Why Bernie Sanders Matters by Harry Jaffe

5 out of 5 stars.

I won this book as part of the Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

I don’t normally read autobiographies or political books but I entered this giveaway anyway as I was intrigued by Bernie Sanders but admittedly didn’t know much about him. I was surprised that it drew me in so quickly and I finished it in a day, finding it hard to put down. It was well written and had a nice story like flow to it making it interesting as well as easy to follow if you are not politically savvy. I would recommend this book whether you are a big Bernie fan or just mildly curious about who he is, where he came from, and what he stands for.

Available on Amazon at the link below:
Why Bernie Sanders Matters

A Peach of a Murder: A Fresh-Baked Mystery by Livia J Washburn

1 out of 5 stars.

All year round, retired schoolteacher Phyllis Newsom is as sweet as peach pie-except during the Peach Festival, whose blue ribbon has slipped through Phyllis's fingers more than once...Everyone's a little shook up when the corpse of a no-good local turns up underneath a car in a local garage. But even as Phyllis engages in some amateur sleuthing, she won't let it distract her from out-baking her rivals and winning the upcoming Peach Festival contest.

She and all the other contestants guard their secret, original recipes with their lives-and talk a whole lot of trash. With her unusual Spicy Peach Cobbler, Phyllis hopes to knock 'em dead. But that's just an expression-never in her wildest dreams did she think her cobbler would actually kill a judge. Now, she's suspected of murder-and she's got to bake this case wide open.

I bought this book from my local library book sale. I absolutely love cozy mysteries and this one sounded interesting. Unfortunately I had a hard time finishing it. It's very hard to like a book when the characters are so extremely unlikable. I hated the main character, Phyllis, the most. She is just so self righteous and a busy body that it made it easy to despise her. Her "friend" Carolyn is also easy to dislike as she came off as rude and snotty. I'm not sure why they were referred to as friends either as it did not come off that way. They constantly talked down to one another and acted like everything was a competition between them. The rest of the people were just kind of there. As far as the mystery part was concerned, it bothered me that even though there were 2 murders, only one really garnered any attention in the book and the ending left me rolling my eyes. I doubt I will read any others in this series.