I've been feeling extremely lethargic lately, so I'm afraid this week's post will be rather perfunctory. Normal service may resume next week...
What if there were such things as fairies? And what if they were studied as a recognized discipline? In Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett, Professors Emily Wilde and Wendell Bambleby from the Dryadology Department at Cambridge are on an expedition to the Austrian Alps. Their mission serves a dual purpose: research for Emily's mapbook of all known faerie realms and their doors, and attempt to find the door to Wendell's own realm (he's a king of the faeries, you see); finding their eminent long-missing colleague would be a coup. Having quite enjoyed the first novel in this series (Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries), I was interested in seeing where the story would go from there, and it didn't disappoint. Poisonings, ribbons, and even a supernatural cat, oh my! Canadian author's Heather Fawcett has a witty, humorous and engaging style that makes this an amiable diversion. I look forward to the next instalment of her heroine's adventures!
I listened to an audiobook that's also part of a series, The Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman. Its main character is a bright young widow searching for her place in society in early 19th century London, until police indifference at the murder of the man she found dead during a ball reveals her life's mission. I thought the social subtleties of the time, against the background of politics and war, were very well demonstrated. The novel specifically exposes and persuasively conveys the fragility of women's situation in society, their precarious position dependent almost entirely on men. I've already put a hold on volume two.
Frugality has become an essential life strategy. Flexibility is key, which makes it essential to learn about multiple approaches that can then be adopted and adapted to one's specific situation. As a result, I've been looking for new resources both online and in my local library. I came across Plus riche que tu le penses! : Couponing, planification et autres stratégies pour économiser au quotidien by Katheryne Aubert, whose contents are particularly relevant to my part of the world. She offers a variety of useful tips and concrete strategies to obtain discounts (along with examples), as well as tools, charts, and other suggestions aimed at saving money. Although I was already familiar with most of these measures, there were some that I'd forgotten about or that had never occurred to me, so it was definitely worth a read.
I'd intended to write about the series finale of "Penny Dreadful," but the less said about that, the better.