Now we come to it. My favorite genre: Science Fiction and Fantasy.

There are four shelves of SFF books, with the bottom one being double-shelved thanks to the size and quantity of the mass-market paperbacks. The graphic novels are together, and everything is (mostly) arranged alphabetically by author. I’ll go through just the top shelf in this installment, the next two shelves in the second post, and the bottom (double-shelved) shelf in the third. Because SFF is known for its abundance of trilogies.

So it’s off to faerieland!

• Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano
• Monstress vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda
• Monstress vol. 2: The Blood by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda
• Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Colleen Doran
• The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
• Seven Deadly Shadows by Courtney Alameda and Valynne E. Maetani
• The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy #1) by Katherine Arden
• The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy #2) by Katherine Arden
• The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3) by Katherine Arden
• Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) by Leigh Bardugo
• Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2) by Leigh Bardugo
• King of Scars (Nikolai duology #1) by Leight Bardugo
• The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
• Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• Penric’s Progress (Penric and Desdemona novellas 1-3) by Lois McMaster Bujold
• The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
• The Warrior’s Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga, chronological #4) by Lois McMaster Bujold
• Memory (Vorkosigan Saga, chronological #10) by Lois McMaster Bujold)
• The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
• Amberlough (The Amberlough Dossier #1) by Lara Elena Donnelly
• Armistice (The Amberlough Dossier #2) by Lara Elena Donnelly
• Black Sun Rising (The Coldfire Trilogy #1) by C.S. Friedman
• When True Night Falls (The Coldfire Trilogy #1) by C.S. Friedman
• Crown of Shadows (The Coldfire Trilogy #1) by C.S. Friedman

The articulated hand model was a gift I received in college when I was drawing all the time and having difficulty drawing hands (because hands are super difficult to draw). It now holds the rings I wear on most days.

On the thumb, the top ring is a Nordic beast I bought at a Society for Creative Anachronism event years ago. I wear it daily. The bottom ring is another one I bought at an SCA event. I used to wear it every day, but the band is getting thin so I only wear it for special occasions now.

The green ring is one I commissioned from a friend, who is a jeweler. She and I went to the annual gem show, where I bought two green stones. The design was based on Art Nouveau jewelry.

During my junior year of college, my painting instructor took us to a nearby gallery where a group of Buddhist monks had been invited to make a sand painting across a week, after which they destroyed it. The mandala they created was beautiful, but their incredible focus was even more impressive, as they bent over it for hours on end to spread colorful grains of sand to create a complex design they fully intended to dismantle. There was a slightly commercial element to it, as one of the monks manned a sale table to raise money for their monastery in India. I bought a little garnet ring, which I’ve worn nearly every day since then.

The last ring is another one I commissioned from my jeweler friend. It’s a psilomelane, which I chose because I wanted something with space in mind, and that stone appealed to me more than the sparkly ones she showed me. It, too, has Art Nouveau elements.

So that’s the top shelf of my SFF collection. Aside from the Tolkien books, these are my favorites. Unless there’s a cat in my face, these are the first things I see when I wake up in the morning. It’s a great way to wake up.