This mystery features Pepper Keane, a private investigator who has been hired to examine the seemingly unrelated deaths of three mathematics professors who study fractal geometry. Pepper is an interesting character as he suffers from mild depression and major existential angst, but has a good heart (and likes to exercise). Pepper also has a wide range of friends who are willing to help his investigation by committing slightly illegal acts. I enjoyed this book, the unusual topic (fractal geometry), and I gained some insight into the academic world, at least for mathematicians.

This is the 6th book in a series featuring Mandy Dyer. Mandy runs a dry cleaners she inherited from her uncle and solves mysteries in her spare time. In this book, one of Mandy's long-time customers dies and leaves her a bag of old dresses with buttons sewn all over them. Because of how the customer was found dead, Mandy is suspicious that her death was an accident, although the police believe this to be the case. So Mandy takes it upon herself to solve the crime and prove it was a murder, and enlists the help of a private investigator (and potential love interest). This is a light but pleasant story, with quirky characters, and an interesting mystery.

This book was charming. It's full of lighthearted British humor, but also has a serious message. There's even romance. This book has it all.

Wow, this book was amazing. And a true story. Can you imagine remembering not only the day of the week of February 1, 1982, but also what you did that day, what you ate, and what you watched on television? This was the most interesting book I have read in a long time. Highly recommend.

The book is an attempt to explain why Europeans ended up with the guns, germs, steel, and other technology that they used to take over the rest of the world. Much of the book is centered on food production, and finds that a strangely high concentration of domesticable large animals and large-seeded grains were native to the Fertile Crescent, which had a similar climate to most of Europe. From that initial spread of farming, the more obvious contributors to Europe's colonial expansion could develop. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a very good read for anyone interested in history, and the explanations it provides seem very sound. Although a huge amount of complicated research likely went into the book, it is easy for anyone to understand Diamond's points.

Based on the author's life, but at least partially fictional, Shantaram tells the story of an Australian escaped convict who finds a new home in Bombay. He learns Hindi and Marathi, becomes a "doctor" for one of the slums, ends up in an Indian jail, joins the Bombay mafia, and goes on a weapons smuggling mission into Afghanistan during the war there against the USSR. Action-packed and full of good quotes, this is a very good book. If even a quarter of the events described actually happened, the author has had a crazier life than anyone I know. It was recommended to me as a way to learn some of India's culture in a way that a westerner would understand, and I think it did a very good job at that. It is a long book, but I had a hard time setting it down and never tired of it.

A young man from Africa's east coast, of Indian origin, goes inland to take over running a store. The book is presumably set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, though it is never named explicitly. As time passes, the town at the river bend grows and modernizes, and the narrator and his friends slowly change. I thought this was an ok book, but it didn't catch my attention more than that. It spent far too long talking about an affair the main character had, but no simple change would have made the book seem much better to me.