I finished listening to Exit West by Mohsin Hamid on the drive to Sioux Falls last week. What a good book it was. It took the story of two young people who chose to emigrate from a suspiciously Middle Eastern-flavored-but-unnamed country to an unknown place (twice!) and made it a universal story of refugees. I repeatedly marveled at the skill of the writer, both in plot and in language. Highly recommend.

In the analog world I find myself dragging. The Hanging alternately grabs me and leaves me cold. Not sure if I will actually finish it. There is a mountain of books from the library next to my bed, but I find myself picking up my iPad at night instead of a book. My book group meets tonight and will talk about Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese. Sadly, I have too busy shoveling out the Aegean stables that is my house to read the book.

In the library TBR pile:

• Enemies : a history of the FBI / Tim Weiner returned to library unread
• The shadow land / Elizabeth Kostova returned to library unread
• The hanging / Lotte and Sören Hammer didn’t finish; returned to library
• The party is over : how Republicans went crazy, Democrats became useless, and the middle class got shafted / Mike Lofgren
• Strangers in their own land : anger and mourning on the American right / Arlie Russel Hochschild
• The dry / Jane Harper I started this mystery set in Australia a couple days ago. Surprisingly masterful writing in a first novel.
• White tears / Hari Kunzru
• The idiot / Elif Batuman
• The lake /Lotte and Sören Hammer Given my disappointment with The Hanging I will probably return this one unread.
• Homesick for another world / Ottessa Moshfegh
• Void star / Zachary Mason
• The girl in green / Derek B. Miller
• The underdogs : children, dogs, and the power of unconditional love / Melissa Fay Greene
• Flying too high : a Phrynne Fisher mystery / Kerry Greenwood I liked the TV series quite well; let’s see how the books are.
• Marathon / Brian Freeman
• The year of living bibically : one man’s humble quest to follow the Bible as literaly as possible / A.J. Jacobs
• The crow trap / Anne Cleves

How many of these will I actually read? Definitely not all of them — that would be an impossible task, particularly considering that there are four five more books waiting at the library for me to pick them up.

Things are progressing better in the knitting world. I made a fair bit of progress on Herbivore on the SF trip.

And the scrap afghan is nearly done. One more row after this one, I think.

Which is good because I am nearly out of whitish yarn.