fiThis week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a fun prompt: “Book Titles That Include the Word [insert word of your choice here]”, and I glanced around my shelves and took a bit of a guess at what might be interesting, picking the word “city”. Let’s see what I’ve got!

1. The Masked City, by Genevieve Cogman.
   I don’t entirely know why, but this is one of my favourites of this series — something about the atmosphere, and we’re still learning about the world, and because it’s strong on the Fae elements… And perhaps because it’s Venice.
2. A City on Mars, by Kelly & Zack Weinersmith.
   A great non-fiction look at how we could settle on Mars, what technology we’ve got that would work and what we still need to develop. Sadly, they’re not very optimistic — but it’s still a fascinating read, and they’re fun writers.
3. The City in Glass, by Nghi Vo.
   An absolute fever-dream of a book: I keep repeating that description, but it’s apt. It’s gorgeous and grotesque and weird, and I had a great time with it.
4. The Buried City, by Gabriel Zuchtriegel.
   The author is the director of archaeology at Pompeii, and this book is about Pompeii, so of course I was interested! It isn’t only about Pompeii, also musing on why archaeology is worth doing and what archaeology can do.
5. City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett.
   I actually want to reread this one so I can finish the trilogy — I only read the first two books. Both were really fascinating, and I do enjoy a fantasy mystery.
6. The Drowning City, by Amanda Downum.
   I’ve got to admit it’s been a long time since I read this one, but I remember enjoying the series a lot (though perhaps especially the second book, The Bone Palace). I can’t vouch for it as current-me, but past-me really enjoyed it.
7. The Shambling Guide to New York City, by Mur Lafferty.
   This is also a book I read quite a long time ago, and the details are somewhat obscured by time… but I know I enjoyed it, and found it a lot less gimmicky than I’d expected from the title.
8. The Just City, by Jo Walton.
   This is a fascinating thought experiment about how people might enact a thought experiment for real, and I really enjoyed the ride.
9. In the Watchful City, by S. Qiouyi Lu.
   This prompt is proving excellent at resurfacing books I’ve really enjoyed! In the Watchful City was a great novella, though perhaps not for everyone (I just stumbled across someone else’s review where they hated pretty much everything about it, haha — and I did understanding their points).
10. City of Bones, by Martha Wells.
    There is so much going on in this book, from weird gender stuff to different species interacting and fantasy archaeology, and I really need to reread it.

NB: some of my linked reviews are quite old, and I don’t know if I stand by my thoughts and feelings from back then! The suck fairy might’ve visited in the last decade+ in some cases. I’m just going by fond memories and enthusiasm, and maybe I’ll revisit some of these books myself.