A small #bookhaul from a local indie closed due to covid. Browsing might not be allowed but I like to help out in any small way that I can! 📚

Some new additions! #bookhaul 📚

#Currentlyreading outside this beautiful day! Unintentionally my book matches my tea!

Took a looong unintended break from Litsy so here‘s a #shelfie featuring some of my penguin cloth bound classics that I‘ve been collecting!

Breakfast and a book! Today I‘m pairing my new read with homemade gingerbread and gingerbread coffee!

This was a sweet graphic novel about a young witch finding her powers. Some Salem witch trial parallels. Lots of obstacles having to do with family and belonging. Great for a fall read!

This one was a later Christie. Just ok in my opinion. Not very exciting even though it featured a murdered child, a first for Christie. It also didn‘t seem to have much to do with Halloween; only the murder took place during Halloween. There just wasn‘t the atmosphere I was looking for.

As a major fan of Hitchcock who acknowledges his problematic tendencies this was a fascinating book on the actresses&characters they played in some of his most famous films including Grace Kelly in Rear Window Tippi Hedren in The Birds Ingrid Bergman in Notorious&Janet Leigh in PsychoThis coffee table book goes into the actresses‘ experiences in working with the famed director their roles&their wardrobesFilled with beautiful photos&trivia tidbits

This was a cute story filled with magic, witches, werewolves, and a touch of rekindled romance. I felt some Practical Magic vibes. The art was very good. I‘m just left wondering what mooncakes taste like!

Very unsettling supernatural/psychological horror mashup that gave me Lolita and Rosemary‘s Baby vibes. Fourteen year old Elizabeth is not your average teenager, nor is her mirror an ordinary mirror. Not when the ghostly Frances talks to her through it anyways.

This graphic memoir chronicles Forney‘s diagnosis with bipolar disorder, her initial refusal to take medication for it for fears of how it would after her output as an artist, and also some independent research into the connection between famous artists throughout history and mental illness. She uses a more cartoonish style in some panels, while other pages are ripped directly from her sketchbook for a more immediate feel.

This was a super cute story and art combination. Perfect to kick off fall and it makes me want to visit a pumpkin patch!

Poirot is in a race against time to save an innocent man from execution in this mystery. Mrs. McGinty‘s dead, but who would want to brutally kill an ordinary charwoman with meager savings? Of course Poirot uncovers the truth.

This was a great witchy read to usher in the fall season. I just can‘t resist a book with plot points pertaining to the Salem witch trials. Though some parts were predictable (I could see the villain coming from a mile away) I still got sucked into the details of the story.

Mortician Caitlin Doughty travels the world to examine other cultures‘ funereal and death practices, including the Mexican Day of the Dead, Bolivia‘s skull (ñatita) festival, and Japan‘s high tech cremation centers. All these practices and more are put in stark contrast to the American way of death, namely embalming and burial. Doughty makes the case that we‘ve lost our connection to death to our detriment.

More short stories from Agatha Christie, this time featuring not only Poirot but Miss Marple and Parker Pyne too! I‘ve never read anything featuring Pyne so I enjoyed his cases particularly.

Hercule Poirot solves twelve cases based on the classical myth of the labors of Hercules. Some cases are more interesting than others, but the audio was still enjoyable.

Sayers pokes fun at gentleman‘s clubs in this Lord Peter Wimsey mystery. When elderly General Fentiman is found dead in an armchair at the eponymous club, an investigation is launched into his exact time of death in order to figure out who receives a large inheritance. But a couple things seem funny about his death, from the lack of rigor mortis in his legs to the missing poppy on his lapel. Was the old military man‘s death hastened along?

This graphic novel had a lot of weird/creepy/fantastical elements like a road trip to a town in West Texas that doesn‘t exist on a map, a maybe magical cat, and some seriously eerie law enforcement, but it all gets grounded by the underlying friendship between Lou and Bea. Both are running from their pasts for their own reasons, and it was a nail biting, slightly surreal journey to the end.

An in depth look at the science behind the poisons Agatha Christie used in some of her novels, with sections on history, antidotes, and real life cases. Very interesting stuff as Christie had a background in pharmacology so her descriptions of poisons were usually accurate. I love the cover too!

Listened to this one digitally on audio, great narration as always by Hugh Fraser. Poirot is sent to investigate when a wealthy man dies from an illness and his relative meets a bloody end with an axe after making a comment that he was murdered... Lots of twists and turns.

Fantastical horror short stories from the master, Ray Bradbury. I‘ve read some of his shorts before but I thought with autumn officially here it was time to sit down with a full collection. And I was not disappointed. Dark, creepy, atmospheric, and unsettling!

This quick ghost story—or is it?—had me guessing until the very end and beyond. You don‘t know who or what story to believe. Every version seems plausible...

Loved this Baba Yaga tale and the illustrations are awesome! Masha was a wonderfully kind, quick-witted, and resourceful heroine after answering the old crone‘s help wanted ad in the paper.

