-
Mixing Murder and Mythology in Threads that Bind
I’ve loved mythology stories since elementary school, and 2023 has been an unexpectedly fun year for them. From VenCo to Thief Liar Lady to The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, this year has served up a number of remixes on tales from the past. The best of these stories, in my opinion, do more than simply…
-
The Housekeepers: Exploring the systems that keep rich people misbehaving
We’ll keep the Summer of Scandal going by breaking down the systems that enable Rich People to act up. There are certain levels of excess that can only happen when people are paid to make them so. When these systems work smoothly, they’re almost invisible – it can just seem like the wealthy have charmed…
-
What Money Can Buy: Bad Summer People
I’m back! Sorry for the long hiatus – I was in the midst of training and all of my fiction reading turned into case materials. But after a month of deep-diving into business problems, we are BACK with room to think more deeply about literary ones. And first on the list is Bad Summer People…
-
Amina al-Sirafi: an adventurous portrait of motherhood
I’ve been reading a lot of mystery lately, so I was very excited to pick up a copy of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and really lose myself in fantasy for a while. Going into the book, I expected a story different from others I’m used to reading (I don’t read a lot of pirate…
-
An ode to independent bookstores: an oasis of caring and exploration
Last Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day, and I (of course) bought a pile of books at my favorite bookstore in SF, Dog-Eared Books. There’s nothing like walking into a great bookstore, and I always leave with a stack of new reads. Not only that – I always find new books I could never find anywhere…
-
The Cozy Owlet’s favorite 2022 reads, Pt. 3: Fantasy
Happy New Year’s Eve! And welcome back to my end-of-year roundup of my favorite books of the year. Today, we’re taking a look at fantasy novels – a genre I hope to write about more in 2023 – and highlighting my favorite book of the year. My favorite fantasies: holding up a magic mirror to…
-
The Cozy Owlet’s favorite 2022 reads, Pt. 2: Mystery & crime
Welcome back to my end-of-year roundup of my favorite books of the year. Yesterday, we covered one of my favorite voyeuristic, meta-fictional genres, the epistolary. Today, we’re going to dive deeper into my “home base” genre – mystery and crime novels. These are: My favorite mystery & crime novels: clever protagonists making sense of our…
-
The Cozy Owlet’s favorite 2022 reads, Pt. 1: Epistolary novels
It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time to spend a moment reflecting. 2022 has been such a whirlwind of events – the war in Ukraine, Roe v. Wade, the Iranian protests, Elon Musk (sigh), a memorable midterm election… And it’s been a memorable year for me personally – in the last 12…
-
Breaking cover: a celebration of 2022’s most exciting book covers
You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I just can’t help myself. There are times when you look at a book and think to yourself, “I need that on my shelf.” These are book covers that tantalize, that intrigue, that promise adventure and emotion. They are the covers that get me…
-
Wrapping the Advent of Mystery: one final bow
We have made it through a week of Golden-Age murder mysteries together. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have. This has been the most ambitious series I’ve created so far, and it’s been such a treat to read and write. I started this series hoping to find some new authors and stories,…