I had no idea what I was missing in my knitting life! So many needle options. I'm perfectly happy with the bamboo needles bought at JoAnn's. This was a revolutionary find for me as before I used the old metal needles with dull tips I had learned on as a kid.

Is it Friday already?! I can't remember how many of you aside from Mumto2 were reading the Department Q books earlier this year, but am hooked now in spite of only being half way through The Keeper of Lost Causes! My current audio book is also lots of fun. It is an early Brandon Sanderson title, Warbreaker. In spite of that decidedly masculine and militaristic title, it is not laden with testosterone or battle scenes. Instead it has a touch of Goblin Emperor with a young woman unprepared for becoming queen and consort to a god-king, and all sorts of political and court intrigue. And because it is Brandon Sanderson, it has a smart magic system. I am obsessively making packing lists and checking off errands on other lists in preparation for some upcoming travel. My millennial children were appalled that I didn't own a tablet on which to watch movies on long airplane trips, so gifted me with a Kindle Fire for my birthday. Now I can read or watch depending on my mood, though it is a little unwieldly as an e-reader. But I do like being able to prop it up in its stand while reading at lunch. Much better than trying to keep a book open with one hand while eating with the other!

Thanks for the recommendation, @Kareni. I'm not quite ready for another starship story as I just finished the first in the Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes. I thought it was a very fun page turner, but am not motivated to jump into the rest of the series. Holden is such an annoying main character.... I never reported on my reading this week, but other than finishing Leviathan Wakes there isn't much to talk about. I'm halfway through a surreal Irish novel called Beatlebone. The premise is that John Lennon in 1978 decides he needs to escape to a tiny private island he owns off the west coast of Ireland. He wants to go for 3 days for some serious primal scream therapy, but I'm not sure he will ever make it. His driver is taking him on a magical mystery tour of Mayo county and has them hanging out with and drinking with all sorts of colorful characters. It is good, but very stream of consciousness, with no quotation marks for dialogue and most paragraphs just being a sentence or two. @mumto2 I'm glad you enjoyed Almost Sisters. I've looked at other books by the author but can't bring myself to try any of them as they are all family sagas.

Comic-Con weekend takes over our lives every year, but I only actually attended one day this year. It is the first time in, oh, 20 years, that I came home from comic-con without a single new book. Which is fine as I have too many unread books around the house, but it is odd! My reading (listening actually) has me firmly in the grips of pop culture, though. I've been getting a big kick out of the first title in the Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes. Great literature it ain't. But it is a great summer page turner. I've watched the first episode of the Amazon Prime series, but wasn't as captivated by it as many people are. The show was heavily promoted at Comic-Con. Still working on Mozart's Starling, a delightful non-fiction about starlings ( the birds) with a bit about Mozart too. And I'll be starting an Irish title just came off the hold list. Beatlebone by Kevin Barry is a novel, often described as being surreal, set in West Ireland imagining John Lennon living on a private island there in 1978. But my house is still consumed by all things pop culture announced at Comic-Con, from the Marvel movies to the new Star Trek Picard series. My boys were extra delighted this afternoon to help me set up the computer game Portal. The way to make millenials happy is to enter their world, even if it is a virtual world!

I know a couple of you have already read the recent Anthony Horowitz mystery, The Sentence is Murder. I both liked it and disliked it. I liked the mystery, liked several of the characters (the poet was a delightfully unlikable character!) But I found Anthony Horowitz's character (he wrote himself in as a Watson to the detective) to be unnecessarily and annoyingly stupid, far more clueless than a successful mystery author should be. I'm finally joining the bandwagon and have started on the Expanse series with the first one, Leviathan Wakes. It certainly draws you right in, doesn't it?! I'm listening to it and can tell it will be the perfect book for long drives. I have not watched the tv adaptation, but will wait to do so til after getting a few of the books read.

Puffins!!! @mumto2 Will they be gone by late August? Your photos started me thinking that there will be some great bird watching on my trip later this summer.

@mumto2 Those Detective Galileo books look great, and, based on the holds for both the ebooks and print editions around town, very popular. I'm another huge fan of the James Herriot books and of the old tv series from back in the 70s. We have used, on a few occasions, the term "flop bottom" (remember the dog Tricky Woo?) to describe our dog's behavior. I finished a fascinating memoir yesterday, one that ties in with this week's ancients theme. It is An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn. The author teaches college classics courses, and his dad asks to sit in on the Odyssey course one spring semester. Father and son then take a cruise that follows Odysseus's path back home to Ithaca. It is a lovely story of a son trying to get to know his father, tied in thematically with the Odyssey. It inspired me to pull my copy of the Odyssey off the shelf and to reread sections of it. I also recently finished a book that is outside my usual genre. I tend to avoid the modern fiction sagas of tight knit families who uncover a shocking secret that upends everything. But the Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson was utterly delightful. It is set in the South and is delightfully free of stereotypes as the author herself is a true Southerner. The lead character, a female comic book artist finds herself pregnant after a comic-con one night stand with cosplay Batman, has a great voice in telling us in the story. The comic book and nerd aspects of the book were also delightfully free from stereotype as well. I just started the newest Anthony Horowitz mystery, The Sentence is Death. And I'm about a third of the way through the non-fiction Mozart's Starling, which I put down somewhere around the house...

