It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila @ Book Journey. Want a good book to read? Stop by and see what’s new in the world of literature!

Tis the season for some great books! Despite my busy schedule, I’ve been reading some amazing books. It’s a great variety right now too, so they’ve been keeping me entertained. 🙂 Hope you’ve been reading some great books and enjoying this season of giving.

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley – If you haven’t read any of Bradley’s marvelous books yet, you must pick them up! His protagonist is eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, poison aficionado and amateur sleuth. It’s remarkable to capture the innocence and perfect tone of an eleven-year-old and still make her seem sharp and savvy so the targeted adult audience won’t lose interest. Not only are the English mysteries divine, but Flavia’s character is so unique that I’m sure you’ll devour these books as I have.

Habibi by Craig Thompson – The illustrious author of the autobiographical graphic novel Blankets has given the world another gem. Six years in the making, this tome was illustrated and written by Thompson and captures many stories at once: love, Christianity, Islam, history, action, suspense, and depth of character. I don’t know much about Islam, so the story that Thompson weaves is both magnificent and informative. Beautiful.

Death Cloud by Andrew Lane – I’m listening to this on CD and it’s a lot of fun. The narrator is British, but does a wonderful American accent in addition to his array of British ones. This novel is about a young Sherlock Holmes which Lane successfully captures. Sherlock has a strong group of mentors that guide him in his early deductive skills and a web of mystery that captures his curious mind. Definitely worth reading!

One Sweet Cookie edited by Tracey Zabar – My library was fortunate enough to host a cookie program featuring Tracey Zabar as well as Tina Casacelli who owns the bakery Milk & Cookies and recently penned a cookie book of the same name. It was a fun program plus there were cookies for everyone in attendance which were amazing! Today I tried two of these recipes and my fiance tried two separate ones for our annual Christmas cookie day o’ fun. While two turned out great (the Thumbprint cookies and the macaroons), two absolutely flopped! These recipes were sent in by renown bakers and pastry chefs and supposed to be home baker friendly, but although we each followed our recipes to a T they flopped. The Snickerdoodles were too solid and the Flourless Chocolate Cookies were too runny. Blech! While I’m sure there may be other good recipes, I think I’ll switch to a different cookie book for my next batches.

Happy reading!