Unraveled Wednesday | The Blanket's Tale (part four).

Joining in with Kat and friends to share what I hope is the final in-progress update on Sara's blanket. I leave for New York next Wednesday and my plan is to have the finished blanket wrapped and packed on Tuesday!

As long as I don't lose focus, I should be fine. That row marker (7 repeats into the fifth and final color) tells me I have 23 repeats to go. I was averaging five repeats a day until this past week (when I slowed down a little) ... and if I can get back to that pace I'll finish with a couple days to spare. A few of you asked how big it would be. I'm guessing about 43" wide and 55" long, but the yarn is super wash and it could be bigger (which wouldn't be a problem). I have one more skien of the main color ... the end is definitely near!

The slower pace of knitting was partly because there was less TV (and we still haven't seen the latest Patrick Melrose), but also because there was other cool stuff to do.

Like a pedicure.

same color as last time - a coat of OPI's Frenchie Likes to Kiss topped with a coat of Bubble Bath - new summer favorite!

Two visits with my friend Deena

Deena's knitting Sunset on the Plateau ... it's gorgeous and has us both very excited for Kirsten's upcoming MKAL

and her dog Roxie.

yes, it felt very weird to have another dog on my knitting ... but I know Sara would love Roxie!

and two meetings of the author selection committee for this November's book festival.

I couldn't knit during the meetings because we moved quickly - reviewing over 60 books in the two two-hour meetings! - and I was taking fast and furious notes. But Deena is the co-chair of the committee and had to be there early. No problem, I said!

At the end of last night's meeting, each of us got to vote for our top 22 books. The first 15 or so were easy choices for me ... but the last few were tough. The committee leaders meet tonight to review all the votes; the final slate, taking into consideration the authors' schedules will be available in August. Some of the books I loved are already out and I plan to start reading as soon as I can track them down (these are books I will likely buy because I will - hopefully! - have a chance to meet the authors). More to come (since of course all of this is still confidential!)

I'm pretty sure Sara would enjoy a few of the books, too ...  maybe curled up on her sofa with the blanket!

I hope you're having a good week ... and sharing at least a few good experiences with your knitting!

Unraveled Wednesday.

The only thing that has unraveled this week is my thinking that I could finish Calyx by Sunday, when the Sweater KAL in Elizabeth Doherty's group on Ravelry ends.

I still have two shoulder pieces to knit and join, then two sleeves, a neckline and a hem to pickup and knit. And plans today and tomorrow that won't allow much knitting time. So yeah, probably not gonna happen. But soon, for sure, because the knitting is just plain fun. The pattern is - of course - extremely well-written (I'm now on page 10 of 16) and - of course - very cleverly constructed.

On the reading front, I haven't made much more progress on As Bright As Heaven (I still haven't gotten to the flu part), but I'm almost finished with Winter's Tale. I have a little less than two hours to listen and I'm hoping for an awesome ending to redeem the somewhat sloggish two-thirds through point I hit yesterday (yep, 20 hours into a 28 hour book and I was ready to quit!) We'll see. It's  a very good thing that I've got such an interesting sweater on the needles or I'd have a lot less patience for the book.

Up next in the ears I have Ready Player One and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Hopefully they'll be good company for the stockinette in the round (Edie) and long rows of garter stitch (Bateaux Mouches) that I'll have left on the needles once I finish Calyx.

Joining in with Kat and crew this week ... what are you unraveling?

Three on Thursday | A Reading Update.

If you read the title of this post, I'm sure you're wondering how I could possibly share a reading update - even just a little over three months into the year - with only three things. Well - I'm only going to share three images 😉.

Image one - tracking the only reading goal I made for the year - to buy fewer books.

That 13% is just five books - three were definitely impulse (must keep reading) purchases, but two were for Lent - one for my daily devotion and one for my small group (I always buy those books). I'd like to see the blue "pie" get a little bigger - likely at the expense of the red, but honestly, I'm ok with where I'm at.

Image two - tracking the book format.

