Norwegian Wood

It’s no secret that I’m interested in Japanese entertainment, as well as the language itself, but most of my interest is limited to mysteries. I’ve only recently started watching more anime and live-action Japanese shows to improve my listening, but I still had a huge gap in my knowledge of Japanese literature in the shape

The Night Manager

Sometimes it can be interesting to read outside of your typical wheelhouse. You might learn something about storytelling and construction, but you might also remember why you don’t step out of your comfort zone that often. With all those risks, I usually only try it when I find a random book at a little library,

Olga Dies Dreaming

I’m not entirely sure why I picked up Olga Dies Dreaming, but I’m glad I did. It might have simply been the cover. If Folklorn has proved anything, it’s that colorful covers featuring heavily stylized women always grab my attention. It could have also been the fact that Barnes and Noble had nearly 20 copies

The Darkest Clearing

It’s an interesting experience to read a book that’s been written by someone you know. I touched on this briefly during my review of Blind Man’s Bluff, but that one was only written by an author I met at the same time I discovered his book. There’s only one book I’ve read entirely because I’d

The DWaM Top 5

One of the most influential authors to my writing, at least in recent years, is an author whose name I don’t know. You won’t find him at your local Barnes and Noble or on Goodreads, and all of his work is available for free. Though he has called himself a mere amateur in the past,

The Big Bow Mystery

I previously talked about The Mystery of the Yellow Room on this blog, and today’s topic is a similar story I came across just after finishing that one. Both books have a lot in common—both feature a locked room murder, involve a rivalry between two central detectives, and were published before my grandparents were born.

Anatomy of a Soldier

I’ve always had an interest in war stories, though I’m not sure why. I’ve never served in the front lines of armed conflict nor has anyone in my family. I certainly don’t subscribe to the militarism behind so many of the bravado-ridden wartime books out there. I think it’s the strange interplay these stories present

The Mystery of the Yellow Room

Gaston Leroux’s The Mystery of the Yellow Room is one of the oldest locked room mystery novels, and one of the oldest mysteries in general. Released in 1908, the novel has been repeatedly praised by mystery authors—and even their characters! Agatha Cristie’s Hercule Poirot and John Dickson Carr’s Dr. Gideon Fell both cite the Yellow