Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

The audiobook for Book of a Thousand Days was truly a treat for my shuttle rides & walks home from work. The production, the music, the voice acting! I felt transformed & taken to the world of Titor’s Garden and Song for Evela. I saw the endless blue sky, tasted Dashti’s cooking, and felt the My Lord’s soft fur. Hale transports us to the fairytale world of the open steppes in Book of a Thousand Days. We follow Dashti as she moves from mucker maid to lady maid due to her extraordinary talent of healing through song. Though she humbly writes in her diary that it is quite common, even the other muckers she meets note that she is more than she seems (and more than she thinks of herself).

Dashti is the only maid of Lady Saren that agrees to follow her into the tower that Saren’s dad locks her up into until she agrees to marry a beastly man. This sets the two young women on a journey: from dank towers to razed cities and khan’s kitchens to frozen battlefields. We see how much love and friendship can develop through these hardships and trials. But what I appreciate most is that Hale has a way of never letting anything get too dark or heart breaking. There is always a lightness and a magic to the story: I always knew that things will be okay. Hale weaves magic and longing and love and warmth into every line.

There is some growth and change too- Dashti learns to think for herself & not simply do what any gentry orders. Saren grows a backbone and bravery when it counts. Tegus decides to choose love and not marry solely out of duty.

Sometimes when work is stressful and the world is nightmarish, it helps to listen to a happy story. One that reminds me so much of my childhood and the books I’d read. I remember having some CD with recordings of fairytales with music, very similar to this. I would sit by my bed with its small canopy, looking out at the trees by my childhood home, and imagine fantastical things. Book of a Thousand Days let me return to this childhood sense of wonder and love. It was a gift to listen to.