When I shared my January update, the Audio percent was the same (yeah, I know, that does seem weird, but I think it's right!) but the real book percent was higher (17%). Since then, I finished 28 more books and only four were real books. I'm tracking this because I'm curious ... I'm not surprised I read more with my ears than my eyes, but now I'm wondering about what kind of books are better to listen vs. read (I'd love to hear what you think!) ... and how about the segue into 

Image three - my year-to-date favorites.

shelved here

I curate this shelf pretty closely because I like to keep it to no more than 12-14 titles (that's about 15% of what I read). It's not just 5-star books. and a book that I shelve here early on might not make the cut come December. Only two of those books are audio (the first two in the Scarlett Women series I talked about in January) and I rated both of them four stars (in other words they weren't great, but I enjoyed them immensely). Eleanor's biography (blogged here) and Interrupting Silence were real books I read with my small group. and the others I read on my Kindle (four borrowed, one bought this year - Gentleman in Moscow, which I bought last year on audio and wanted to read this time).

Hummmm.... in years past, I know I've listened to plenty of 5-star books. This year, I'm enjoying reading them. and I LOVE to read on Kindle because it's easy to highlight, easy to read and eat (or knit ... since no hands required and only one finger to turn the page) and easy to navigate (x-ray! dictionary!). like I said ... hummmmm....

All that said - and especially considering that favorites shelf, I think the year is off to an OK start. I'd like to improve the quality (year-to-date, I'm averaging just over 3.5 stars and I'd like that to be closer to 4) and keep an eye on those top two charts. 

Summer Bingo will be starting next month (!!) and that always adds a bit of spice - and FUN! - to the mix. 

If you read this far, thank you! I would love to hear your thoughts on reading with your eyes vs. ears. or maybe what book you think should turn up next on my favorites shelf.

Carole does an awesome job hosting Three on Thursday. Check out her blog to see what she and others have shared!

Unraveled Wednesday.

Hello and Happy Almost Thursday!

I am making slow but steady progress on my second Quintessential Cardigan. But - I'm worried I won't have enough yarn. I have no idea why I just assumed I would, but ... I did! After I knit that first sleeve, and was a little into the back - maybe when I joined the 2nd or 3rd ball? - I noticed that I didn't have a lot of balls left. I weighed the sleeve, weighed all the yarn I had left, looked at my notes from last time and realized I was going to be close. Worst case, I can knit short sleeves - which will mean unraveling the one I already knit - and best case, I'll be ok.

This morning, I finished the first front and got the scale out again.

On the left are the first sleeve and first front. On the right is the yarn I have left. That yarn needs to knit a second sleeve, a second front and a neckband. I'm cautiously optimistic.

I've started the second front and I'll do the neckband next. Stay tuned!

On the reading front, I just started listening to The Signature of All Things ... and when I grabbed that link I saw that a few of y'all didn't care for it. I'm just two hours in (with 20+ more to go), but so far, I'm enjoying it. We'll see! (cautiously optimistic again.)

Check out Kat's to see what everyone else is knitting and reading - hopefully all good stuff!

Unraveled Wednesday.

Not everything has been going my way lately, but thank goodness, the knitting and reading are not letting me down. Since last Thursday, I've started two of those spring cardigans. The sleeve-as-swatch has dried and I think it's going to work out fine. and the purple Quick Sand has really kept me entertained.

I'm a huge fan of the design, which Heidi has published for two gauges - Fine Sand (lightweight) and Quick Sand (heavier weight). This is my 4th time knitting it (1, 2, 3, 4), so it feels really comfortable - and rather than put all the stitches onto waste yarn to try it on before separating the sleeves, I simply measured it against its three cousins. It looked good ... but this morning I was thinking the gauge was maybe big?! ... so I put all the stitches on waste yarn and tried it on.

whew, right?! There is even a little part of me that thinks a new sweater is a reasonable tradeoff for laying low this week. (a very little part!)

On the reading front, I've finished a lot of books. I have a reading update planned for early April and I'll share more then, but for now,

The Great Alone - too much domestic violence to justify finishing
Winter - so good!
The Power - amazing!! recommending to any and everyone, especially the fierce young women
The Coffeehouse Mysteries - I picked this series up through Overdrive because it was available - I just finished listening to #2. Perfect ear candy for me right now. a little sex, a little mystery (I didn't figure out the murderer in either book - but that's not saying much) and a LOT of coffee (which is a very good thing for me). I also love that it's set in NYC.

