I have had a decent reading year and this time I decided to do something a little different with the Best of the Year List. Usually I list the books on the list in no particular order, because I consider it too difficult a task to try and figure out ... more >
Pavlo Gets the Grumps by Natalia Shaloshvili For those days when everything feels blah, a picture-book-shaped hug offered with humor and tenderness by a gifted Ukrainian artist. Pavlo does not feel like going to the park. Not today. He does not want to go swimming. He even says no to ... more >
Graveyards by Alastair Horne Graveyards, burial sites and cemeteries are as old as human civilization, resting places and memorial sites for loved ones, the great and sometimes the infamous. Some of these places retain a poignant atmosphere that tells of heroic or deadly deeds – the 210 men of George ... more >
Go to Hell: A Traveler’s Guide to Earth’s Most Otherworldly Destinations by Erika Engelhaupt You can go to hell and back with the help of this one-of-a-kind illustrated travel guide to real-life underworld destinations around the globe. Full of intrigue, lore, and plenty of brimstone and fire, each of the ... more >
Cunning Folk by Tabitha Stanmore A spritely and deeply researched history of magical problem-solving in a distant, unsettled, and strangely familiar time. Imagine:it’s 1600, and you’ve lost your keys. You’ve scoured your house. They’re nowhere to be found. What do you do? In medieval and early modern Europe, the first ... more >
As always I am doing my Best of 2023 mostly in no specific order. I remember the years when I could pin point my best of the year book out of the books that I reviewed here at DA, but even that does not always happen. You will also see ... more >