This is very long, but what else do you have to do? I found it fascinating.

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Joining Kat and friends for an Unraveled Wednesday. Sheesh, I haven’t done one of those posts since January 8! Let’s see if I can remember what I have knitted since then.

A red hat.

A white and blue hat.

Tried to knit a Shift Cowl. The pattern kicked my butt. Maybe I will try again, who knows.

A scarf that I will finish tonight whilst watching NCIS.

Someday when I have more ambition I will post some photos. 

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What have I read? What haven’t I read? Here is two-plus months of reading.

Solitude Creek by Jeffrey Deaver. Standard FBI procedural. Recommend if that’s your bag, as it is mine. 3★.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. I listened to this several years ago and thought it okay. It was my book club’s pick and I enjoyed it more this time. It is the story of a bookstore owner who has isolated himself after his wife died, but fate has other things in mind for him. 3★.

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth by Rachel Maddow. A fascinating read for fans of Rachel Maddow and for those who find much to despise in the fossil fuel industry. 4★.

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbottom. OMG, this is one of the best things I have ever read. Much of the detail of what went on in April 1986 has not been told until now. Shortly after I finished it, Smokey and I watched the Chernobyl miniseries that was originally on HBO. I highly recommend both. 5★

Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste by Bea Johnson. Buy less, recycle more, blah blah blah. Nothing new here. 2★.

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Rebellion by Gloria Steinem. A collection of essays. Nothing new here either. 2★.

Fever by Mary Beth Keene. The book chosen by Kym, Carole, and Bonny for their Read With Us book club. It was interesting, but I never really understood why the protagonist did the things she did. I guess I am much more of a rule-follower than she was. 3★.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue. I listened to this one. Back here I told you about it. It gives a poignant portrait of an immigrant family that has to go back to Cameroon. 4★.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
The Murmur of Bees by by Sofía Segovia

I didn’t finish any of these. Back here I told you why.

A Dangerous Man by Robert Crais. This is #18 in a series that I have never read, but it worked as a stand-alone. If you like mysteries, you will like it.  I did. 3★.

The Girls by Emma Kline. 1960s, northern California, hippies, strangeness. Kinda disturbing. 3★.

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh. A tale of a strange young woman who become entranced by an even stranger one. Also kinda disturbing. 3★.

The Power by Naomi Alderman. An interesting take on male-female power in a dystopian future. What if women had a strength advantage over men? What would that be like? How would they interact? 4★.

Sackett’s Land by Louis L’Amour. My book club occasionally chooses an author rather than a book, and everyone chooses their own book by that author. I only read a few pages of the book because I was not really interested, but the discussion when we got together was.

Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions by Sheila O’Connor. A person I follow on IG recommended this very highly. It is the story pieced together by the granddaughter of a teenage girl in Minneapolis in the 1930s who aspired to be a star. It draws an unforgettable picture of what it was like to be a *fallen woman* back then. 3★.

The Guardians by John Grisham. Grisham phoned it in for his last two or three books, but he is back on his game with this one. 3★.

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry. Oh, my gosh, this was good! It was the March selection for the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club. It was strange, and hilarious in a delightfully underhanded kind of way. 4★.

And, in current news…

Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel. I got an unexpected and largely unexplained $20 credit from Amazon. I had just read about this one and added it to my Goodreads “want to read” list, so I bought it. I’m only about a quarter of the way through it and am not sure what to think yet. Stay tuned.

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. I am listening to this, and it is excellent. It may be hard to believe, but Larson makes this account of the year from May 1940 to May 1941 a virtual page-turner. Even knowing that Britain survived the Blitz and didn’t surrender and that the feared invasion never came did not alleviate the tension as I listened. Then the coronavirus pandemic became news, and that and the book complemented each other; they are both about catastrophes and community strength and keepin’ on keepin’ on. 5★