The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most FoulEleanor HermanBook club “…people living in terror of poison were, in fact, poisoning themselves every day of their lives, through their medicine, cosmetics, and living conditions. At Europe’s dazzling royal courts, beneath a facade of bejeweled beauty, there festered illness, ignorance,…
Tag: Horror
What I read: June 2025
The Memoirs of Stockholm SvenNathaniel Ian Miller “To each side, ice accumulated in pinched slag heaps. The crevasses must have been terrible indeed, and I shuddered at the thought of peering into the void of one. A cold exhaled breath from some deep place where the world knew only freezing, crushing, grinding, and time measured…
What I read: October 2024
A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache #2)Louise Penny “I think people who have had that experience and survived have a responsibility to help others. We can’t let someone drown where we were saved.” When the newest resident of Three Pines is electrocuted in broad daylight in front of the whole town, few mourn her loss…
What I read: September 2024
The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of ScienceSam Kean “…when we sacrifice morals for scientific progress, we often end up with neither.” Scientific research and testing has brought us incredible knowledge about everything from biodiversity to treating and curing disease. But dig through the notebooks or…
What I read: August 2024
The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T. rex and How It Shook Our WorldDavid R. Randall “The T. rex, the king of our prehistoric world, played an outsized role in the making of the modern one…Rather than a mirror into the past, the creature proved to reflect the concerns of the present.” With the discovery…