the legend of zelda

Weekly Wrap-Up: 11/24 – 11/30

Yay! I’m not super late with the Weekly Wrap-Up this week! Hopefully this is a good sign for the future!

Though my blogging wasn’t really any better than it’s been, I did read some books this past week. Or at least a couple novellas. But considering my track record with novel reading lately, I definitely see that as a huge win.

Anyway, without further ado, let’s get on with the Weekly Wrap-Up!

Thursday 11/27: Thanksgiving Day

Last Thursday was Turkey Day! To those who celebrate, once again, Happy Thanksgiving!! 🦃🍽️🥧🌽🍂🍁 Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday, and not because of the food or anything. I enjoy it because I love seeing family and friends I don’t usually get to see. I also like it because the hype for the holiday season officially starts here.

We had a good day again this year. I enjoyed seeing everyone that I got to see, and even though it’s not the reason that I love this holiday, the food was great this year. So it was a pretty okay Thanksgiving, this time around.

Saturday 11/29: Books I’m Thankful For

This past Saturday, I finally posted the usual thing I do for Thanksgiving, Books I’m Thankful For. It was about a day later than I’d have liked, but it wasn’t that late so I was pretty satisfied.

This year, the book – or series in this case, technically – that I gushed about were the Legend of Zelda bug books. AKA: The strategy guides and the lore books.

Books I’m Thankful For: Legend of Zelda Lore Books & Strategy Guides

Sunday 11/30: Birthstone Book Covers

On Sunday, I participated in Birthstone Book Covers – just barely getting it in before the end of November. Birthstone Book Covers is a fun little post created and hosted by Leslie @ Books Are the New Black.

Each month, for the post, you feature book covers that are either the same color of the month’s birthstone or include the color in the title. This month was November, and its birthstones are topaz and citrine. So the colors of the month were yellow, gold, and yellow-orange.

Birthstone Book Covers: November 2025

Books I Read Last Week

Wrapping It All Up

So yeah, in some ways last week was a bit of an improvement, and in some ways it wasn’t. I’m happy with it overall – especially with the holiday and all that. Here’s hoping this is a sign of good things to come for the rest of the year. 🍀🤞

For my blog stuff this week, I definitely want to get my Most Interesting Looking New Books of December 2025 post, as well as my monthly wrap-up regarding my reading for November 2025. I want to get those two out during a reasonable week of the month this time around! I also want to get a book review – or two! – out as well. I’m waayyy behind now, especially in light of the fact that I read two novellas last week (which is something I’m very happy about).

Regarding books and reading… I just read the first two novels of the Penric and Desdemona series, but I think I’m gonna pause on that for a bit, even though I’ve enjoyed it. There’s just too much that I want to read. Next on my immediate TBR is the final volume of The Glass Scientists is coming out today, so I’ll be reading that as soon as my copy arrives. I’m very excited to see how everything concludes! After that, I’m not quite sure what I’ll read next, but I feel like I’m finally back on a reading kick. So hopefully it doesn’t go away!

Outside of books and blogging, last week had a lot going on. Sort of. Well, okay, “a lot” was basically only Thanksgiving, but my spouse and I also had a lot of extra time to ourselves compared to usual, courtesy of the holiday. We spent a lot of our time chilling and taking it easy, but we also binged Dispatch. It’s a new game developed by AdHoc Studio that was released episodically from mid-October to mid-November, and is the spiritual successor to Telltale Games. My spouse and I just lounged and watched and played a bunch of stuff in general, though.

Other than this stuff, however, nothing much happened. We even kind of took a break with the diet and stuff, because Thanksgiving is all about food and all. This is like one of the only weeks of the year where we kind of acknowledge that we’re not really going to eat healthy. Oh well. But this coming week we should be back on it.

Anyway, as always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Books I’m Thankful For: Legend of Zelda Lore Books & Strategy Guides

Ugh, this is later than I wanted it to be. Oh well, this week is always busier than normal for me, because of the holiday and all. But I’m still doing it. Here we go – the books I’m thankful for! (Edit: I scheduled this post wrong. I have to pay more attention when I’m doing that – or maybe I just shouldn’t do it when I’m so tired I feel like crashing, haha. I fixed it now.)

