Answers to Go
Q. I really loved the book Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Could you recommend some other books like it?
Uprooted is A. a stand-alone fantasy novel about a young woman named Agnieszka, whose birth during a particular year makes her eligible to be taken by the Dragon. Dragon is a powerful wizard who protects Agnieszka’s village and the rest of the kingdom from an encroaching evil called the poisoned Wood. Every 10 years, Dragon leaves his marble tower to select a girl from the village to live with him. No one knows what Dragon does with these girls during their servitude. But after 10 years, the girls are seen emerging from the tower free and healthy, and always determined to leave the valley and village for better things. If you search for
Uprooted in the San Marcos Public Library catalog, which can be found on the library’s website (sanmarcostx. gov/Library), there is an option to click on Related and Similar Titles. This is always a good place to start when looking for similar books to a title that you enjoyed.
One read-alike suggestion is The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. This is the first novel in the Winternight trilogy. The story is set in medieval Russia and incorporates elements of Russian folklore. The main character, Vasilisa, grew up listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Her favorite is the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon that appears in the night to claim careless souls. Her nurse says that wise Russians fear him and honor such spirits to protect their homes from evil. After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout and cityborn, her new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the spirits. The family agrees, but Vasilisa is scared, realizing that more relies on these rituals than anyone knows. As danger approaches, Vasilisa must defy the people she loves and summon longconcealed dangerous gifts to protect her family from a threat that seems to have come from her nurse's “fairy tales.”
If you go back to the library catalog, under the Related and Similar Titles tab, you’ll also see similar authors recommended. Author Marie Brennan is suggested, for example, because “both authors write historical fantasies that vividly evoke the atmosphere of bygone eras. They write adventurefilled stories and create memorable, appealing protagonists and secondary characters.” A popular title by Marie Brennan is A Natural History of Dragons.
If the title you search for is part of a series, it will also recommend similar series. For example, if you look at Related and Similar Titles for The Bear and the Nightingale, you’ll find the Daevabad trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty and the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo are both recommended. If you enjoy The Bear and the Nightingale, these two series might be good ones to check out when you finish the Winternight trilogy.
For more book recommendations, call or email the library at 512-393-8200 or smpl@sanmarcostx.gov. We will reopen on Dec. 1st.
