The World of Ice and Fire Archives

Celeste’s Top 20 Books of the Year (2019)

December 26, 2019 Celeste Comments 10 comments

The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top 20 Lists.

If you’d like to see more stats about my reading year, click here.

The literary world was kind to me this year. In 2019, I read over 115 books, and a ton of those have been 4 or 5 star reads. It was incredibly difficult to narrow my list down to my top 20 books, but I finally managed it. There will be a handful of honorable mentions at the end of this post, for those I just couldn’t bare to not include. I’m taking a page from Petrik and following three rules for my list:

1. Only one book per author.
2. Rereads don’t count.
3. The books were new to me, but didn’t have to be published this year.

For the first time, I’m ranking my reads for the entire year. That being said, every single book on this list was a 4.5 or 5 star read and I highly recommend them all. You can view my full review of each book (including the honorable mentions) by clicking the link in each title. And now, without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2019. …

The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones

February 17, 2019 Petrik Leo Comments 0 Comment

The World of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Intricate world-building on a global scale.

The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones is a companion book to A Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin’s collaboration with Elio Miguel García Jr. and Linda Maria Antonsson resulted in a comprehensive history behind the land of Westeros and beyond. Although I spent two weeks reading this book, do not think that I didn’t enjoy reading it. The World of Ice and Fire is an imaginary history book, and the prose certainly felt like reading one. The book is written from the perspective of an in-world maester, and I read this book exactly the same way I read our real-world history book; bits by bits instead of my daily 150-300 pages reading pace. Upon finishing it, I truly believe that the fans of the main series will have to read this companion book.

Picture: Aegon the Conqueror upon Balerion, the Black Dread by Jordi González Escamilla

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