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know that I’m a huge Legend of Zelda fan. But for those who don’t know, I’m a huge Legend of Zelda fan. It’s one of my favorite things ever, and it’s probably one of the bigger reasons why I’m a fantasy fan, among other things. I actually did a post about Zelda a couple of years ago, the day before Tears of the Kingdom came out. Zelda is also special to me this time of the year in particular, because one of my earliest and most profound memories with it was watching my cousin play a little bit of Twilight Princess on Thanksgiving in 2006.

Now part of the reason this is late is because I wasn’t sure what Zelda books I wanted to do this year and what Zelda books I wanted to do next year. Just because there are too many, and they can also be easily divided into categories. It was between what you see here or the Zelda manga, and seeing as I haven’t read all of the manga yet (even though I own all of it), I decided I’d save that one for next year. And I really wanted to do a Books I’m Thankful For post regarding Zelda stuff next year in particular because the Legend of Zelda series’ 40th anniversary is next year. I thought it would be nice and stuff.

Anyway, I love Zelda – I’m not sure if I’ve been clear enough about that or not, lol. And I really like the literature involved with it as well. All of it – to be clear! – but I’m only gonna focus on the strategy guides, and the lore and art books this year. (I’ll do the manga next year – promise!)

Regarding the strategy guides… Well, they were basically my first exposure to the “literature” side of the Zelda series. I got the strategy guide for Twilight Princess for Christmas in 2007 from my grandmother, who noticed that I was really fixated on the game, which had come out the year before. I treasure it greatly, because my grandma was very precious to me. Not just because Twilight Princess was and is my favorite game in the series, haha. But it was an incredibly memorable gift, and one I read more than once, even though I was already on my way to having the game memorized.

But that sparked an interest in me. And a few weeks later, I acquired a strategy guide for Phantom Hourglass from Best Buy. And years later, I bought the rest of the set myself. Seeing those books and their different colored spines is always so nice, and I’m glad I finally have them all. (Except for maybe one. I might be missing one strategy guide. But if I am it didn’t come with the set so that’s why. And I’m gonna correct it eventually if I am.)

And these guides are what got me hooked on the extra stuff in the Legend of Zelda. So when the Hyrule Historia came out for the 25th anniversary, you better believe I was all over that… translation. Yeah, they didn’t release that one in the west right away – we had to wait like a year for that. But in 2013 I did get a copy, and I adored it. The lore it added and/or confirmed was amazing. And it was just so cool in general.

And in the years after Art & Artifacts and the Zelda Encyclopedia released, and I got ahold of those immediately as they came out. They were just as awesome, even if the Encyclopedia did outright contradict or retcon a few things. (Art & Artifacts just has art and stuff – it’s really cool and very inoffensive noncontributory. I don’t think anyone has any problems with it.) I love seeing the green, red, and blue spines all lined up together. It’s beautiful.

So yeah, these are the books that I love, that I’m thankful for, that have had an impact on me, and that I’m gonna gush about this year for Thanksgiving. Also, it’s a bit late (again), but Happy Thanksgiving 🦃🥧 to everyone and anyone who celebrates it! I hope you all enjoyed good food with the ones you love.

What books are you thankful for? What are your favorite novels?

Thank you for reading. I’m always so thankful that anyone reads or follows my little blog at all. I hope you have a wonderful day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Monthly Wrap-Up: May Reading 2023

May Reading 2023

Sooo… this is a bit later than I hoped it’d be, but here it finally is – my monthly wrap-up with my May 2023 Reading statistics!

Anyway, talking about May – I’m not super happy with how much I read last month. My statistics were meh on The StoryGraph. It was the least amount of reading that I’ve done yet this year. But I kinda get that a lot of stuff went down this past month, so I didn’t have the time or the mental energy to get the stuff done that I wanted to.

Anyway, I’ve prattled on enough. On with the stats!

May 2023 Reading Stats

I read 3 books and 1171 pages

😐 MOODS: Adventurous was the biggest slice of pie once again. But there are a lot of different kinds of pie on the Moods graph this time. And they’re all pretty equal, which I found kinda funny.

👢 PACE: Unlike pretty much all of the previous months, fast-paced books were the biggest part of the pie. There’s still a chunk of medium-paced, though.

🔢 PAGE NUMBER: I read a lot of shorter books in May, similar to what I read in April. 300 to 499 was the only kind of pie here.

📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: I read a nonfiction book this past month! Yay, finally! This is probably gonna be a once in a blue moon kind of thing though, as I rarely read it.

🎭 GENRES: Fantasy was the biggest part of the graph this time, as per usual. Science Fiction was also on here like it normally is, but Memoir also made an appearance this time… cuz I read a memoir.

📄 FORMAT: The little StoryGraph pie chart for this is wrong once again. (Yeah, I’m never gonna fix it, lol.) 33% (one book) were printed copies, and 66% (two books) were digital.

⭐ RATING: My median star rating for the month of April was 4.33. I wasn’t all over the place with my ratings in May. I gave two books 4 stars and one book 5 stars. (According to my StoryGraph stats anyway. Once again, I didn’t add any of the manga I read to it. Otherwise there would’ve been two books with 5 star ratings.)

📉 PAGES READ DAILY: I read quite a bit during the first week and a half, but dipped down a ton in the middle. During the last few days of May though, I read a bunch.

The Books I Read in May

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

★★★★☆

My Review
The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

★★★★☆

My Review
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (The Manga) by Akira Himekawa

★★★★★

(rating is for entire manga)

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

★★★★★

My Review

Wrapping up the Wrap-Up

So yeah, May 2023 reading was kind of a bust. I know that a crap-ton of stuff occurred that I couldn’t control, but I’m still irritated with the reading and blogging that I was able to do.

I’m determined for June 2023 to be different. I’m going to read more books than I did in May, and then I’m gonna write reviews and post them. I’ve had an okay start so far, and I’m determined to keep up the momentum. And the May 2023 Reading Wrap-Up comes to a close.

Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Weekly Wrap-Up: 5/8 – 5/14

I had so much going on this weekend (sort of), so I didn’t have the time to post another time. Which kinda sucks, but that’s life.

I did completely reorganize my bookshelves though, so that’s definitely something. Now all the new books I’ve gotten this year have a home!

Anyway, here’s another weekly wrap-up for everyone. Let’s wrap-up last week!

Tuesday 5/9: The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook Review

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

Last Tuesday, I reviewed Brandon Sanderson’s new standalone science fantasy novel, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. It’s quite the band for such a fun book. I gave it ★★★★☆.

My review of The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook

Wednesday 5/10: WWW Wednesday

On Wednesday, I participated in WWW Wednesday like I usually do. WWW Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.

WWW Wednesday 5/10

Thursday 5/11: Books I’ve Read With Zelda Vibes

Thursday was a day that I was excited about. I did a little something different then – I blogged about books I read that reminded me of The Legend of Zelda games (and exposed myself as a huge geek). What can I say, I was excited about May 12th.

Books I’ve Read with The Legend of Zelda Vibes

Friday 5/12: First Line Friday

On Friday, even though it was exceptionally late, I actually managed to participate in First Line Fridays. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words.

First Line Friday #14

Books I Read Last Week

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (The Manga) by Akira Himekawa
(rating is for the entire manga)
The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

Goals for 5/15 – 5/21

So, I didn’t quite meet the goals I set for myself last week, but it was so worth it. (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is absolutely incredible, and so much fun, and super addicting.) But I’m determined to post two book reviews this week, and gosh darn it, I’m gonna do it! Also, I want to finish The Stardust Thief, and participate in the usual weekly posts I do.

Maybe I’ll do a couple of other posts too, but I’m not quite sure yet. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Books I’ve Read with Legend of Zelda Vibes

Books I've Read Like the Legend of Zelda, with a beautiful backdrop of Hyrule Castle during a sunset

Sooo… This is kinda out of left field. A bit of an oddball post, too. But, um, I’ve got something to confess to everyone.

I. Am. A. Huge. Geek.

There, I said it! Whew! So glad I finally got that off my chest. I mean, I’m sure it was pretty obvious, from the kinds of books I read, but I wasn’t completely sure.

Anyway, I’m a geek, and The Legend of Zelda is like my favorite thing ever. Ever. And there’s a new game coming out tomorrow – Tears of the Kingdom. So I thought, what better way to pay tribute to the franchise that I love the most, than to connect it to books in some way and post about it on my blog. (Where everyone can see it.) (Cuz the internet is forever.)

(Yeah…)

So yeah, I’m bursting with excitement. These last 24 hours or so are gonna be hell. But I’m still riding the high of the hype train nonetheless.