Joining in with Kat and friends ... and hoping nothing important has unraveled for you!

Three on Thursday | Travel Knitting and Reading.

I wish I could say I was packed and ready to go, but I'm not. My knitting and reading, however, are set!

1. Knitting. In a bold move, I'm taking just one ball of yarn to knit one thing. That's nearly 800 yards of laceweight merino/silk and size 7 needles for a Bateaux Mouches for me. 

2. Ears. No bold moves here - I've got Kristin Hannah's latest - set in Alaska (15 hours) and the 3rd Walt Longmire (10 hours).

3. Eyes. I chose Gentleman in Moscow for our March bookclub and since it's been almost a year since I read it, I'd like to re-read it. Last time, I listened (and loved), but to lead a discussion, I think it will help to highlight. So I have it on my Kindle (along with a few dozen other titles 😉). 

(now back to figuring out the clothes.)

Check out more Three on Thursday posts over at Carole's blog.

Happy Thursday!

Three on Thursday | About Eleanor.

I finished this wonderful book yesterday morning. Here are three reasons why I gave it five stars:

1. The quality, depth and breadth of Smith's research. There are 21 pages of Notes citing quotations included from other works and a biography that includes well over 200 titles (I didn't count more than the first few pages and it's 12 pages long). I did not know how prolific an author Eleanor herself was. She wrote two columns - "My Day", a syndicated newspaper column which ran from December 30, 1935 to September 26, 1962 (just six weeks before she died), and "If You Ask Me", a monthly column published (first in Ladies' Home Journal and then in McCall's) from May 1941 until November 1962. Smith includes material from both of these sources as well; they are fascinating as both historical and spiritual documents. I highly recommend this "best of" collection of My Day columns; I'm sure you'll find at least a few familiar lines on those pages.

2. The writing. In spite of all the facts and quotations, it reads like a story. Smith begins with a chapter about what religion meant to Eleanor, then tells her story, starting with childhood (a chapter most appropriately titled "A Childhood from Hell") and continuing through her marriage (the chapter on their pre-White House years is titled "Challenged and Betrayed") to widowhood. Smith has separated material on the Jews (WWII, the Holocaust, founding of Israel), civil rights and religious diversity into their own chapters, which makes for compelling - and disturbingly uncomfortable - reading.

3. The story itself. I'm embarrassed how little I really knew about Eleanor prior to reading this book. She was a remarkable woman who contributed much to our country and the world. I'm grateful to (finally) understand her contribution.

Smith closes the book with these words that Eleanor wrote in 1933, in It's Up to the Women (her first published book)

I think we shall have fulfilled our mission well if when our time comes to give up active work in the world we can say we never saw a wrong without trying to right it; we never intentionally left unhappiness where a little effort would have turned it into happiness, and we were more critical of ourselves than we were of others. 

He concludes "Without a doubt, Eleanor fulfilled her mission." and I wholeheartedly agree.

Check out Carole's blog to read others' Three on Thursday posts.

P.S. when I added the Goodreads link, I realized I'd forgotten to mention that the only thing missing from the book was photographs. I guess Smith knows we can find those all over the place! That My Day compilation I mentioned above includes some nice ones.

Unraveled Wednesday.

I've spent most of today right here, drinking tea, snuggling Holly and alternately knitting and listening to The Immortalists (on my phone, which I had to pick up for the photo) with reading pages from To the North (which thanks to some actual daytime reading time has captured my attention ... but not enough to totally set aside the knitting and listening!) ... there might've even been a quick cat nap :-)

also listening to The Immortalists ... on my phone, which I had to pick up to take this photo

because yesterday afternoon/evening looked like this!

I spent an hour at Katie's with my two favorite kiddos before picking up Sara. The three of us had a wonderful dinner out. I can't remember the last time it was just the three of us. for dinner. or I got home at 10pm after an evening out!

observant readers might note that I'm wearing a new sweater ... hopefully to be revealed later this week!

