The Overbooked Bibliophile

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “We may spend midwinter surrounded by warmth, good food, and companionship, but Christmas coincides with the darkest time of the year, and the legends we have repeated and adapted over the centuries remind us that beyond the glow of firelight, the shadows are waiting.” Meticulously researched and informative,  The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures  by  Sarah Clegg  is a fascinating read that delves into traditions and folklore that are rooted in the darker history of winter traditions in Europe. Featuring witches, ghouls, monsters, and other “wicked” creatures ( Krampus, Grýla, Mari Lwyd and Père Fouettard among others) the author takes us on a journey through history tracing back to the Ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, to the Kalends of January celebrated through Late Antiquity and how several traditions have evolved. “For most of the last two thousand years, the days we now call Christmas were a time when you ...

Rating: 4.5⭐️ In  Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark, author   Leigh Ann Henion combines scientific facts with her own life experiences, ‘lore and much more as she takes us across the landscape of Appalachia exploring the magical beauty of the nocturnal world and the living creatures that thrive after the sun sets. “Darkness turns familiar landscapes strange, evoking awe by its very nature, in ways that meet people wherever they stand. In Appalachia, as everywhere, night offers a chance to explore a parallel universe that we can readily access, to varying degrees. Nocturnal beauty can be found not only by stargazing into the distant cosmos or diving into the depths of oceans, but by exploring everyday realms of the planet we inhabit.” The author writes beautifully with a reverent appreciation for nature in all its wonder. A running theme in this stressing how artificial light pollution and the use of blue light technology...

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Meticulously researched, vividly descriptive and beautifully written,  The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi  by  Elin Anna Labba  (translated by  Fiona Graham ) is a powerful read. The award-winning author, whose grandparents were among the  sirdolaččat  (“the displaced”) paints an intimate portrait of the  Bággojohtin ,-the forced displacement of the Indigenous Sámi community between 1919 to the 1930s. The author states that approximately three hundred people were displaced during this period and the displacements continued even until the 1950s in Sweden as people were moved from one herding community to another. “One of the most frequently quoted Sámi proverbs says that the downy birch doesn't break in two; It merely bends. You bear your hurt alone, for breaking down want to make your daily life any easier. Your tears should fall unseen on your shawl. The philosophy of life revolves around the...

Rating: 4.5⭐️ “Not only did the ancient Greeks seem to have modelled gods in their mortal image, but they apparently chose their worst selves as the template.” Having read and loved  Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths  by  Natalie Haynes , I was eager to read the author’s latest work of non-fiction and I was not disappointed! Meticulously researched, factual, informative, and laced with the author’s insightful observations and trademark wit,  Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth  is an immersive read. While most existing texts (and much of the inspired art) depict female characters from the Greek myths predominantly from the male perspective which, though interesting, can certainly feel (on occasion) unidimensional, the author allows us to explore each of the goddesses and their myth with a fresh interpretation of their gifts and motivations, vices, and their lasting impact on the modern world. As the author states in her brilliant introduction,   ” W...

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “War sharply changes ways of seeing, changes feelings. Above all, it immediately changes the weight of a great many things, things that seemed necessary and obvious just a day ago.”  -From the Introduction by the author, Sky above Kharkiv: Dispatches from the Ukrainian Front Sky Above Kharkiv: Dispatches from the Ukrainian Front   comprises a series of social media posts written by Ukrainian writer-activist  Serhiy Zhadan   (translated from the original Ukrainian by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler) through which he documents the first four months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Reminds me of the Second World War. I’m referring to the occupiers’ ideology and moral imperative, first and foremost. They’ve come here to liberate us from us. They don’t even have a compelling narrative for those with weak stomachs. They simply want to destroy us, just in case, just because.”  (excerpt from author’s post on March 2, 2022) Origina...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “And there is no single word in any other language that means the same thing as the Welsh hiraeth, which I’m told is a refusal to surrender what has already been lost(akin, but not identical to homesickness).” Homesick: A Memoir follows award–winning translator Jennifer Croft (her character is named Amy) as she reflects on her childhood adolescence and early adulthood and how her relationship with her younger sister Zoe (real name Anne Marie) has shaped her life. We follow Amy and Zoe through their childhood in Oklahoma. They share a close bond as is evident from Amy’s memories of their fun and games, their secret language of communication and their affection for one another. Amy, older than Zoe by barely three years, is fiercely protective of her younger sister. Zoe is prone to seizures caused by a benign brain tumor. Zoe’s ill health and suffering affect Amy deeply but she takes it upon herself to keep her sister in good spirits amid the pain. Amy is also fond of pho...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Crying releases stress hormones. Swearing increases pain tolerance. Fury can motivate us into action. Feel what you feel. Silence and smiles aren’t the only way to respond to pain. Sometimes it is good to howl.” I read this one slowly, deliberately spaced apart over two months. I reached for this book during a particularly stressful time. I wasn’t reading much during that phase but I kept this book close to me. I usually don’t read self-help books because in most cases I find them a tad “preachy” (no offense intended, personal opinion). Having enjoyed Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, I decided to give this book a try. Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book   is a short book filled with thoughts, reflections, stories, lists and much more written in simple words that are insightful, thought-provoking and yes, comforting! While I didn’t find all the passages/entries equally inspiring, I was moved by more than a few that I read and reread multiple times. I’m happy to have The C...