But I’m heading towards a tangent. Let’s get back to books with Legend of Zelda vibes. Here’s five books (or series really, they’re all series) that I’ve read that reminded me of Zelda.

If you’re interested in any of the books/series on this list, click on the corresponding images if you want to learn more information. I got ’em linked.

#1: The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

I thought I’d get the obvious one out of the way first. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is the progenitor of modern fantasy. Not just of books either. Of a lot of fantasy stuff.

Elf-like beings? Check. An epic quest to save the land from dark lord? Check. Magic and swords? Check. There’s a lot of similar vibes between these two series. Particularly if you watch the Peter Jackson movies and then play Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess.

#2: The Inheritance Cycle

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

So, I’m totally aware that The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini is a bit of an homage/ripoff of a lot of the fantasy that’s come before it. (And Star Wars.) But I haven’t read any of those books (except for part of The Lord of the Rings), so Eragon and its sequels are going on this list.

Farmboy is upended from his normal life and set on the path to defeating a dark lord? Check. Dragons? Check. Magical blue swords? Check. Magic sentient trees? Check. And, last but not least, elves? Check.

#3: The Seven Realms

The Seven Realms Series by Cinda Williams Chima

The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima is a bit of the odd-man-out in this list, but I still felt a ton of Legend of Zelda vibes while reading these books.

A kingdom in turmoil? Check. Very atmospheric and immersive? Check. A male and female lead, one a mage and one a warrior? Check.

#4: The Chronicles of Prydain

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

Of this list, I’m probably the least familiar with Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain. But I’ve seen The Black Cauldron movie that Disney made, and I’ve read the first book (and most of the second, I think), so I know enough.

Orphan boy upended from his quiet life to go defeat a dark lord? Check. A quirky companion or two? Check. A beautiful princess with a complicated relationship with said orphan boy? Check.

#5: Deltora Quest

Deltora Quest by Emily Rodda

Deltora Quest by Emily Rodda has a special place in my heart. I didn’t really read them until I was in middle school – and even then I didn’t get very far because I thought I was too old for them and got embarrassed – but I did like what I read.

Then, in high school I found the anime adaptation (yes, there’s an official, licensed, anime adaptation) and watched it. And I absolutely adored it, even though the voice acting was… not the best. I loved the world and the story so much though, and I hope to read through the entire thing for the first time soon, and then share it with my children when they exist.

(Also, its similarities to a quest in a videogame are deliberate. Rodda saw his much her kids enjoyed games and wanted to write a book/series that reflected them.)

Oh, almost forgot. An epic quest to defeat the dark lord? Check. Swords and magic? Check. Locating magical stones to unlock a McGuffuin of sorts? Check.

BONUS: The Legend of Zelda Mangas

The Legend of Zelda Mangas (Legendary Edition) by Akira Himekawa

This is cheating a little, but I just couldn’t help it. I absolutely HAD to plug the Zelda manga. Mangas. They’re just so wonderful – the kind of supplemental material that fans love. And they have gorgeous artwork and they follow the base plot extremely well, even if a lot of stuff is cut to meet the page count.

The Legendary Editions of the mangas are also fantastic. I love how colorful and distinct they are, not to mention their omnibus forms makes them a bit more convenient to shelve and store.

And I can’t talk about the LOZ manga without mentioning the crème de la crème.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (The Manga) by Akira Himekawa

The Twilight Princess manga adaptation is absolutely amazing. Dare I say, nearly perfect. (And that’s not just cuz it’s my favorite game in the series and I’m biased. Nuh-uh.)

The art is beautiful, just like the other mangas, which is not at all surprising. (They’re all written and drawn by the same author, Akira Himekawa (which is an alias for a mangaka duo).) But this time, the mangakas were allowed to adapt the game at a more sedate pace. So, instead of doing the entire game in a volume of two, they had eleven volumes to tell the story. And it makes a glorious difference.

But yeah, I gotta stop gushing or else I’ll just keep going on. Forever.*coughs awkwardly*

So, these are the books with Legend of Zelda vibes. Have you played any of the games? Have you read any of these books/series on my list? What did you think of them?

Anyway, as always, thank you so much for reading, and have a really, really, awesome day/night!

See ya ~Mar

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