Book Nerd Question

As I shelved the new Addison with the others:

I thought a bit wistfully of Sarah Monette. You may or may not know that they are the same person. I only have one by Monette, The Bone Key, a collection of extremely spooky stories, but it is shelved under M.

And I just can't bring myself to put it with A. Even though they are the same person.

Could you? Or would you leave them as I have them? 

Of Books and Audiobooks: Katherine Addison

When I first read it years ago, I loved Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor from the start, and if possible, loved the audio version more: the reader, Kyle McCarley, is excellent, and with a world of elaborate and unfamiliar names and words and naming conventions, audio is a blessing. I have listened to it many times since, far more often than I have read the print version (though I do that, too).

The Witness for the Dead is not a sequel, but the story of a supporting character from the first book, Thara Celehar, and as such is performed by a different reader, Liam Gerrard. Also very good, both book and audio!

And now The Grief of Stones, the sequel to Witness, is just out, and in addition to reading the hardcover (gobbling it up, in fact, and then starting again), I of course got the audio version and am listening to that as well.

Which is all to explain to you how I knew instantly that this reader pronounced Cstheio Czireizhasan differently from the first.

I am not complaining, mind! The first story is from a different perspective than the next two, and I have no problem with having different readers, especially when Celehar's books are in the first person and Maia's is not. And of course there are valid reasons why characters have different pronunciations, are from different regions or backgrounds; the worldbuilding is deep and rich and ornate, words mean so much in Addison's books. Which of course I love.

(It's not like the situation with poor Martha Wells and book five of the Raksura books being read by someone who was not the reader of all the others, and while I don't blame the reader, it isn't his fault if no one told him, I started listening to it and the supporting character of Delin, who in the previous books had his name pronounced dee-lin, and had a high squeaky voice, was suddenly called dell-in and had a deep low voice, and I couldn't listen to it, the cognitive dissonance, if that's the right term, was too much for me.)

Anyway, I was delighted to find, in the book:

A reason to pull out this book, or rather this volume:

Do you know how often I come across a word I have never heard before? And that my mother has never heard before? Not very often! But here we are, with the characters going to give a deposition, and all of a sudden:

"He deponed and I deponed"? What? I knew what it had to mean from context, but what? But there we are: to testify.

Just what it had to mean. But I had such fun following up on that.

I probably sound like a nut, and I am: a word nut. But even if you aren't, they're such good books.

Almost There... Just a Few More Days...

My dad died in 2009, so the period where the lead-up to father's day is endlessly awful is past for me. (That first year, whew: he died in April, so it was pretty much just as that was gearing up, and it was agonizing.) But every year, a week or two before the day, I hit the point where I am just Done With It All. Can we stop? Can the reminders at every turn go away?

I know I'm not the only one. Others have lost their fathers, or don't have good relationships with their fathers, or for whatever other valid reason hate father's day. But oh, y'all, it's hard.

Last week, I dreamed that I was hugging my dad. In the dream, it was just a nice hug, nothing special. But when I remembered it the next day, it made me so sad. I miss him.

The emails can stop ANY time now.

Not Worth the Candle

This week*, anything that requires leaving the condo is being stringently assessed to determine if it is worth the candle: that is, do I want or need to do it enough to deal with five flights of stairs? Yes, it's finally elevator repair week, part two, in the building, and to me, very little is worth five flights down and five flights back up.**

*Really hoping it's only this week, which is their goal, but I'm not holding my breath.

**Supposedly, Monday and Tuesday nights, the elevator will be working, and in fact it did work late Monday afternoon. Again, though, not holding my breath; one doesn't want to count on that.

Now, mind you, does the elevator need fixing? Absolutely. Ask my mother, who was briefly stuck in it yesterday. Ask me a few weeks ago, when I got home from water aerobics to learn it was out (five flights on top of an exercise class SUCKED). Ask our neighbor, who has to carry her elderly, short-legged dog down five flights and back up when it's out. But still.

• So I won't be going to water aerobics this week. (Well, I wouldn't have gone today anyway, what with the period and the cramps oh my god when will this stop, but that's a rant for another day. Possibly tomorrow.)
• We stocked up on heavy groceries yesterday--no one wants to carry a gallon of milk, etc., up five flights.
• If this goes into next week, there are a couple of social things I'll skip--sorry, y'all, I don't want to see you five-flights-worth.
• I really, really hope it will be back by the end of next week, because that's when I'm leaving for a short trip up to Boston to see friends (first time on a plane in 2.5 years, ahhhhh, exciting and scary), and I'd hate to start off by having to carry my luggage down.

