The Wordhord by Hana Videen

Here is a book for the word-nerds among us.  Ms Videen is a scholar of Old English and this entire book explores the origins and oddities of certain Old English words. She starts the book by explaining the differences between modern English, Middle English and Old English.  While many people can understand Middle English pretty well, Old English sounds like a foreign language to modern English speakers.  Videen posits that by learning Old English we can come to understand the culture and look inside the thought processes of people living 1000+ years ago.  This book was published by Princeton University Press and is pretty academic.  I am not sure how much appeal it would have to the general public, but I loved it.  I love ancient languages and have studied Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew. This book made me want to go back and learn Old English too.  I was fascinated to learn that there are only about 200 texts written in Old English that still exist. I had never before thought of the challenge of trying to figure out what a word means when it only appears once in all existent texts.  I loved learning how medieval Englishmen put terms together to describe the people and things in their lives. I also was struck by how much Christianity permeated everything they did in 1000 AD and it made me realize how much our modern western culture has strayed from that. Finally, hats off the the narrator of the book, Sara Powell, who had to read all of the crazy Old English words.   (2022, 296 p.)

Seams Deadly by Maggie Bailey

 Lydia is starting a new life after a painful divorce by working at a fabric store in a small town in Georgia. She has been reluctant to reenter the dating scene, but after her first awkward date with Brandon, the guy next door, he turns up dead in his apartment.  Lydia discovers that she is the top suspect, and so decides she needs to solve the mystery to keep herself out of a life sentence in prison. As she starts to talk to people around the close-knit town, she soon discovers that there is more than one person who had a motive to kill Brandon. It is hard to think one of her new friends is a murderer, but it is hard to deny that it had to be someone within her own friend circle. Can she figure out who it is before she is sent to jail by default?

I have read several "baking" mysteries and this book seems to have the same vibe, but with sewing instead of baking. It was alright. It is in every way a "cozy" mystery, with a lot of the people being really nice to each other, except for the killer, of course. Bailey does a pretty good job introducing the reader to all the quirky people in the village. The author sets up plenty of suspects, with plenty of clues.  I wondered if the book would have sewing projects at the end of each chapter instead of recipes like they have in the baking mysteries.  It didn't, but it did describe some sewing projects in the book that would be interesting to try. (272, 273) p