Joining Kat and friends to talk about knitting and books.

Knitting.

Fatigue has driven me to my bed at 4:00pm every day for over a week. A short lie-down or even a nap has enabled me to be awake for dinner and maybe a couple hours afterward. Now I hit the bed shortly after dinner. I have been too tired to knit in the evenings for all that time, so that second BSJ has languished. But being too tired to knit has translated into rather a lot of reading, so there is that.

Reading.

Waiting by Ha Jin. This one has been on my bookshelf since ::counts on fingers:: the Jurassic Age. When I finished the last library book and didn’t have any more, I perused my shelves and chose this. It is about a man in China before, during and after the Cultural Revolution. (Sorry, I am fuzzy on the dates.) He is married to a woman in his village, but left years ago to become a doctor. It was an arranged marriage, and he has never loved his wife. Every year he returns to his village to try — unsuccessfully — to get her to agree to a divorce. He has new love, a nurse at his hospital, and they are waiting to marry until he can get the desired divorce. This goes on for nearly 20 years, hence, the book’s title. Of course, when he does get the divorce, his life with his new wife is not as wonderful as he had anticipated. The book was interesting mainly because of the alien culture it described. 3★

Educated by Tara Westover. I read this a year or so ago, but my book group picked it for our next read, so I re-read it. It is the memoir of a woman raised in a violently survivalist Mormon family in rural Idaho; the father is the dictatorial patriarch, mother is an acquiescent midwife and herbalist, brothers are alternately verbally and physically abusive (although not sexually). The author eventually rebels and escapes, but returns over and over in an attempt at peacemaking. Fascinating. 5★

The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Found this in my Kindle app. It is a book about libraries, their history, and their place in our lives centered on the horrific 1986 fire in the Los Angeles Central Library. As a library lover, I found this book very interesting; if you are a library patron this book is for you. 4★

On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes. by Alexandra Horowitz. I had to return this one to the library before I finished it. My plan was to read one chapter a night, but I started too late and was not faithful. The author takes walks around her New York City neighborhood with various experts — an architect, an artist — who open her eyes to things she has seen but not observed. I wish I could have finished it. 3★

Still listening to How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibrim X. Kendi. I am finding this one more enlightening and educational than Between the World and Me, even as good as the latter one was.