Books! A Brief History of Montmaray, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, and Voices

There is nothing like cutting rocks on a buzzsaw and finding grit on your face and down your top hours later, nor crushing and milling rock samples and finding your hair (and nosehair) coated with very fine dust. THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF A GEOLOGY STUDENT, I TELL YOU.

Anyway, this entry is about books! I recently read Voices by Ursula Le Guin and A Brief History of Montmaray and its sequel, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, by Michelle Cooper. The problem is that I think everyone should read these books and yet I want to talk about them with spoilers, so here is the deal:

You will go out and find and read these books immediately and then read the rest of this entry, and/or you will get your hands on some type of memory-altering substance and apply it immediately after you read the rest of this entry, at which point you will go out and find and read these books. Simple, eh?

( Actually I managed to review A Brief History of Montmaray without any major spoilers, but there are a lot for Voices under here. )