House of Glass is a platypus of literature. The book has a body of one creation and a tail of another one. It starts as a gothic mystery but turns into War and Peace in the end.

What is the book about

It’s a story about Clara, a young woman whose bones are fragile like glass and whose emotional state has also been shattered by a recent loss. Clara is hired to work in a glass house of an old estate, and of course the estate hides many mysteries which Clara will try to solve.

What I liked about the book

The gothic part

The book creates a perfect gothic atmosphere. There is an old mansion, spooky sounds, and a history of complicated lives.

The mystery

I absolutely loved Clara’s attitude which turned a spooky story into almost a detective one.

Characters

The characters are not either good or bad. They are multidimensional and complicated. It’s hard to come to final conclusions about them.

Storylines

There are many storylines and they are all connected on some level.

Chekhov’s guns

Each detail mentioned in the story has its function.

What I liked less

Women’s rights agenda

I know it’s a sensitive topic so I’ll try to tread it carefully. I understand the necessity of acknowledging the problems, both historical and current ones, but modern female-authored literature seems to be overusing the topic to the point that it’s starting to repel people rather than draw the limelight to the problems.

Random villain

It feels like the characters were drawing straws to pick up a villain, and the one who landed the role didn’t really fit it.

The platypus tail

When I want to read War and Peace, I read Tolstoy. If I am drawn to the book by its gothic atmosphere, I prefer the atmosphere to persist till the end.

Final thoughts

It’s a well-written book with an interesting and complicated plot that for the most part combines mystery and gothic. If it was not for the ending I would have easily given the book five stars.

Some books are like mystical creatures. I don’t know the exact numbers but they are rare. Maybe they are even a disappearing kind, although I hope not.

These books make you slow down and think, but not in a boring, obligatory way. You can fly through the book if you want to, but you will be robbing yourself. Alternatively, you can slow down, pay attention to each phrase, savour it and see it unwrap all the treasures it’s been saving for you.

That’s how good Virgil Wander is.

I like how even the name of the book implies some mythology and unusual characters although the book doesn’t sound pompous or overloading. It is deep, but in a very accessible, reader-friendly way.

Virgil Wander is about many different characters inhabiting a small town. Most of them are loveable, not only because they are special but also because of the things they do and say. There’s an old guy who flies kites. There’s a younger man who plunged his car into cold waters. There’s a sheriff whose cat walks with him everywhere like a dog. There’s also a creepy guy who’s charming and polite, but who scared the life out of me every time he appeared in a scene. I do not know how Leif Enger, the author, managed to achieve this effect. Virgil Wander is one of those books I cannot dismantle to see how it’s done, I can only enjoy it.

The book is really funny but not in a circus way. Its humor is genuine, clever and heartwarming.

I loved the book so much I started tweeting about it straight away. I underlined so many phrases, and now I can return and admire them again. Just look at some of them:

“He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry”

“my memories of her are more tender than specific”

“He had a close, curious way of observing people. You could mistake it for admiration.”

“Nothing seemed like the right thing to say, so that’s what I said for a while.”

Aren’t these pure treasures? There’s a whole book of them!

Some moments left me wondering, but not in an annoying open-ending kind of way. The book comes as a package: the book itself and all the thoughts that you will be having after you finish it. I can’t wait till 2nd October when Virgil Wander will be out so that you can read it and we can talk about it. I strongly recommend you do read it.

I’m very thankful to Leif Enger for this wonderful book, and to the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

I saw the GIF, I judged the book by its cover and I fell in love with it. The book’s fate seems to be posing and being beautiful in pictures because its arrival to my place coincided with my day trip to the neighbouring “Moon”. Today I took it for a photo shoot in Rozafa castle, Albania.

The book is non-fiction. It’s called Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior. It was written by Leonard Mlodinow. Its title basically says what the book is about. And that’s what the book’s cover does:

That’s how the book was exploring the castle.

The book has a high rating of 4.05 on Goodreads. Its cover is not that cool as the GIF suggested but it’s still nice.
The first few pages are slightly too boring for a book on such an exciting topic. Of course, I’m not going to give up that soon.

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I love that you can still see the witch in the picture and that she’s smiling. Can you see her?

Anyway, meet the new face of Reader Witch!

Just for the record: I won’t get any money if you order anything from him too.

I’m omnivorous when it comes to the medium. I consume books from paper, e-books or audiobooks. My Kindle library is spread throughout several gadgets, including the actual Kindle.

Out of a wrong habit I try to minimize physical copies, so I buy them only when there’s no e-book available. My main reason for doing so will sound funny to some, and, probably, should sound funny to all. I’m sad for the trees. The reason is wrong because, apparently, books are not made from some free wild forests. They are made from the trees grown specifically for this purpose. Thus, it’s better for our air. The more books we buy the more trees they plant, the more oxygen is produced while the trees are growing. As for plastic Kindle and other gadgets… Well, you know where I’m going with this.

Another advantage of a physical copy is that it’s yours. No publisher will knock on your door and take the book back because there was some mix-up with license. That does happen to electronic versions. You also won’t be prosecuted for passing your copy to a friend, or simply leaving it on a bench in the park. But what is it called when you leave your book online for others to read? Right, it’s a crime. As a cherry on top, with a physical copy nobody is spying on you. What you browse, like, dislike or underline in the book stays only with you, unless you decide otherwise.

Still, my library is dominated by electronic copies. I wave off my privacy, my freedom to handle a book the way I see fit, in exchange for emptier shelves and lighter suitcases. And, well, for a life of a tree