The Toadstool Bookshops of Keene, Milford, and Peterborough, NH

Edward Marston has been writing historical fiction for 30 years, and fortunately I finally discovered him with the Railway Detective series. The first book in the series introduces the dapper inspector Robert Colbeck and his slightly rough around the edges assistant, inspector Victor Leeming.

Marston is writing a series that is great, curl up in a chair and enjoy, detective fiction.

Dispatches is war correspondence written not as a journalist would report for a newspaper but more as someone writing letters home or keeping a journal of the war, full of killing fear, drugs horror and the dark humor of Viet Nam. Written in the language and with the sensibilities of the era, Herr's book is poetic and disturbing. Reprinted as part of the Contemporary Classics line, the harsh and honest nature of Dispatches makes it one of the most surprising additions to Everyman's Library.

The Gift of Thanks tells about all the rituals of Gratitude we take part in everyday and by comparing how they are carried out - or not - in other cultures and by searching out their historical roots, leaves us feeling their importance in our lives all the more.

Cloud and Ashes is a book that begs to be read and reread. A first reading allows you to soak in the music of the language. Rereadings allow you to go deeper in understanding of the story and to catch hidden references, puns, and meanings, still leaving you with the sense that you’ll never run out of discoveries to make.

Greer Gilman is a true wordsmith and Cloud and Ashes is a collection of three fantasy stories that is probably unlike anything you’ve come across, dense with folklore, myth and symbolism and placed in a country setting where the senses are nearly overwhelmed.