One thing I will be going down for, cheerfully, is when Katherine Addison's new book, The Grief of Stones, is delivered tomorrow, as it had better be! I am so excited to read it. That one is worth the candle.

Am I Blue(s)

I started the shawl last night, and the second try at casting on worked just right:

No stretched out stitches, yay.

Also, to my delight, not only does it start off with blue, but shades of blue:

Look at them!

This thing is going to be so fun to watch develop. Come on, rainbow!

Happy Mom's Birthday to You

It's Mom's birthday! We're going out for a nice dinner to celebrate.

I finished the footless-sock she asked for.

It grew slightly after blocking, and i know it looks small, but she says it fits perfectly.

I also have her the traditional stack of scrubbies, as she gets every year at her request.

(Crocheted out of nylon netting, and they really do work great.)

In other craft news, I've got a plan in mind for the rainbow yarn:

A couple of people asked if this yarn would stripe, and though the dyer does do yarn that does, this one isn't short stripes, but in longer blocks of color instead, so it will go through blue-purple-pink-red-orange-yellow-green-blue before getting to the grey. I look forward to seeing it develop.

The pattern I'm going to try is one that I had noted a while back with different yarn in mind, and I was thinking of it as a large-shawl pattern, but it actually has a bunch of sizes, and the smallest should work with the amount of yarn I have here. Plus, it's an unusual construction, so doing this will be a kind of dry run for how it works bigger. Win-win! The pattern is called Centrifugal (Ravelry link), by Carissa Browning.

In fact, I started, but although I found the i-cord cast on to be simple enough to do, it stretched out the first row wildly.

Which a few other people mentioned as a problem. So I'll rip it out, and do an i-cord that I pick up stitches from, instead. Baby steps.

Ready to Go

Do I know what I'm making with it yet? No, I do not. But it's wound, and it's pretty.

Knit Switch

I finished a sock recently.

It's the first of a pair, and I'm very happy with the lovely yarn (Knit One, Crochet Too Crock-O-Dye, which has a touch of silk, in color Seaglass), but I didn't cast on for the second one yet. And no, it's not second sock syndrome.

Instead, I pulled out this nice rainbow yarn from Urth:

I like to celebrate Pride Month with my knitting. It's not as soft as the Crock-O-Dye, but I like the statement of it.

I also pulled out this lovely skein of rainbow from Gauge Dyeworks:

But I haven't started anything with it yet. I just want something simple, that will show the stripes to advantage, but I can't decide on a pattern, and the one I liked the most of those I looked at, Wave by Ewelina Murach, is on Ravelry but isn't available to buy, there or anywhere else, as far as I can tell. I emailed the designer, and will give her some time to reply before I make myself let go of the idea and choose something else.

Time for Some More Maggie

I haven't blasted you with Maggie pictures recently, have I? Well, the princess likes to be admired.

(Yes, that really is a Maggie picture. See the curve at the bottom? Kitty, implied.)

Losing It a Little Bit

Two things:

First, expecting that a work day is going to be annoying (back after long weekend, one editor on vacation, AND the end of the month) does not, in fact, help me get through the truly, deeply annoying day.

Second, I may be losing it a little. I got an email this morning suggesting authors I might like, and I looked at the first name and thought, wow, I haven’t even heard of that one. Then this afternoon, I got an email from the library that a book I requested had come in, and guess who the author is? Yeah, one and the same. I must have come across it last week, been interested enough to get it from the library, and then 100% forgot all about it.

Sigh. Some days.

Upon Request

I've knit things for my mother over the years, mostly small toys and trinkets, but she doesn't really want shawls or scarves or hats or socks, so not much of that. Recently, though, she asked if I could knit her a sort of tube, a footless sock or legwarmer, to replace a commercial one she has that is getting worn out. Can I? Sure! Glad to!

I played around with another yarn before going to this one, the BFL from Maple Creek Farm that I used to make the Top Notes poncho. I swatched in (from the bottom) US 8, 7, 6, and 5 needles.

Then I cast on with 4s. It made sense in my head in the moment.

I did put it on waste yarn and make sure it would go over Mom's foot and calf, which it will.

So, on we go! And hopefully it will keep me away from the Circle Of Friends Wrap I started with the Kitten yarn, which is delightful but which I want to be the travel project for my trip in a month, not done before I leave.

It is lovely to work with, though.

Ahh.

Well.

Well. The world this week, eh? I'm at the stage where I have to take a step back, away from the unfolding news, because I can feel myself getting overwhelmed by the awfulness. Self care, you know?