Thankfully there has been no unraveling on my latest project - a black cardigan! This is the second time I've knit Fine Sand (another one of Heidi Kirrmaier's wonderful designs), so it's helpful that the pattern is familiar. I don't even really need to look at the knitting except on every 6th row; that's when those pretty lifted increases happen. And that, my friends, is the secret to knitting black yarn - don't look!

Happy Wednesday!

Book Report | January.

When I last shared here about books and reading, I wasn't feeling very optimistic. Now nearly a full month into the new year, things are definitely looking up. For starters, I finished ten more books and all were  better than those first two:

2018 books shelved here

In fact, Sing, Unburied, Sing was amazing (my first - and only, so far - 5-star rating); I read this on my kindle and flew through the last half (one thing I do love about reading vs. listening is that it's certainly faster).

Then I discovered a new-to-me series where Sherlock Holmes is a woman named Charlotte Holmes. Some reviews give away a few more of the delightful character twists that aren't revealed until late in the first book; suffice it say I gasped in pleasant surprise more than once. I binged through the first one, A Study in Scarlett Women (audio from Overdrive) and promptly purchased the second (A Conspiracy in Belgravia). Completely worth it! and my only book purchase so far this year.

The only goal I set for 2018 reading was to buy fewer books. I've made a solid start:

I'm also tracking book format:

I expect those percentages to even out some, but with all the knitting and treadmill time ... maybe not😉

I downloaded The Immortalists on audio this morning and expect that to be my first February finish. It's early still, but it looks like February is off to a great reading start!

How has your 2018 reading been so far? any surprises?

On Reading | Looking Back and Looking Ahead.

Back in October, shortly after finishing book #75, I shared an update on my 2017 reading. I was still working on the 2017 Read Harder challenge and planned to finish the year on a high note with more diversity in author (gender, nationality, POC) and genre. I finished the year with 93 books, but I did not finish the Read Harder challenge, nor did I end on a "diversity high note".

2017 books read shelved here

On a  positive note, two of my favorite books of the year were ones I finished in November - Mary Oliver's Blue Horses and Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1.

2017 Favorites shelved here

Overall, these dozen books represent great reading ... and I think they're pretty diverse in terms of authors, topics and genres. I'm happy with that!

In terms of the goals I set for the year - 30% non-fiction and 50% borrowed - I didn't do so well:

...and then there's the Read Harder challenge. Short stories and comics are just not my thing. I finished Ms. Marvel ("comic with a female superhero") on Monday (yep, already a day late for 2017) and I gave it one star. Here's my review:

"I'm done with comics. I just don't enjoy them. I love the illustrations in children's books, but for anything else, I want my stories with words, not pictures."

The 2018 Read Harder challenge has two more comics. On Monday, I decided not to participate. Yesterday, I finished What She Left Behind, the first selection for this year's neighborhood bookclub. I gave it two stars. Gah, this is not a good start! Hopefully, the other books I'm currently reading will get me back on track

I've decided my only goal for 2018 is to buy fewer books. I have more than a year's worth shelved already and my library is getting better about new releases. (thankfully, both Ms. Marvel and She Left Behind were borrowed.)

And because I'm curious, I'm also going to track book format (audio vs kindle vs real book).

We'll still have Book Bingo this summer (with no squares for comics or short stores 😉). More on all of that come spring.

....whew another very long post. If you're still reading, thank you for sticking with me! And do you have any recommendations on a book that would get me out of my early 2018 slump? please share!

Unraveled Wednesday.

Joining in with Kat and friends today to share about what I'm knitting and reading.

Bodie is, at last, showing real signs of progress (funny how that works once I actually spend some time knitting it 😊). Just this afternoon I finished the 4th (of a planned 14!) skeins and paused for a photo session.

Isn't it pretty!

I'm not sure I've mentioned here that the pattern is 20 (!!) pages long; I'm working on page 8 (with charts from page 16) now. Elizabeth's instructions are clear (and accurate) and I couldn't be happier with the details. Like the braid that runs along the shoulders where the front stitches were picked up.

And the very clever three-needle bindoff under the arms where we joined the fronts and back. not to mention how the stitch patterns continued uninterrupted through all of that.

