Reading List
The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (cozy mystery)
In Defense of Plants by Matt Candeias, PhD (non-fic)
The Hand in the Dark by Arthur J. Rees
I’m half done with The Magpie Murders, after a spate of reading, followed by nearly a year-long break, and now a couple months more of steady progress. I’m not normally a cozy-mystery reader, but this book sounded interesting and a little different. My husband read it, and he liked it quite a lot, which is why I decided to give it a try.
The way it hit my brain is rather odd, because when I put it down the first time, I’d read nearly half, and decided it just wasn’t really grabbing me. But when I picked it up after all that time away, I could easily remember everything that had been happening when I left off, which isn’t normal even for books I’m really enjoying. I normally have to go back quite a ways to pick up in something I’ve left that long (or just start over), but I easily just picked up the thread and kept reading with this one.
So the mystery stuck with me, even though it didn’t feel like it would. And then…I got to another part that reminded me that it’s actually a story within a story, which was disorienting again.
It’s…just a bit odd.
Have you read it? Did you like it?
In Defense of Plants is just a really beautiful little book. I started reading it on Earth Day and then put it down when I picked up The Magpie Murders again, but I have no intention of leaving it unfinished. The writing flows easily, the illustrations are gorgeous, and even just the whole feel of the book from the cover to the page paper is aesthetically pleasing to me. More books should be published like this, with so much care to the package as a whole. I really just love picking it up, honestly.
The Hand in the Dark was included with the big box of antique books I got for $20 at our local bookstore (see last week’s post), as an example of the types of books that would be included in the box. I’ve only just read the first chapter, but I’m excited already. There’s a house with a long and spectacular history of burning and rebuilding and defense and generational warring…all on a patch of land surrounded by a moat (naturally).
I’m both intrigued and anxious to find out what’s coming next!
What are you reading? Anything interesting I should add to my TBR pile?
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