Today’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share The Last 10 Books I Abandoned.

This is a problematic category for me, because sometimes I put a book down for years and then come back to it, pick it back up where the bookmark is (or start over again — it depends on how much story I remember), and plow through to the end. And other times a book lingers on my currently reading list before I reorganize and dump it back into the to be read category. I mean, I have a list of more than 4000 books I’ve either read or mean to read on Goodreads and only 12 are listed on my “couldn’t finish it” list. And often, if a book doesn’t catch my fancy, I just don’t ever note that I started it. So… I cannot tell you what the ten books I last abandoned are.

So, how about I look through the 44 books I have marked on Goodreads as “currently reading” and tell you ten that are no longer in the house with me?

1. American Street by Ibi Zoboi — I am something ridiculous like 5 chapters from the end of this YA novel. And I can’t bring myself to keep listening. I keep thinking I’d just pull it off the shelf at the library and read the final pages in print, but so far I haven’t found myself at a branch where it’s in stock.
2. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders — This is no longer on my currently reading list, but I kept getting bored by the award-winning, full cast audiobook. I’ve heard from some others who also usually like audiobooks that they recommend trying it in print. Maybe.
3. Little Fires by Celeste Ng — Another book where it got stressful and I decided I didn’t feel like contuing on into the stress. Not sure if it’s a for now or a for always decision.
4. The Body Papers by Grace Talusan — Written by the sibling of someone I was at college with, this memoir talked about having survived incest. I know it’s am important topic, but I just couldn’t bring myself to keep reading. When someone else put a hold on it, I let it go.
5. Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me and You by Lin-Manuel Miranda — I got bored. If I’d owned it, I would have completed it eventually. But when a hold came up, I took it back unfinished
6. Insomnia by Marina Benjamin — The writing detailed living through insomnia. So, I decided, why do it twice?
7. There, There by Tommy Orange — I tried. I kept plodding ahead. I even read the ending, which I absolutely never do, in the hopes that it would allay the feeling of dread. But it did not. I had similar feelings to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I abandoned decades ago, which I did not think boded well.
8. Creative Quest by Amir “Questlove” Thompson — In the end, while it was more interesting than I expected it to be, particularly in audiobook form, it was still a self-help book and I didn’t want to waste my reading time listening to it when there was fiction to be consumed.
9. Girl Squads by Sam Maggs — This was a cute nonfiction look at specific women’s friendships. In the end, it was a little too cute and felt very young, despite focusing on super interesting women. Again, if I’d owned it, it’s quite possible I would have dipped into it periodically and would have finished it.
10. Glad Tidings by Debbie Macomber — This is cheating a little bit, because technically it’s still in the house. But one of these days I’ll remember to take it to the local Little Free Library. I suffered through the first of two Christmas-themed novellas (it got better, but then it got stupid again at the end) and then I remembered I had freedom of choice not to read past the first irritating, sexist chapter of the second novella.

What have we learned here? Stressful moments in books will cause me to put them down and I may not want to pick them up again. Nonfiction, particularly episodic nonfiction, often bores me. Audiobooks are way easier for me to let go than print. And if you piss me off, I’m probably going to punish you by shutting the cover on you.

How about you? What books have you let go recently?

Day Two of Bout of Books 28 invites us to play the “If this, then that” game, wherein I suggest books you might enjoy reading based on certain criteria.

I am currently listening to Louise Penny’s The Cruelest Month and Yes, No, Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed. (The Penny is what I was listening to today.) I thought I’d give you a recommendation for each:

The Inspector Gamache novels are set in the Quebec village of Three Pines, a Canadian Cabot Cove, if you will. If you like mysteries with a very distinctive setting, then you may also enjoy M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series (Death of …) set in the Scottish highlands. Beaton’s books are cozier than Penny’s and it doesn’t particularly matter in what order you read them. But the sense of place is very strong. (As it is in her other series, Agatha Raisin.)

Yes, No, Maybe So is told in alternating points of view. I often like books in spite of this stylistic approach, not because of it. However, if you like books told by two main characters, you may also like Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare, a charmingly fluffy book about two Londoners who share a one-bedroom apartment (one of them gets it during the day, the other at night) that actually takes on some decidedly non-fluffy issues in a sensitive and not mawkish way.

Once again, I’m signing up for the Bout of Books. This is their 28th version, and I’ve taken part in about half of them.

Today’s challenge is to introduce yourself in exactly six words. Here are the ones that seem most pertinent these days:

Surprised books aren’t enough right now.

