In the spirit of Halloween (not the pop-up store), this diversion, and our upcoming book chat Zoom, will focus on all things spooky. I will use the idea of spooky loosely here to include: ghosts, vampires, gothic, witches, horror, and things that goes bump in the night. I must start by saying I … [Read more]
You by Caroline Kepnes
Bingo: Map. Obsessive narrator maps every detail of his stalkee’s life. Have you ever read a book so awful it actually made you angry? Such is Caroline Kepnes’s You for me. The plot is easily summed up: a deranged bookstore worker fixates on a customer, getting more and more obsessed so that he … [Read more]
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
Rating: 2.5 Stars In a nutshell: Author May explores the changing of the seasons and the different ways we weather the literal and metaphorical winters of our lives, as told sort of in memoir form. Best for: I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps those experiencing challenges right now? This book … [Read more]
A Divided Duty by Seanan McGuire
Trust the faeries to bring on the soap opera messes. One of the consequences of being both incredibly long lived—or even effectivly immortal—and being so variant that you’re more of a species cluster than a true cohesive group is that when the interpersonal dramas hit, they really hit. If you … [Read more]
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
Eighty-one year old Elsie Fitzpatrick lives on a quiet street in a quiet suburb of Melbourne. She has petty squabbles with her neighbors but nothing major. She'd prefer it if her neighbor's dog would stop going into her yard and if Persephone, another neighbor's precocious seven-year-old, would … [Read more]
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright
Have you ever gotten the feeling that here, in the time we find ourselves in, that perhaps everything is just a bit to much? Life is an omnishambles and you can’t bare to open the news because you can’t stand to see the news; is anyone going to care about the threats of climate change or emerging … [Read more]
Odessa by Gabrielle Sher
I’ve been a fan of Frankenstein since I read it for school and love seeing different adaptations and interpretations. Learning of a Jewish golem interpretation, I knew I needed to get my hands on it, and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to read Odessa. In many ways this is a tragic story, but in … [Read more]
