundance of Christian nonfiction among my Stand-outs. And this year I did some rereading of Sonderbooks Stand-outs from years 2001 to 2004, as part of #Sonderbooks25. That was a delight! The original plan was to reread one book from each year’s stand-outs, but I got pulled in way too quickly to too many others. I’m still hoping to go through all the old reviews before 2026 is done – and the official 25th anniversary in August. So I expect to get pulled into rereading far more favorites.

Alas! 2025 brought the end(?), at least for now, of the CYBILS Awards, at least in their prior form, so I was not a judge for Teen Speculative Fiction – and read fewer teen books because of that.

I am still a member of Capitol Choices, a DC-area group of librarians who make a list of our picks of the 100 best children’s and young adult books of the year. That membership has helped alert me to many wonderful books. I’m also co-chair of the Mathical Book Prize committee, which does influence some of my reading. (This year’s picks announced in February!)

And this is the time to state that my Stand-outs and their rankings do NOT attempt to reflect literary merit or quality in any way! Do NOT try to figure out how I will vote for the book on any committee from my reviews or rankings! What I try to do with Sonderbooks is go with my gut: Which books did I personally most enjoy reading in 2025?

I will say that I read and even reviewed some wonderful books in 2025 that did not make this list – after all, I only review books I like. Many of them were of exceptional literary quality. But this list is about books that make me smile, and books that stand out in my mind after a year of reading. I confess that some powerful books were well-written and wonderfully crafted – but on such an uncomfortable topic, they just weren’t among my personal favorites.

I always wait to post my Stand-outs until at least New Year’s Day – and indeed, yesterday I spent a good hour finishing a book because I knew it was going to make this list. This means that I haven’t posted all the reviews just yet – but the next books I’ll post this week will be those Stand-outs that still need to be posted, and while I’m doing that, I’ll update the webpages for the reviews of the other Stand-outs. Eventually, each book gets the Sonderbooks Stand-outs seal on its review page.

Bottom line, it’s all about the books! I hope you will enjoy some of the books I loved reading this year!