So I'm knitting, and enjoying the wonderful yarn.

I'm looking forward to having lunch (outside!) with a few friends tomorrow (before a couple of them go back north for the summer), and getting to show them the yarn.

I'm looking forward very much to the long weekend; work this week was kind of a bear, and next week one of the other editors is on vacation, so it won't be better.

I would love to be looking forward to winning the lottery, enough that I could retire! I'm not expecting that to happen, mind, but it's fun to fantasize about.

And I'm listening to Depeche Mode music today--I was very sad to hear that one of the members, Andy Fletcher, died this week, so listening to the music is sad in a way but also full of memories for me, all the way back to high school, and it isn't all sad. That first concert, at the Wang Center in Boston in 1986!

I've laid in some crucial supplies for the long weekend:

Library books and cookies. I'm ready.

Getting Knitting

I often get lovely yarn in the mail that I am eager to start working with, but I actually don't go straight from package right to knitting very often. Sometimes I don't know what pattern I want to use, sometimes I'm trying to finish up a project or projects, various reasons.

However, when the order of Kitten came in, right after I had finished a project, and I had already been thinking about what project I might want to bring as travel knitting on my trip next month... well, let's say that the stars aligned.

Reminder: the yarn.

I put a skein on the swift, then hand-wound it instead of using the ball-winder, as I wanted to be extra gentle with it.

Winding it over fingers to keep things loose.

One of my friends can hand-wind a ball that you would swear wasn't hand-wound, as it looks incredibly uniform. Mine aren't like that, but it's tidy enough.

After that, I did a process I call Half-Assed Swatching. Since I often don't even bother to swatch, I give myself credit for doing it at all, even if I'm not doing it "right" (which I know makes some people crazy--sorry if you're one of them!).

I cast on some stitches on a size US 10 needle, which is what the Circle of Friends pattern calls for, and knit in stockinette for a bit. Then a garter row and switched to a US 9.

Honestly? Not much difference to my eye.

So I chose 9 and cast on. Doesn't look like much yet!

But it feels divine, and it's making me happy.

What I've Been Reading

What have I been up to in the reading department of late? Let's see!

I wrote last year about the book club I'm in with some friends, and how we weren't off to a strong start in the Books I Want to Finish Reading category. We've now had 8 meetings (roughly every two months), and other than the month it was my choice, I've finished three of the books and not finished four. Sigh. I may not be meant for book clubs, though I'm not giving up yet. It's such a good group of people, but I don't think what I would like from a book club (a book that I wouldn't necessarily have picked up on my own, but enjoy reading) meshes very well.

Our most recent book was The Ancestor by Danielle Trussoni, and wow did that book not go where I was expecting! Some really wild turns, some dubious moments, and yeah, I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might want to read it, but I Had Thoughts (not that I was the only one). At least I finished reading it! And the discussion was good. But it was definitely one I would not have finished but for the book club. Let me just say that the line "This is a haunting, mysterious, brooding modern gothic tale with lessons for real life" from a review on Amazon has me laugh-snorting. What lessons for real life!?

Ahem. Moving on to books I have enjoyed more.

I got the Heroic Hearts anthology from the library recently to read the Patricia Briggs story therein (which was very good, of course, I love her writing). 

But I looked at the other stories, too, because that's how you find new authors to try. And I really liked the story by Anne Bishop, so I got the first of her The Others series from the library, and I've been plowing through them. So good! Maybe a little dark, if you're not in the mood for that, but interesting premise and characters and a found-family feel to it. Sort of. If not all the family members are human, nor want to be.

As for The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, by Theodora Goss, I'm not sure how I got that; maybe my brother gave it to me? I saw it on my shelf and thought, hmm, why not try this? It's pretty interesting, looking at all the daughters of literary characters like Dr Jekyll and Frankenstein, and I wasn't in love with it but certainly had no problem finishing it (though I haven't yet reached for the sequels). I'll also say that I had no trouble following along despite not having read the stories these characters came from; there was enough awareness of the basics that, although no doubt knowing more would have added depth, I didn't feel like I was missing the jokes.

I really enjoyed The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman; light-hearted and fun, though not without depths, and talk about found family! I wouldn't call it especially realistic or plausible, which some of the reviews I see are unhappy about, but as a romp I enjoyed it very much.

Finally (for now), I really liked Good Neighbors, by Stephanie Burgis, a collection of stories/novellas that make a very satisfying story. As the description starts, "When a grumpy inventor meets her outrageous new neighbor in the big black castle down the road, more than one type of spark will fly!"