Learn Something New

The Year of Cozy by Adrianna Adarme

This is a very cute book, and the images are beautiful. My biggest issue with it is some of the recipes and crafts use obscure ingredients and materials you would probably need to order online. The contents also seem to be thrown together helter-skelter. It was fun to read through though. 

259 pages

From Freezer to Table by Polly Conner & Rachel Tiemeyer

Although I thought their second book was better than their first, this one still has some great ideas on how to prep meals in advance for easy healthy weekday cooking. I love the idea of setting up a freezer club, where each person contributes a few meals and they all swap. Probably not a good idea for right now, but it's still something to keep in mind for the future!

233 pages 

Body Reading by Sasha Fenton

This short and sweet guide reviews how humans have traditionally attributed meaning to different parts of the body. The author goes through the reading of heads, hands, eyes, feet, even moles and itches.The chapter on phrenology was especially interesting. Does any of this actually reflect someone's personality and fate? No, but it sure is fascinating to read about what people thought and believed in the past. 

144 pages

The Witch's Book of Self-Care by Ann Murphy-Hiscock

This is a great collection of self-care techniques, meditations, recipes, and activities. I love how simple and clear the instructions are. They are all very doable with little need for materials. Self-Care is a huge focus for me right now, and this book is just what I needed. I may end up buying my own copy. 

224 pages

The Wizard and the Witch by John C. Sulak

Found this on a recommended reading list for fantasy titles at the library. These were two people that grew up reading fantasy and sci-fi novels and decided, hey, why does this have to be fiction? So, they created a church, raised actual unicorns, and were some of the first ones to shape and establish neopaganism and polyamory relationships as we know them today. Not really how I want to live my life, but hey, it was fascinating to read about.

Bizarre, yet oddly intriguing.

432 pages

The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale by Oliver Potzsch

This is the fourth and last book in the Hangman’s Daughter series, set in Bavaria in the Seventeenth Century. They all feature the Hangman of Schongau, Jakob Kuisl, his daughter Magdalena, and her husband,  medicus Simon Fronweiser.

In this book, Simon and Magdalena go on a religious pilgrimage to a monastery at Andechs. Upon their arrival, they are confronted with a drowned novitiate whose death is declared an accident – until Simon notices signs of violence on the body.  Brother Johannes, one of the monks, is arrested for his death, but as it turns out, Johannes is an old friend of Jakob Kuisl. Johannes begs  Magdalena to send for her father, because he, Johannes, is innocent and needs his old friend to help him prove it.

What follows is an convoluted story of intrigue, torture, thievery, murder most foul, scientific experimentation, and automata.  The monks and villagers view the latter as witchcraft, so Jakob and family must contend with superstition and fear as they try to find out who is behind all the plots and twists and turns they uncover.

Magdalena’s children are kidnapped and used as leverage in an unholy scheme, but in the end Jakob Kuisl, aided by Magdalena and Simon, solves the mystery and rescues brother Johannes and the children, although not before he is tortured, and the cathedral is burned to the ground.

I enjoyed this series, but it has some grisly, unsavory scenes, being true to an era when every town in Bavaria had its own hangman, whose job it was to determine those responsible for crimes by torturing them until they confessed.

 512 pages