Look at the small liberal arts colleges listed in "Colleges that Change Lives". Lots of great nerd schools there. My ds graduated from College of Wooster, and had, for a time, 4 separate D&D groups he played with weekly. Thanks to the miracles of the internet, he has continued to DM weekly games with his college buddies, even while he was living in Japan! 3 years post graduation and they still play every Saturday night. I'm trying to remember all their majors -- not a single computer or engineering type in the bunch, though there were 2 geology majors and one chemistry. Maybe the others were history and poli sci? Another avid D&Der I know is in seminary right now, so clearly techies are not the sole population passionate about role playing games! Beloit College, as I recall, had a sci-fi/fantasy dorm. And the great thing about these small schools is that everyone can be involved in anything, from sports to the arts. And they are filled with professors who want to teach and mentor.

Ugh! I made it all the way through cold and flu season with nary a sniffle, but woke up Sunday with a nasty bronchial virus. I'm a useless blob, lying in bed, binge watching the first season of Outlander on Netflix (I had read the first book in the series) and re=listening to favorite audio books. I finished Bear and the Nightingale last night around 3am. Why does insomnia come with being sick?!! Has anyone read the next two books that follow Bear and the NIghtingale?

@Kareni It was only one book that I wanted to hurl in disgust! We have many books in common and you are my fellow Goblin Emperor re-reader!!

OK, I'm going to show my age again. With every mention of the Linesman books, the opening line of the Glenn Campbell song, Wichita Lineman, just pops in my head. "I am a lineman for the county..." Ahem. Perhaps I should read the book and substitute imagery from that for 1960s pop songs....

Hello everyone!! I've been AWOL, but have a good explanation. DH and I were in Seattle for the better part of a week -- he had some work for a couple of days then we played tourist. What made it extra fun is that some friends who grew up in the area were there the same time, and took advantage of us being tourists to revisit the Space Needle for the first time in 20 years. It made for a terrific afternoon. I read another Sebastian St Cyr mystery on the plane going and coming, the 7th title [insert correct interrogative here] Maidens Mourn. When? Why? Where? I can't remember, but it was another delightful entry in the series. I always look forward to reading her historical notes at the end as she does a great job of weaving the historical with her own made up details and characters. I'm part way through the audio version of The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson, and am really enjoying it. It starts out with a woman comic book artist getting drunk with cos-play Batman at a convention....and winding up pregnant. It isn't farce, but it is sharp and witty, though things are about to take a turn. In fact, I'm itching to get back to my hand quilting so I can continue listening! I bought a couple of books at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle, both of which I've started. One is Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. I read her Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds earlier this year and just love her writing. The other is a truly niche book. It is Murakami discussing music with symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa. They are sitting in Murakami's house, pulling out titles from his prodigious record collection, listening to them and discussing them. I wish it was an audio book with the actual music clips!! I am giddy with delight that to hear that the next Horowitz murder mystery is out!!! My ds and I both love him, having discovered him through the Sherlock Holmes mysteries he wrote. And though I'm a California girl, the West Texas vet book sounds great! Consider yourselves all "liked" as I may not have stopped to click on each message!

Wasn't there a song about a Gnome-mobile in a 60s Disney movie? Sorry -- I'm free associating again. (But thansk to google, I see it was an actual movie, and yes I'm old enough that I likely saw it in the theater!!) Search for the song on YouTube at your own risk. It has a vicious ear-worm kind of hook to it. Thanks to @Kareni, I've been binge reading one of the titles listed in the articles she linked about hope-punk, and other non-dark fantasy novels. Curse of Challion, by the prolific author Lois McMaster Bujold, is a fun page turner, rather fluffy, and taking some unexpected plot turns. It has been exactly what I needed this week! Anyone else planning on binge-watching Good Omens this weekend on Amazon Prime?!