Might that be how you introduce yourself, as well, as many of us enter week 8+ of social distancing?

But wait! What is Bout of Books you ask? And how can you join us?

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, May 11, and runs through Sunday, May 17, in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are daily challenges, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For Bout of Books 28 information and updates, visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Sign up at the above link by the end of the day Tuesday.

Somehow with the craziness of the past few months, I missed that James Taylor had released a new album, American Standards. He had previously recorded “It’s Only a Paper Moon” for A League of Their Own nearly 30 years ago, but I thought I’d share his latest version.

“It’s Only a Paper Moon was written in the early 1930s, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg (they also wrote “Over the Rainbow” together) and Billy Rose. (Billy Rose’s contributions may have been minimal; apparently he was very good at promotion, so artists were sometimes willing to let him attach his name to their songs to get them further out into the world.)

It’s Friday night, which means it’s time to think about the next couple days and how to differentiate them from the rest of the week.

Here’s what I’m hoping it holds:

• I have already started the weekend by finishing the print book I was reading. I am looking forward to picking out which book will be the next one I spend chunks of time with.
• If I get up before noon (and that’s a big if), I’m going to try to get to Georgetown before the bank closes at 1, so I can get quarters so we can do laundry. (Rudi discovered that the branch of his bank closest to our apartment has also closed temporarily.) If that doesn’t look likely, maybe Rudi will go instead, since he’s sure to get up before me.
• Even if I do not go to the bank, I am going to leave the apartment. The past two days have been huge fails on that front, with the furthest I’ve traveled is the sidewalk outside the building to take out the recycling bin. There will be trips to the garden and to the farmers market. I may even ride my bike.
• I would like to order pizza. I didn’t wrap up work early enough to do it today, so I will give it a shot tomorrow. (I got caught up at the end of the day trying to write a legal contract and then explain in an email to the people on our staff with that expertise what it was I actually wanted the contract to do.)
• There is going to be some serious vacuuming going on in the Burrow this weekend. Maybe I’ll even dig out some of the vacuum’s accessories. (Yes, I do know exactly where they are.)
• I’m going to knit some more on my sock. I’m going to darn at least one pair, because I’m out of clean unholey pairs and tomorrow is going to be cold. And I’m going to wash all the pairs that need laundering.
• Baking will happen. Dessert options are limited right now, but only because I keep taking naps instead of spending time in the kitchen.
• There are birthdays and Mother’s Day to be celebrated this weekend. (I should probably also think about Rudi’s birthday next Saturday, because that’s definitely going to arrive before I realize, and winging it will be less possible this year.)
• I have mail to write! The post office is clearly not going to save itself!
• And I’m definitely going to work on getting some sleep — starting now!

How about you? What’s on your weekend to-do list? (It can totally be a not-to-do list, too.)

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. As you may have seen in yesterday’s photo, I moved the citrus to the living room table. (I say that as if we have any other table in our apartment.) Its newfound proximity to my workspace on the couch means it’s the first snack I grab. (Also, we excavated the blue bowl from under a pile of things and put it back to use, which is super exciting.)

2. Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff did an author event put on by my local bookshop. The hosting platform did not want to be put into the background on my phone and still play the audio, so it made an excellent excuse to stay out on my walk until the event wrapped up. And I felt Amie’s description of their introvert-extrovert (paraphrasing, but essentially: I’m like a six year old and everyone I meet is my new best friend. Jay eventually runs out of words because he hasn’t been able to recharge.) approaches to touring.

3. Cheese and crackers as an appetizer.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I’m up finally halfway through the leg of my Smock Madness sock. I definitely feel like I could be through the heel this weekend, unless I’m actually so productive that I come away with a clean apartment instead of half a sock. Seems unlikely…

I’m about halfway through The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman and am finally mostly enjoying it. I’m about a quarter of the way through listening to Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed’s Yes, No, Maybe So, which seems especially enjoyable right now since portions of our living space has been turned into a satellite campaign office for the candidate Rudi is working for. And tonight Rudi and I started listening to the Stephen Fry rendition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on Audible. It’s free to listen to for the next while, and Fry’s Hermione is far less annoying than Jim Dale’s. Rudi listened to several hours, but I napped through it intermittently, so I’ve been relistening since he went to bed. I think I can get caught up tomorrow night.

Want to see what other people are reading and crafting? Head to As Kat Knits for the roundup.