Welcome back, everyone! We’re talking book recommendations!
This time, we have a couple non-fiction titles, a mystery, and more cozy fantasy. While cozy fantasy is having a moment, I sincerely hope I never get tired of it because I’m just having so much fun. Are there are subgenres you’re just loving right now?
As always, let me know what recommendations you’ve received recently!
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The Bookshop and the Barbarian
We’re still on the queer, cozy fantasy train! Choo, choo!
Explore its many rooms, pick something nice off the shelf, and have a little read by the fire at the Cozy Quill Bookshop.
Running from strife in her homeland, Maribella Waters becomes the new owner of the fabled Cozy Quill. After finding squatters on her property, she employs Asteria Helsdottir, a giant, barbarian warrior woman more accustomed to swinging an axe than opening a book. Together, the odd couple must make a success out of the bookshop—and survive a dizzying procession of seasonal festivals.
But the local evil noblewoman has other plans in mind. Threatened with being run off the land, Maribella and Asteria must use their wits to outsmart Lady Malicent and keep their business open. Along the way, the whole town lends a hand, friendships are forged, and mysteries are revealed.
The Bookshop and the Barbarian is a low stakes, comedic and cozy fantasy with a slice-of-life, sapphic romance. It is about the celebration of books, autumn and winter, community, friendship, and unexpected love. There is plenty of fourth-wall breaking, and a narrator who may or may not be a green slime. And it is also very patiently waiting for you to pick it up and read it.
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Cry, Baby
I saw my friend reading this one and posting to her Instagram stories. As someone who use to be averse to crying and has really learned to open up and be vulnerable (thanks, therapy!), I’m curious!
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The Decagon House Murders
If you’re wanting more locked room mysteries a la Agatha Christie and want some variety in setting, check this one out!
“Ayatsuji’s brilliant and richly atmospheric puzzle will appeal to fans of golden age whodunits… Every word counts, leading up to a jaw-dropping but logical reveal“ — Publishers Weekly
A hugely enjoyable, page-turning murder mystery sure to appeal to fans of Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz, and Agatha Christie, with one of the best and most-satisfying conclusions you’ll ever read. A classic in Japan, available in English for the first time.From The New York Times Book Review:
“Read Yukito Ayatsuji’s landmark mystery, The Decagon House Murders, and discover a real depth of feeling beneath the fiendish foul play.
Taking its cues from Agatha Christie’s locked-room classic And Then There Were None, the setup is this: The members of a university detective-fiction club, each nicknamed for a favorite crime writer (Poe, Carr, Orczy, Van Queen, Leroux and — yes — Christie), spend a week on remote Tsunojima Island, attracted to the place, and its eerie 10-sided house, because of a spate of murders that transpired the year before. That collective curiosity will, of course, be their undoing.
As the students approach Tsunojima in a hired fishing boat, ‘the sunlight shining down turned the rippling waves to silver. The island lay ahead of them, wrapped in a misty veil of dust,’ its sheer, dark cliffs rising straight out of the sea, accessible by one small inlet. There is no electricity on the island, and no telephones, either.
A fresh round of violent deaths begins, and Ayatsuji’s skillful, furious pacing propels the narrative. As the students are picked off one by one, he weaves in the story of the mainland investigation of the earlier murders. This is a homage to Golden Age detective fiction, but it’s also unabashed entertainment.”
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The Dress Diary
EC Spurlock put this one on my radar and mentioned the topic might be of interest of the Bitchery. I believe the author is also touring, so check out if she’s coming to a bookstore near you!
A revealing and unique portrait of Victorian life as told through the discovery of one woman’s textile scrapbook.
In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments – some her own, others donated by family and friends – she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of their lives. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes.
Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Using her expertise, Strasdin spent the next six years unraveling the secrets contained within the album’s pages, and the lives of the people within. Her findings are remarkable. Piece by piece, she charts Anne’s journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years. Fragments of cloth become windows into Victorian life: pirates in Borneo, the complicated etiquette of mourning, poisonous dyes, the British Empire in full swing, rioting over working conditions, and the terrible human cost of Britain’s cotton industry. This is life writing that celebrates ordinary people: not the grandees of traditional written histories, but the hidden figures, the participants in everyday life. Through the evidence of waistcoats, ball gowns, and mourning outfits, Strasdin lays bare the whole of human experience in the most intimate of mediums: the clothes we choose to wear.
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The Decagon House Murders has been on sale at Amazon/Kobo US for a few days now. It was originally published in Japan in the 80s, so has some sensibilities of the time, but it’s a good read.
Were dress diaries common? Or was this a remarkable invention by an ordinary woman?
@Laura: During one of my many Antiques Roadshow UK viewing marathons (thank you, ROKU Channel), I seem to recall a fabric diary being appraised. I have no clue if it’s the one that Strasdin writes about in THE DRESS DIARY, but I did grab a sample of the book from Amazon this morning and read the preface: apparently Strasdin is familiar with at least one other similar fabric scrapbook from the 1800s, but I don’t think it was a very common item for women to create.
Has anyone in the bitchery read The Bookshop and the Barbarian? The first review that GR shows me claims that it has harmful representation. Since that is an unknown-to-me reviewer, I hesitate to take their word as gospel. But I also hesitate to try the book myself. (My spoons are needed elsewhere.)
@ReadKnitSnark – I have read this, it was recommended in r/cozyfantasy, I’d call it more silly/funny than cozy. I don’t recall anything offensive but different folks have different triggers. I don’t recall much of the plot either. There are some cartoonish characters played for laughs so maybe that’s what this reviewer didn’t like.
I’d say it has a similar vibe to Robert Asprin’s Myth Adventures, with a narrator who talks directly to the reader which can be funny or grating depending on the reader.
I got a couple pages into Bookshop/Barbarian and noped out over something, but i don’t remember now if it was a specific thing or i just got bad-style-for-me vibes from the intro. I like other cozy fantasies a lot but this one i put down almost immediately.
I just read a potentially cozy fantasy book that I loved, kind of to my surprise. I say that only because it had not a single bit of romance in it, and the cover shows an angry-looking dude shouting. It’s called The Splintered Crown (A Tankards and Heroes Novel) and I picked it up because I’m on a panel with the author (Larry N. Martin) at a con this weekend. The basic premise is there’s a rundown pub with a “resident demigoddess” who hangs out and sends would-be heroes on quests through a magic portal. Five down-on-their-luck friends decide to try it so they can get the money to buy a farm in the country where they can live in peace. They are given a quest with a series of tasks, which of course involves each of them growing/learning. (And, they seem somewhat aware that “this is how quests work.”)
Objectively, I can see that the plot (based on random tasks) is sort of contrived, but I just loved how this book felt. I can’t figure out what about it worked so well for me. But I was picking it up to keep reading every time I had five minutes all weekend. While there is some fighting/danger, it felt cozy to me because each task ends and they leave it behind, and as they journey (with a map), they are able to spend the night in “lychgates” at cemeteries that offer some protection. The lychgates felt so cozy! Plus they have a sack that magically churns out bread, cheese, dried fruit, and cured meat, the standard questing fare.
I’m reading The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes at the moment. The author says “The dress diary in my possession is rare, but is not the only one of its kind to remain. One famous example was created by Miss Barbara Johnson, starting in the middle of the eighteenth century and continuing into the early nineteenth century”. She also talks about dress scrapbooks in the context of other collections made by 19thc women.
On The Decagon House Murders, I’m surprised the blurb says “sure to appeal to fans of Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz, and Agatha Christie” – as I’d have thought the styles of these three are very different.
And I started The Bookshop and the Barbarian but couldn’t get on with it at all. No sign as far as I got that the main character is likeable, and the fourth wall cutesyness got me down.
Dress diaries were common! There’s a book by dress historian Serena Dyer that looks at some of the few existing diaries. Material Lives is good but is more academic.