The next cool detail - which takes up the rest of page 8, page 9 and part of page 10 (with charts on page 17) - is the pocket openings. Hope to have those to share next week!

On the reading front, I just finished listening to Murder in the Mews, a collection of four short stories featuring Hercule Poirot. I was pleasantly surprised that Hugh Fraser (he played Captain Hastings alongside David Suchet's Poirot) narrated three of the stories. Not only does he do the accents and the voices beautifully, but his love and appreciation for the material really shines. Highly recommend for any Poirot fans.

Along with the holiday decorating, I unpacked a new-to-me stack of Christmas books (from my mom). I think I'll start with the one on the bottom - Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas, followed by The Quiet Little Woman. Mother also gifted me her Louisa May Alcott collection and I'm looking forward to enjoying those books (several are re-reads, but many I've never read) next year; a Christmas collection seems like a nice place to start.

Do you have any special reading plans for the holidays?

Unraveled Wednesday.

Joining in with Kat and crew today to share about books and knitting.

I haven't told y'all how obsessed I've been with Andrea Mowry's Comfort Fade Cardi - because until Tanis posted kits on November 3, I hadn't found yarn that I wanted to use (and could afford). Dark early that Friday morning, I placed my order for the Mona Lisa kit and asked if I could substitute Chestnut for Tartan. Tanis has little ones; she replied right back that it would be no problem. And even shipping from Canada, the yarn arrived Monday.

Chestnut, Stone, Mona Lisa, Sand

... too late to wind and swatch.

And then yesterday, I had the privilege of seeing Nicole Krauss at the book festival. Y'all - total fan girl moment!

She's smart, and articulate, and kind, and funny, and ... she even said it was great that I had two books for her to sign. Hearing her talk about the why and the process of writing Forest Dark* (I was about one-third through it yesterday), has made me want to slow down to really savor the words and the story.

...in any event, by the time I got home it was too late to wind and swatch.

I'll bet you know where this story's headed, don't you?

Yep, this morning I wound those four skeins. Oh aren't they pretty?

Then I knitted a "fade" (whoa, it takes a bunch of rows!), washed and dried (to just damp) it and let it air dry to finish. And finally, about an hour ago, I measured. Woohoo - it's perfect!

(and the gauge is spot on too)

I was skeptical about this whole fade thing - and about using a super wash merino - but that blocked swatch has convinced me... it's ok!

Happy Wednesday! happy halfway through NaBloPoMo!! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Honoré!!!

*I actually won an advance copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway but the reviews from my friends (some of y'all) made me reluctant to even read it. When I found out Nicole would be at the book festival, I decided to give it a chance. Something is different for me, because I'm loving it. It's not A History of Love, but I've already read that book (at least three times). This is an engaging exploration of new territory.

On Reading | 2017 (so far).

Last December, I wrote a post about my reading plans for 2017. In a nutshell, I wanted to continue reading more diversely in terms of genre (30% non-fiction) and author gender and nationality and I wanted to make better use of the library (50% borrowed). I didn't plan on setting a goal for how many books I'd read, but Goodreads is a tough master and I eventually caved; I set a goal of 75 books.

I finished #75 last week and thought it would be a good time check-in.

details on Goodreads here

This morning I updated my tracking spreadsheet to add two charts - which show that I'm behind on both the goals I set!

Only 16 of the 75 books have been non-fiction (which includes biographies and memoirs) - but of those 16, a whopping six are on my 5-star list. ...and that's why I'm going to continue to push myself to read non-fiction.

31 books have come from the library, Overdrive or friends. Only three of my 5-star books were borrowed. What I realized is that I like to buy books I really love - not so much to re-read them, but to be able to share them with others. I also buy the books I read with my small group because we typically read slowly and I like to make notes and highlight. Further - I didn't track this, but I suspect it's true - many of the "owned" books were previous year purchases. In other words, I'm reading through stash 😉 (and that doesn't count, right?!) Overall, I feel pretty good about what I'm borrowing vs. buying. Next year, I'll track "new" vs. "shelved", too.

