What makes this book especially satisfying is its sensory richness. The attention to detail is so precise you can practically smell the bread cooling on the racks, the sharpness of cheese, the damp stone after rain. It is comfort reading with substance: sunshine and laughter paired with the everyday complications life throws at us, and the quiet resilience required to meet them.
This is not a book about capital-H heroes. Instead, it centers on people who engage in small acts of service, kindness, and yes, heroism—not for recognition or glory, but because it was the right thing to do in the moment. These are stories of people showing up when it would have been easier not to.
The Locked Room is clever, cozy without being complacent, and deeply satisfying for puzzle-lovers. If you adore classic detective fiction but crave a fresh perspective, Harriet White deserves a place on your shelf—and very likely, in your reading rotation for a long while to come.
About the Book: A Treatise on Martian Chiropractic Manipulation and Other Satirical Tales Human beings are flawed creatures, and humor is the perfect means to exploit the endless fodder of our shortcomings. This multi-genre collection of twenty-one short satirical stories will leave you smirking, chuckling, scratching your head, and maybe even muttering to yourself […]
There is also something deeply comforting about the cultural shorthand Spencer-Fleming uses. References to PBS, public radio–adjacent sensibilities, and a certain late-20th-century, educated-Northeast worldview made me feel instantly at home. It is clear the author lives in or very near my cultural zeitgeist, and those small, knowing touches add a layer of authenticity that is easy to underestimate and hard to fake.There is also something deeply comforting about the cultural shorthand Spencer-Fleming uses. References to PBS, public radio–adjacent sensibilities, and a certain late-20th-century, educated-Northeast worldview made me feel instantly at home. It is clear the author lives in or very near my cultural zeitgeist, and those small, knowing touches add a layer of authenticity that is easy to underestimate and hard to fake.
I adore pens and pencils. Always hankered after a Mont Blanc but made-do with Sheaffer and A+W. Fountain pens with black ink were pretty much de rigueur back in the day when I was a total pen snob. Though it is said that blue ink is more restful and easy on the eyes, black seemed ideally classic to me. Now my passion is cheap mechanical pencils. I love the idea of having an eraser though I don’t use it all that much. It fits my indecisive personality far better than indelible black ink.
One of my other great comforts (vices) was coffee mugs.
Nothing like a new pair of shoes that fits well to raise the spirits…with the possible exception of new socks. What a pleasure to slip them over your toes, covering the sole and instep all the way up to the ankles, maybe a reminder of the coziness to be found in a one-piece Dr. Denton’s were it not for that disquieting back flap. Delicious simple pleasures.