I finished Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips, and really liked it. It is set in Kamchatka, and while it is set up as a mystery, it is really a series of 12 interconnected short stories about different yet connected women. Beautiful writing, evocative setting, and relatable characters. This is the debut novel by one of my niece's best friends since childhood. Still working on, and thoroughly enjoying, An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and An Epic, part memoir, part analysis of the Odyssey. If you haven't heard of it, the book is about the semester that the author's octogenarian dad sat in on the freshman seminar he taught on the Odyssey. They later took a cruise on the Eastern Mediterranean to see all the places from the epic. And I have my usual fun audiobooks going, too, the 4th Rivers of London, and a couple of Discworld titles, too. @Kareni It's been a while since I've stopped by the Tor.com site, so I've missed a few of those "5 books that" lists. But what I loved, and appreciate you linking, is the list of optimistic fantasies to chase away the grimdark! There are lots of suggestions in the comments section, too. I need to jot down a few of those titles.

What is it about May that so many of us are busy and not finding time to read?! I've got quite the stack of books in progress, but nothing near finished: Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips is one I have to promote even though I've only just finished the first chapter. It is a debut novel that is getting all sorts of rave reviews. But the coolest thing about it, the reason why I'm so excited to plug it, is that the author has been my niece's BFF since elementary school! Here is the review from NPR An Odyssey: A father, a son and and epic, is a memoir by Daniel Mendelsohn about his father deciding to sit in on his freshman seminar course on the Odyssey. It is a memoir, it is a fabulous academic introduction and/or refresher on the Odyssey, and it is a little hard to settle into as his writing is as circuitous as Odysseus' voyage home to Ithaca. I'm listening to it, but have pulled my copy of the Odyssey off the shelf to reread sections. Lovely War by Julie Barry was a book I purchased on a whim -- I had a gift certificate to use. It caught my eye because it is a historical romance told by Aphrodite and Ares while they are trapped by Hephaestus under his net. It is of all things set in WWII and about WWI. There is romance, of course, and jazz music, and most striking of all is that this smart, well written book is marketed as YA. I'd think it would be a great book for any of you with teen aged students. For fun I've been revisiting the Rivers of London series but this time via audiobook. The narrator is fantastic, and best of all these books are just a delightful and funny the second time around. I'm currently on the 4th, Broken Homes. And I'm still slowly making my way through Michelle Obama's memoir, Becoming. It isn't that I don't like it, or that it is boring, it is just an audiobook I can dip in and out of as my mood strikes.

Good Monday morning to everyone! I'm coming out of a surreal weekend, bookended by large violent spectacle, namely the Avengers Endgame movie and last night's Game of Thrones epic battle. But the real horror happened just 2 blocks from my church, the shooting at the Chabad synagogue on Saturday. My church, active in the area interfaith community, was the location of the candlelight vigil held the night of the shooting. I have friends who live around that synagogue, I have friends who teach at the high school where the shooter graduated and where the dad taught. My facebook has been full of friends sharing their grief over who they know. It is just surreal to have this happen within my community and yet my life continues to chug along. So books! I went to my favorite independent bookstore to celebrate Independent Bookstore day and bought a few fun titles, one of which is a slim volume "what to read with what you read". It has recipes or food recommended by authors to go with their book along with book recommendations of their own. For instance Pachinko author MIn Jin Lee has specific Korean take out recommendations, while Lisa Halliday has a recipe that isn't part of the recommended menu of what to eat while reading her book. And there are blank pages for your own notes and book club party planning. Since I last updated here I managed to finish a few books: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsy was really good sci fi. I thought it might wind up a thriller/horror book given that half the book is about giant sentient arachnids, but it was a much smarter book than that. Great characters, unexpected turns in the plot. Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves, part of the Vera Stanhope series. I love the Vera books, and this was no exception. Vera herself is a great character, but Ann Cleeves often fills her books with all sorts of interesting characters and she lets us in on the inner workings of their very imperfect, human minds. Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch. This is a reread, but this time on audio. I found it just as delightful as the first time, but even better thanks to the narrator. I'm not sure if these books reheat as well as poetry and chili, but I anticipate revisiting them from time to time the way I do the Master and Commander books and all the Discworld books. Am currently reading the non-fiction Map Thief by Michael Blanding. It is a great mix of the history of maps and map making and the inner world of map collectors. And the guy who got caught with *a box knife* at Yale's Beinecke Library -- one of the great rare book collections in the world. Code of the Woosters has been the perfect light listen to balance out the surreal weekend.

About Scarlet Pimpernel....I had one ds read it when he was a teen (high school perhaps?) and he HATED it! Your mileage may vary, but just FYI... I never posted a reading recap this week, and at this point I ought to wait to do so tomorrow. In the meantime, I just had to pop in to share that I started listening to Code of the Woosters last night. I was in need of something different, and oh my, had forgotten just how delightfully silly and funny Wodehouse can be. I was thinking of AggieAmy the whole time.