Fascinating look at why we get scared, why some types of people seek out scary situations, and why some proclaim to love getting scared. The author, a sociologist, collects data from her own personal experiences and that of others as she rides the most intense rollercoaster in the world, spends the night with a group of ghost hunters at Eastern State Penitentiary, treks through the suicide forest in Japan, and other chilling adventures.

Ooh spooky! 👻

A fascinating history of the United States in haunted places, including cemeteries, parks, government buildings, whole cities, and of course the ubiquitous haunted house. It doesn‘t really delve into the paranormal question of whether ghosts really exist or not, but rather analyzes the reasons why we come up with these ghost stories. Now I‘d like to visit some haunts near my city! 👻

Poirot solves four utterly beguiling cases in this collection, including a mysterious suicide, a set of important lost papers, the death of a controlling patriarch, and a deadly love triangle. Agatha Christie never disappoints!

A witty romantic comedy of aristocratic British life. Polly Hampton is bored of upper class society and the expectation of marriage thrust upon her by her overbearing mother, but a secret soon tears them apart as an elderly suitor pursues her. Meanwhile a flamboyant heir visits in preparation to take over the estate, but nothing works out quite as expected.

This behemoth, chock full of essays, photos, interviews, and playlists, increased my love for Beastie Boys even more! Now I have a bunch of new music to check out! At some point I might try the audiobook too.

This was a fascinating book of early medical history during the Victorian era, combined with a biography of the health crusader Joseph Lister. Wash your hands everyone!

This was a very cute manga about the life of some forest sprites and their adventures. I‘m not sure if I‘ll continue with the series but I really liked the friendship of opposites between Hakumei and Mikochi.

Truly terrifying novel with a shocking twist that I don‘t think has lessened much in time. Several people are plagued by malicious, twisted phone calls...then a couple end up dead. Who is toying with these people, and why?

Like many, I was so saddened to hear the news of Toni Morrison‘s passing. I was also ashamed it took me so long to get to this beautiful novel of family and belonging, steeped in biblical allusions and magical realism. This might be my second favorite of her novels, after Sula.

Both a domestic suspense and an in depth character study of a wife trying to hold her household together while her husband is away at war, this novel describes the lengths this woman will go to in order to protect her family, even as it gets her involved in murder, extortion, and the criminal underworld.

Aside from the clunky title, this was an amazingly disturbing portrayal of psychopathy in its dissection of the parallel situations of two men. One man has killed his wife, while the other fantasizes about killing his while becoming obsessed with the other wife‘s murder case, with terrible consequences for all.

A couple going to a dinner in NYC leave their young daughter with the wrong babysitter in this nail biting suspense novel. Every parent‘s worst nightmare.

A campus novel satire/murder mystery hybrid. When a popular English professor is found murdered in his apartment, a snappy journalist and student are on the case. The novel shifts perspectives quite jarringly, making it an unconventional mystery.

Two juvenile delinquents plan a home invasion/robbery with the help of an unsuspecting girl, but their plans go horribly awry when some professional criminals decide to get in on the action.

Nothing is as it seems in this feminist hard boiled noir, especially not the “femme fatale” Laura. A detective investigates the death of the eponymous Laura, looking into all possible suspects, including her fiancé and older male friend, all the while struggling not to fall in love with this specter of a woman.

This was a slow burn epic sci-fi romance set partially in space and at a boarding school. Really intriguing concept with the all female society and tons of diversity but I guess I found it a bit too slow, at over 500 pages. Lovely artwork though!

Easily one of the scariest books I‘ve ever read, period. Just a creeping sense of dread throughout, then that gut punch of an ending.

Emma is a very complex, tragic, and at times frustrating character but I‘m glad I finally read this classic of realism. I really enjoyed the translation.

This was a selection of lumberjanes stories from a wide variety of authors and illustrators. Some of them I enjoyed more than others but it was still a fun read.

Fantastic art and storyline about abusive and toxic high school relationships and finding the courage to finally remove them from your life.

This was a fun little self-contained graphic novel set in the Lumberjanes universe. I really loved the art. Molly and Mal evaluate their relationship while on a navigational hiking trip that quickly goes off the rails because of a malfunctioning magical compass. Of course the lumberjanes find their way back to each other again!

Dark, sensual, vampiric. I only wish this short comic was longer! Definitely good for a reread around Halloween.

In this volume, Coco grows and learns more as a witch when she finally lets go of some of her insecurities and confidence issues. Her strength is undermined by the Knights Moralis, who seek to wipe her memory after she unknowingly practices forbidden magic. It ends on a cliffhanger so I‘m looking forward to the next one!

Loved this collection of graphic short stories, only wish they were longer. Strange, weird and wonderful tales of a woman who keeps shrinking, a bed bug infestation, a cult like skin care product, a variation of Facebook that makes characters question reality, plus many more. Sketched throughout with seemingly effortless illustrations.

So I broke my own rule and watched the movie before reading the book... I was surprised by all the similarities, but more shocked by the ending. Both are visceral and unsettling to the very end.