Curl up by the fire with the perfect book recommendation.

BY ANNA I. SOCHOCKY

Single-digit temperatures. Water trough skating rinks. Ice crystal whiskers. When a riding day becomes a reading day, brew another cup of coffee and start catching up on your reading.

MEMOIRS

Rough Magic

Lucy Prior-Palmer is the youngest person and the first woman to win the famed Mongol Derby, a 600-mile race through Mongolia. Now, she’s also the author of Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Loneliest Horse Race.

Dazed and confused best describes Prior-Palmer. She flits between dead-end jobs and farfetched plans requiring money or motivation she doesn’t possess. Emerging from high school without a clue and still living with her parents, Prior-Palmer casts her fate with one computer click and enters the Mongol Derby.

She eats all the snacks she packs on the first day and finds GPS coordinates inscrutable. Instead of falling off a horse, she entangles herself in her backpack. Finishing one day of the race, let alone completing it alive, seems improbable at best.

At dawn each day, Prior-Palmer hauls herself onto another wild pony and gallops into the Mongolian desert. Native herders point her in wrong directions. Swarms of rat colonies teem under her horse’s hooves. Toilets are a misnomer. Extreme heat and biblical storms track her like bad habits.

BIGGUNSBAND/SHUTTERSTOCK

As Prior-Palmer battles with the elements and her psyche, what began as a lark becomes a drive to win the race. Armed only with a bungee rope to tie her pony du jour and her ankle together when she misses the deadline to reach a race station,

Prior-Palmer inches up on her competitors.

Readers know that Prior-Palmer wins the race from the start. The book’s engagement comes from the author’s self-deprecating humor and poetic language. An eye for her competitors’ flaws and the absurdity of her challenge to win, the least-expected, least-respected person becomes a champion.