Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne
The Princess Bride meets Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings.
Popular fantasy authors Dawson and Hearne gleefully take a whack at every fairy tale trope in the (standard) book. After being informed by the pixie Staph that he is the The Chosen One, Worstely, …
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse
Mycroft Holmes had three major strikes against it – 1. written by a celebrity 2. co-written with a professional writer and 3. a story in a major and wildly popular canon. However, after reading an excellent op-ed written by Abdul-Jabbar in the Washington Post, …
Jake Hobson
Do you have some scraggly, overgrown trees or looming bushes you’ve been meaning to trim back? Niwaki, the Japanese equivalent of topiary, is a fun alternative to the simple (often ruthless) trimming most Americans give their bushes. Cloud pruning, the simplest form, follows the contours of a bush’s …
Dr. Tara Westover
Westover’s memoir of life in an isolated, paranoid Mormon household is gripping, grim and terribly sad. Her bipolar father believes the End Times are near and they spend countless hours prepping. He also distrusts the government, the schools, doctors, safety gear and seat belts. His family pays …
Jane Willan
The author the Sister Agatha mysteries, Reverend Jane Willan, does a wonderful job evoking the peaceful life of a rural Welsh Abbey. Of course, being a mystery, there is plenty of murder and mayhem. But like many of the best mystery authors, the whodunnit is second to the …
Phaidon
Brutalism, or Brutalist Architecture, is aptly named. There is nothing soft, friendly, or accommodating about it. It is stark, harsh, hard, powerful and massive. Many Brutalist buildings have the strange ability to look simultaneously futuristic and highly dated.
A favorite of the Communist Bloc housing, fascist dictators like Mussolini …
This weighty tome, coming in at nearly 700 pages, is not nearly so daunting as it appears. Ninety percent of the book is large, gorgeous pictures with short descriptions of the (arguably) most notable pieces of furniture in the last 150 years. The book runs the gamut from: the mundane …
Dominic Bradbury with Photographs by Richard Powers
The seem to be an endless stream of collections featuring “the best…,” “the most iconic…” “this centuries most important…” buildings, furniture, artists and more. Bring ’em on, I say! They’re a fast, interesting way become familiar with various architectural, design and art vernaculars …
Chuck Klosterman
Klosterman, Gen-X’s pop-culture philosopher-in-chief, turns his gaze to the concept of villainy. In his own slightly hyperactive way, Klosterman skips from Machiavelli to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, O.J. Simpson to Snidley Whiplash and …
Tim Myers
Set in rural North Carolina, innkeeper Alex Winston struggles to keep his one-of-a-kind inn open. Despite being miles from the sea, his inn features a full-size replicate of the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. The series is a pleasant, low-key look at life in a beautiful, small town – …
Lorraine Bartlett
Author Lorraine (or LL) Bartlett writes the thoroughly enjoyable Booktown mystery series, a definite must-read for cozy fans. However, she has a lesser-known series that is, in many ways, more compelling.
Bartlett’s Jeff Resnick series follows a former insurance adjuster, now part-time bartender. After a nearly fatal mugging, …
Jeff Guin
There are some tragedies that are so mind-boggling and so bizarre that we can’t help going back to take yet another look. “Why would anyone choose to follow such an obvious, slimy charlatan like Jim Jones?” we wonder. But the story of Jones …
Jacka is a relative newcomer to the urban fantasy genre, but a most welcome one. His mage, Alex Verus, is the everyman wizard. He is an adept diviner – having the ability to see into the future and suss out the most likely outcome. But this skill conveys little respect …
Edgar Cantero
Cantero‘s modernist gothic horror novel is a ridiculously fun read. When Brit “A” discovers he has inherited a huge mansion and fortune from a previously unknown relative, the penniless student chucks it all and comes to the States. He and his companion, Niamh, a mute punker chick, …
Lauren Greenfield
“I told my kids that they might have to go to college now. They might actually have to earn their own money…I really don’t understand the financial community, especially when they get all that money from the government. I thought that rescue money…was supposed to be passed on …
Edgar Cantero
Scooby-doo meets H.P. Lovecraft. What’s not to love? Cantero’s hilarious novel blends the cheesiness of Saturday morning cartoons with creepy, supernatural beasts from the depths of the earth. Years after the Blyton Summer Detective Club solves its last case, the gang decides to reform and revisit the case. …
