A few years ago Sarah Weinman thought she was going to have a career in science, possibly of the forensic variety. But then she launched the crime and mystery fiction blog Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind as a way of procrastinating on her master’s thesis, and it literally changed her life’s path.

We can respect that.

We also respect her opinions on books across all genres, so much so that we’ve asked Weinman to recommend a new one for you to check out each Wednesday. (It’s amazing that she finds the time. The woman read 462 books last year.)

Learn more about her latest pick after the jump, and let us know in the comments area what you thought if you’ve already read it.

<em>The Manual of Detection</em> by Jedediah Berry

First I fell in love with the cover and the beautiful binding that turns this book into objet d’art. But then I succumbed to the whimsy and wonder of what was inside the book, Berry’s first, which uses the template of a detection manual in eighteen chapters — but wait, where did Chapter Eighteen go? — to spin a story of how one Charles Unwin, apprentice turned sleuth, uses dreams and fugue states to find out what happened to his missing employer, Sivart. Fall down the rabbit holes. Search for the missing alarm clocks. And prepare to expand your mind even a smidgen.

- Sarah Weinman

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