As points of interest, I also tracked a few more things about the authors:

Gender - 39 female (52%)
Person of Color - 13 (17%)
Nationality - 50 United States (a whopping 67%! and I could count on one hand how many were non-US and non-British)

Whoa, that's certainly not as diverse as I'd like.

But when it comes down to it - I choose most of the books I read because I think I'll love them (or one of my neighbors chose it for bookclub). A few I choose because I think they'll make me a better person or educate me about something I need to know about. But mostly, it's just for fun. And I am OK with that.

That said, I am still working on this year's Read Harder Challenge. I have a ways to go (11 more books!), but I own eight of them already and one I'm getting from Overdrive - A Wrinkle in Time (can you believe I've never read it?!) - is ready to borrow. I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect the author diversity stats will look a lot better once I finish those 11 books. We'll see!

When I wrote that December post, I asked if you were setting any reading goals for 2017. If you did, have those goals affected how you read this year?

So whew, another longer-than-I-intended post! Thank you for sticking with me!

Unraveled Wednesday.

Joining in with Kat and friends for a quick update on two of my favorite things - reading and knitting  (neither of which I enjoyed nearly as much as usual these past few weeks).

Things are slowly returning to some sort of normal around here. My sister will be here soon for our first Wednesday knitting since August 2. That seemed a fitting occasion to clean the porch, which took a beating when Irma blew through.

...and provided a beautiful setting to enjoy a few pages of A Good Hard Look. I'm just at the halfway point and it's definitely captured my interest. It takes place in Milledgeville (about 100 miles southeast of here) and features Flannery O'Connor, peacocks and a host of other interesting characters. More to come once I finish!

...which might take a few days. The UPS man just delivered the yarn for Sam's birthday blanket. 1,800+ yards (of worsted weight on size 8 needles) means audiobooks. I'm re-listening to A Gathering of Shadows (I first listened in the spring of 2016 and I remember almost nothing) in preparation for A Conjuring of Light. The re-listen is even better than I remember; I have high hopes for #3 in the series. 

It's also been fun catching up with y'all. I still have a few dozen unread posts in my feed reader (it does go quickly when I don't leave comments on every post ... trust you understand!) but it doesn't feel so daunting. Thank you as always for providing me inspiration, humor, and a welcoming place to simply be.

xo - M.

Unraveled Wednesday.

it made me smile when I saw how well the knitting and the book coordinated!

Linking up with Kat today to share a quick update on what I'm knitting and reading. 

Stole 2.0 is the last big project I want to finish for Alaska. I have about 40 more rows of stockinette (which will use up all of that ball and some of another) and then 6 rounds of garter stitch around the whole piece. It's certainly doable, especially if I can resist starting Granito when my Plucky yarn arrives on Friday!

I downloaded Magpie Murders this morning and 2+ hours in, I'm enjoying it. I owe y'all an update on my bingo card, because this book will be the one I finish for a cover-all. next week. hopefully.

But now I'm going to enjoy a little knitting with a little more book (and a glass of wine) ... the perfect end to a full-on Marmie day!

Unraveled Wednesday | Finding Joy.

The Book of Joy is the next book for my Friday morning small group. I started reading it this morning and after just 16 pages, I'm all in.

"Together they explored how we can transform joy from an ephemeral state into an enduring trait, from a fleeting feeling into a lasting way of being." (from the Introduction)

We read slowly, so we have ample time in our 90 minutes together each week to really cover what we've read. I expect this book might take us nearly to Advent. It's a journey I'm looking forward to.

I'm also still knitting the same sweater I showed you last week, but this is a different part of it. I finished the back and that's the left front. One more piece after that and the knitting will be done. Then I'll have to block and seam, find buttons and sew them on. Those non-knitting finishing steps are not my favorite. I might need to read ahead a bit to learn how to find joy in them!

Joining in with Kat and crew today.

Happy Wednesday!

Book Bingo 2017 | Mid-summer Update.

you can see all these books on my Summer Bingo 2017 shelf on Goodreads

Hello, readers! Do y'all feel like it's "mid-summer" already? School starts around here in just three weeks (yep, August 7 ... crazy, huh?!) so for a lot of folks, summer is winding down. Same with my bingo card.