I stopped by last week but never long enough to write an update. The Library Book by Susan Orleans is simply fabulous and I highly recommend it to all of you. It sounds like a dry non-fiction -- a history of the Los Angeles Public Library with stops along the way to consider the massive 1986 fire that almost destroyed the main branch, and to consider the job of the modern librarian. But in truth it is a page turner with beautiful writing, fascinating anecdotes, and a heartfelt passion about the subject. Best of all, the hardback edition feels good in your hands, with its cloth hardcover and the rough cut edges, even a photograph of a library due date card pocket on the last end page. Thin Air by Richard K Morgan was entertaining, but I wholeheartedly do NOT recommend it for this group!! Oh my, no! It is a testosterone laden, expletive riddled, cyberpunk-noir thriller mash up set on Mars. It was handed to me by a friend who had just finished it because it was the sci-fi/fantasy book of the month from our favorite indie bookstore. She and I were cracking up over it. I don't think the author intended it to be serious, but was just having too much fun writing over the top weaponry, tech, violent fights and well, graphic scenes of s*x. I was thinking I need to find some Georgette Heyer to rebalance my soul! I'm in the middle of another sci-fi epic, this one much smarter and original. It is Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I almost gave up on it, but our own Penguin reassured me that it remains a smart and original story, that it doesn't regress into standard horror despite the giant sentient arachnids that feature in the book. I kid you not. Giant sentient arachnids!!! Really, I need to reread Heyer or something else gentle! I also thoroughly enjoyed the 7th River of London book, Lies Sleeping. And @Kareni, I know exactly what you mean about the grating grammar of "me and Leslie". Peter Grant at one point talks about how he KNOWS it is incorrect but he does it anyway just to annoy Nightingale. I didn't notice that construct popping up in the 7th book, or if it did it wasn't as often.

Today I rushed through the last few chapters of Love of Country: A Journey Through the Hebrides as it is due back at the library tomorrow. What an exceptional book! Part travelogue, part political and cultural history always tied in with modern politics and realities. Great writing, too. I wish good photographs weren't so expensive to print -- the black and white photos in this volume are barely helpful. But thanks to google I've been virtually traveling the islands and filling in all the huge gaps in my knowledge of Scottish history. The author made a point of visiting the mills and the individual weavers on Lewis who make Harris Tweed. I had no idea it is still created by hand and created on just a handful of islands in the outer Hebrides. She visits a retired dentist who took up weaving with his uncle's old loom, housed in a shed, which is powered only by his pedaling! "As he wove and his feet pedaled, one hand checked the shuttle while the other smoothed and felt the cloth for imperfections." The final paragraph in this chapter My other reading this week was a repeat, but this time an audio version of a print book. I adore the Rivers of London series -- part police procedural, part urban fantasy, all written with a very funny yet understated satirical snark. I listened to the first one, which has the American title Midnight Riot. I loved the narrator so much I figured I should just get the most recent title, Lies Sleeping, in audio, too.

I was just reviewing the series via a fan page (Follypedia, I think) so I wouldn't be too lost in Lies Sleeping. They are all on my shelves, but I'm too impatient to reread them all before starting Lies Sleeping. And, nope, don't think I had heard about Murderbot before people starting writing reviews here. But my brain is enough of a foggy muddle that it is entirely possible I recommended it then forgot the series entirely🤣. In any case, I just bought the kindle edition of the first one and will probably get to it in the next week.

What about Mr. Popper's Penguins? Or the Freddy the Pig books? Or some of the Lynn Reid Banks books such as I, Houdini (an escape artist hamster)? I may have to pull some Lord Peter stories off the shelf and settle in for some lovely rereading. I haven't been brave enough to try any of the "new" ones... @mumto2 I just finished listening to the first of the Rivers of London series. I've read the series in print up through Hanging Tree, but thanks to ds the first book is in our Audible library. I liked the narrator so much I just downloaded Lies Sleeping to listen to. Have you read any of the graphic novels or novellas? And, lol, I just looked up the Murderbot series on Goodreads and I've clearly had my head in the sand. EVERYONE has read at least the first one in the series.

Haven't been reading too much in the last week and a half as I've been under the weather. Instead I've started binge watching Last Tango to Halifax! I do have a book question for @mumto2. Are any of the Clare Fergusson mysteries set during the warmer summer months? I just started the 4th book in the series and once again it is cold and our favorite Reverend is still driving her unsensible car. The last book it was late spring with snow still on the ground, now it is November with a hard frost. I had to bundle up in a sweater and blanket as I was reading because it was making me feel even more cold and achy!!

