Cozy

I felt the need to read something simple and comforting after my unexpected discovery that Miss Benson’s Beetle was anything but (see previous post), so when someone on the Facebook reading page asked for cozy mystery recommendations, I… Read More

Misspers

Quite by chance, I ended up reading two books in a row about missing persons. The first was Force of Nature, by Jane Harper, one of her Aaron Falk series, and the second was Liane Moriarty’s latest, Apples… Read More

Murder in Alaska

I just finished the first two Kate Shugak mysteries by Dana Stabenow—A Cold Day for Murder, and A Fatal Thaw. Stabenaw started publishing this series in 1992, so I don’t know how I have completely overlooked it until… Read More

Standards, genres

I find I don’t often enjoy the books that mainstream book clubs are out there touting like mad; or sometimes I do enjoy them, but it’s more like an unhealthy sugar rush than a savored meal, something you… Read More

How’s the weather?

I may have mentioned (once or twice or a dozen times) that I am not much of a romance reader. I’m not fond of the prevailing tropes of enemies-to-friends or city-folk-migrate-to-a-small-town-and-fall-in-love; I find the ways many romance authors… Read More

A World of Curiosities

I was late to the party reading Louise Penny’s most recent in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series—they reliably drop in the fall of each year (although this one, coming out in November, was later than the usual… Read More

Manufactured mystery

I tried out a new mystery writer, D. D. Black, on the recommendation of someone on “What Should I Read Next?” and I’m feeling a little conflicted about whether to continue after the first two books. On the… Read More

Zig-zag

I recently discovered that Elly Griffiths, who writes the Ruth Galloway mysteries and has three volumes in a fairly recent story line starring Harbinder Kaur, has yet another series, called either The Brighton Mysteries or Stephens & Mephisto,… Read More

Re-wilding

Scottish-American conservationist John Muir, the “Father of the National Parks,” once wrote that “…when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else.” John Muir This quote was specifically called into use… Read More

Short stories

I get offered daily e-book bargains—freebies, or super-cheap prices—by BookBub, and sometimes I take them. I have learned, however, to first look up each one on Goodreads to see its average star rating and read some reviews; sometimes… Read More