Joining Kat and friends. Go see what the others are up to.

Knitting.

The Blob currently contains 5 of the 6 skeins of this yarn. That is skein #5 at left. I figure the one remaining skein will be enough for the handles. (Commence yarn chicken…NOW!)

Reading.

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Still Midnight by Denisa Mina. Meh. Interesting characters in interesting situations, but still not my cup of tea. This lacked a traditional ending — the reader is left hanging, the Bad Guys don’t die nor do they get arrested. A friend who is a college English professor recommended this author; different strokes. 2.5★

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Scavengers by Michael Perry. I do not generally like YA books, but this one was fun. Michael Perry is a Wisconsin author who grew up on a farm about 40 miles from where I am now and presently lives with his wife and daughters about 120 miles away. I have read pretty much everything he wrote — except, of course, pieces published in sporting magazines. Back in the early aughts when I was staffing the circulation desk at our library, his first book, Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time, kept going across the desk as it was requested by pretty much everyone in northwest Wisconsin. I finally read it and was hooked. Mike’s writing is humorous, humble, and very down-to-earth. (For an example of his humility, note where is his author’s name on the cover of this book.) 4★

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The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis. This one is for my book group (that meets tonight). It is set in the building pictured on the cover; in 1952 it was the Barbizon Hotel for Women and in 2002 it has been converted to condos. The Barbizon is mainly famous for Sylvia Plath having lived there at one time. The story jumps between those two times, certain characters young in 1952 and much older in 2002. 3.5★

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Listening.

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown. It took me roughly a lifetime to finish this one. No fault of the audio, just my slack listening. Plot: Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in LA alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best: Her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet. Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who becomes an Instagram influencer. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family’s sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven: a mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa’s past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina. 3★

Watching.

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China Beach, season 3. When this series aired in the late 1980s it won a lot of awards — it was really well-done but was canceled after three (3!) seasons because of low viewership. Apparently there weren’t enough people who could tolerate being reminded of the horrors of Vietnam. 4★

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