I've read almost every Louise Penny book over the years. For the most part I have enjoyed them, loved the community of 3 Pines, and find myself craving brie and baguettes with every book (they eat well in Three Pines)! You do have to suspend belief, as the setting and our hero are all just a little too perfect. But, I'm trying to figure out how to say this without giving anything away. The more recent books featured a long arc of a trope I just can't stand. Let me see if I can white this out... the hero being the lone wolf fighting to save a corrupt, conspiracy filled department. . My reading was quite varied this week. I finally finished A Secret Map of Ireland. I could have rushed through it but preferred reading a couple of essays at a time so the stories wouldn't just jumble together. Love of Country, a Journey through the Hebrides is really excellent. I'm a little slow going through this one, too, but I find myself needing to stop and google locations and paintings and poems. I especially love how the author Madeleine Bunting weaves in the history and literature and art connected with each Hebridean island she visits. And I love how she addresses the way the English appropriated the culture of the Scottish Highlands and adopted it as their own. The book was written around the time of the Scottish Independence referendum, and this very English author is wrestling with where she stands on the issue, never quite resolving it for herself. Which leads me to ask @Violet Crown Have you read the James Macpherson epic poems, specifically the Fingal or Works of Ossian? The chapter on Staffa is utterly fascinating. The name of Frederique Petrides, a female violinist and music conductor, was brought to my attention a few weeks ago. I'd never heard of her before so requested the one book I could find on her, Evening the Score. It is a short book with a brief bio, but the bulk of the book are facsimile copies of her 1930s publications of a newsletter Women in Music which the author has annotated. She was a passionate advocate for advancing the careers and opportunities of women musicians and conductors, and her newsletter covered not just the activities of all the women's orchestras and symphonies across the US, but also included tidbits of the stupid sexism of the time. For instance, the BBC orchestra banned female cellists even though they had other female musicians in the group. A prominent woman composer of the time wondered if "perhaps the attitude of the cello player is considered an unseemly one for women?" After a break of a couple weeks I started listening again to Michelle Obama's Becoming. It is once again very engaging, and I especially appreciate the vignettes of the campaign trail from the perspective of a mother of young children. Frantically shopping for cute hats in February for the girls for the presidential campaign kick off, insisting that the girls didn't need to sit through his campaign speeches. The tidbits that every mom would relate to. And thanks to last week's thread when Mumto2 mentioned this series, I started Out of the Deep I Cry. It is the third in the series that features a woman Episcopalian priest in a small town in the Adirondacks. It had been a couple of years since I read the first two, and was happy to see my library has more of the series on the shelves. (And I thought I had read more than 2 of these, but apparently not!)

I love, love Terry Pratchett!! It is hard to know where to begin, though as all the characters come and go in the different books, but there are some tidy collections of titles that deal with the same characters. I suggest looking through this list. The Tiffany Aching books are really popular, but I can't quite comment as I haven't read them all. One of my favorite characters is Death WHO TALKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS and has a white horse named Binky. His first book, Mort, isn't my favorite of his. I love Thief of Time and Reaper Man when Death has to go work as a human. Oh and Hogfather which is the Discworld version of Santa Claus. I re-read Hogfather every Christmas now, lol! I also love the Sam Vimes, or City Watch books. They are part mystery. Guards Guards is one of the books I have recommended to people who want an introduction to Discworld. My hands down favorite, and the other one I give to people as an introduction is Going Postal where a con-man is conned into running the postal service. Have your kids read the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathon Stroud? There is a magic and an utterly sarcastic wise ass of a genie named Bartimaeus. It was the absolute favorite of my youngest when he was 13, and I enjoyed them too. I listened to them while crocheting the blanket he took to college! Do your kids like John Scalzi's books? Red Shirts or Old Man's War? Or Fuzzy Nation that has a planet with talking cats? And...this isn't fantasy or sci-fi, but the world building is just as brilliant as the best of that genre. The Master and Commander series is utterly brilliant -- yes it is the Royal Navy fighting the French and scurvy during the Napoleonic Wars. Great action, well rounded characters that grow and change throughout the series. My youngest also loved non-fiction during his young teen years, especially anything written by Bill Bryson. And he loved and still loves the All Creatures Great and Small series.

I really enjoyed the first few books in the series, and can't remember where I left off, or how many books there actually are. I may just have to start over again! One of the things I appreciated about the series is how church going Christians -- and the clergy -- are just regular people. They aren't fanatics, the church isn't corrupt -- it's just a normal way of life. It is SOOOO rare in modern fiction.