Friday morning I finished Hallelujah Anyway for a fourth bingo. I also finished South of Broad (upper right corner); it was even better than I expected, which is saying a lot! I gave it five stars, bringing my summer reading total to five five-star books. I've already raved here about Jimmy Carter's A Full Life, but I haven't shared much at all about the other four. Here are the short reviews I posted on Goodreads.

South of Broad by Pat Conroy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Book Bingo - An author who died last year.

Pat Conroy can tell a story beautifully and this is one of his best. Beach Music has been on my all-time favorites shelf for years; this one goes there, too. It has all the things I love about a book - an epic story, family secrets, interesting characters, great settings (Charleston and San Francisco) a little mystery and a little love.

As I was reading this - and raving about how good it was - a few friends said they'd read The Prince of Tides and wasn't Conroy a really dark author. I replied that Beach Music was different - all the great things, and yes, a little dark, but the overall feeling is that the book is just.plain.good. South of Broad is like that, too.

Note - I listened to parts and read parts. The audio was decent. The southern accent wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible; and the male narrator did a fine job with both male and female characters.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Book Bingo - Set in a place I'd like to vacation.

An hour into the book, I wasn't sure I'd chosen the right square for this book; the cold, hard frontier of 1920's Alaska is certainly not a place I'd like to vacation! But as I got deeper into the book, I saw love and friendship and wild beauty and I decided it was OK.

I love everything about this book. It's magical, heartbreaking and beautifully written.

Sigh, I can't wait for Ivey's next book!

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddartha Mukherjee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summer Bingo - Non-fiction about science. I'm adding this book to my "everyone should read" shelf (along with Gawade's Being Mortal, Mukherjee's previous book The Emperor of All Maladies and Ellenberg's How Not to Be Wrong) and recommending it to nearly everyone.

My friend Bonny wrote a wonderful review.

I'll just add this:
Fascinating material, beautifully presented, ultimately approachable and such important information for everyone to understand. The moral and ethical problems we're facing now around genetic testing and gene therapy give me pause. Where we could be in another five or ten years, well ...

The genome is only a mirror for the breadth or narrowness of human imagination. It is Narcissus reflected.

It is nonsense to speak about nature or nurture in absolutes or abstracts. Whether nature, that is the gene, or nurture, that is the environment, dominates in the development of a feature or function depends acutely on the individual feature and the context.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summer Bingo - Translation. Wow. I LOVED this book on audio. Listening to it - hearing the names just roll off easily, the inflection that helped me see the really funny parts (seriously, I laughed out loud many times) and the sad parts. I am so glad I gave the book another chance - a big thank you to all my friends on Goodreads who kept telling me how wonderful it was!!

notes from my 2008 reading: it was ok, but honestly, after so loving love in the time of cholera, i was disappointed. it may be a while before i attempt another of his books.

That's right, back in 2008, I read the book and gave it two stars ... just goes to show that time of life - and book format! - can make a huge difference in how we perceive books.

I then spent most of the rest of Friday (hence, no blog post 😉) sorting through my to-read shelves to come up with a plan for the remaining six squares. I started LaRose (An author of color) and A Piece of the World (About art) and committed to three others (Strangers on a Train, The History of Love and The Memoir Project).

That leaves just the Free Square undecided. I've only purchased two books this summer - The Memoir Project and Hillbilly Elegy (which I was going to read for Bingo, but decided I'm just not in the mood); there's room in the budget for a third (and I have audible credits). I'm hoping y'all can help me choose something good. Recommendations welcome!!

Once I finish this card, I'll get back to the Read Harder Challenge. I still have a ways to go ... but there are several titles (including Beartown, Their Eyes Were Watching God and One Man's Meat) I've been looking forward to for months!

It's been a wonderful summer - and honestly a pretty good year - of reading so far. I hope you can say the same!

Unraveled Wednesday | A Singular Focus.

I can't remember the last time I was reading (and listening to) just one book and actively knitting on just one project. South of Broad is really that good ... and the sweater, well, it's probably going to take a back seat to the mystery shawl tomorrow morning (when the last clue comes out), but for today, it has my complete attention!

Joining in with Kat and looking forward to seeing what y'all are reading and knitting this week.