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Real-Life Murder Clubs: Citizens Solving True Crimes by Nicola Stow gives us a look into the world of citizen sleuths. Unlike investigators who are actively involved in solving these cases in an official capacity, these individuals/groups work with whatever information is available in the public domain. As the author mentions that while she had initially assumed that she would be meeting people similar to Richard Osman’s characters from his popular Thursday Murder Club series she found that the real-life versions of citizens attempting to solve crimes were “grittier, inhabited by obsessive, intrepid souls who delve into some of the most gruesome cases in true crime history, while seeking justice and truth for both loved ones and strangers.” Concise yet factual and informative, this is a well-researched book. Divided into twelve parts; each detailing the crime/crime scene and the sleuth or group/initiative involved in working on that case. From simple internet researc...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Yes, life always takes the side of life, and somehow the victims are blamed. But it wasn’t the best people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was random!” Whether you’ve read it or not, I’m sure you’ve heard of  Art Spiegelman's Maus . First and foremost, in 1992, Maus became the first graphic novel to ever win a Pulitzer Prize (the Special Award in Letters). Decades later, in 2022, Maus is still in the news, because a school in Tennessee removed the book from its curriculum, deeming it “inappropriate” on account of language and nudity. When a book is controversial/banned, I tend to want to read it more. I hope there are more like me out there (including those kids who are being deprived of the opportunity to learn about it in school! It's a true story of a Jewish man who survived the Holocaust. This is history . It happened!) In his brilliantly crafted graphic novel, the author tells the story of his Polish-Jewish parents, Vladek and Anja Spiegelman,...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ At the age of fourteen, Stella Levi, the youngest of seven children born to Miriam and Yehuda Levi, leaves a packed suitcase near the door of her family home in the Juderia, the Jewish Quarter on the Island of Rhodes. The suitcase was symbolic of her aspirations - to finish school and attend university in Italy, to travel and learn and see the world beyond her sheltered life. But life had other plans for her. Seven years later, on July 23, 1944, she is one of the 1,650 Jewish population of Rhodes who are rounded up by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz, along with her parents and immediate elder sister Renee. It was one of the longest journeys (in terms of both time and distance) of any deportation during the Holocaust. Ninety percent of her fellow Rhodeslis would not survive the concentration camps.

My Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A Wealth of Pigeons  is a collection of cartoons created by famed illustrator/cartoonist  Harry Bliss  and veteran actor, comedian and writer  Steve Martin . I picked this book up (it was gathering dust on my shelves for over a year) after reading two emotionally taxing books back-to-back and needed a light-hearted read. This was perfect for a ‘pick-me-up’ and I enjoyed laughing myself silly over this delightful collection of ridiculously funny cartoons (and captions) on a variety of subjects including animals, aliens and outer space and of course the exploits of the common man. We even get a few multi-panel frames in which the collaborators give us a glimpse into their creative process,  Bliss and Martin appearing as cartoon versions of themselves!

My Rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐ In The Diary of a Bookseller, author Shaun Bythell shares a year in his life as a bookseller through a series of journal entries written between 2014-15. Since 2001, Shaun Bythell owns and operates 'The Bookshop' in Wigtown , the Book Town of Galloway. His store is the largest second-hand bookstore in Scotland.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “When does a migrant become a refugee?” Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins spent seven years covering the war in Afghanistan. In the course of his work, he meets and befriends Omar, who acts as his guide and translator. Despite his serving as an interpreter for the Special Forces and having worked with USAID, Omar’s efforts to emigrate to the USA are unsuccessful on account of his being unable to procure all necessary documentation. As the situation in Afghanistan worsens and fearing backlash from the Taliban, Omar plans to emigrate to Europe traveling via the refugee route. He is reluctant to leave without Laila, who he loves but whose family opposes their marriage. Eventually he has to leave without Laila, promising to come back for her.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “We owe it to the dead to keep their memory alive by reminding the world of its responsibility never to forget. For to face the future one has to understand the past.” In 1939, we meet twelve and a half-year-old Mala Szorer in the Polish village of Tarnogrod where she lives with her family – parents, grandfather and siblings. She is happy and hopeful, attending school and dreaming of finishing her education and joining her eldest sister Balla in Warsaw. WW2, anti-Semitic sentiments and the takeover of their village by the German Army lead to her education being halted, Jews being segregated from the Christian population, and her whole family plunged into poverty.

My Rating: 4.5⭐ From Hollywood with Love by Scott Meslow is an exploration into the popularity of the romantic comedy (rom-com) genre of movies covering a span of over thirty years starting from the late 1980s through the 1990s to the present day. The author addresses the immense popularity of this genre in the 80s and 90s, followed by a period that saw a decline in interest and the favorable response to romantic comedies in the present day. Not only does the author talks about celebrated studio releases (such as When Harry Met Sally, Love Actually or the more recent Crazy Rich Asians) that are representative of the genre but also takes a look at how contemporary web streaming services have contributed to the revived interest in romantic comedies in today's day and age (citing the example of the To All The Boys I Loved Before series of movies released on Netflix).