I took a few days off to create a long weekend that I spent up north visiting my folks and my best friend. It gave me a little perspective on work and a little head space to open up for knitting and reading projects.

Here’s what I’m currently working on:

I am not loving Mansfield Park so far, although I’m about a third of the way through it. The main character is kind of a drip thus far, and both the love interest and everyone else in the book is rather one-dimensional and mostly horrid. I’m hoping it picks up, but am not holding out tons of hope at this point. Frankly, if it weren’t Austen, I’d give up on it.

I am, however, really enjoying The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle, who also wrote Better Nate than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate, about a gay teen boy falling in love the summer after his sister dies. It demands comparison to Becky Albertalli’s award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, not least because Albertalli blurbs Federle’s book.

I picked up my Lightning Shawl again tonight for the first time in forever. It felt good to work on it again, but Corey came to sit on me and demand my attention instead, preventing extensive progress. (Life is hard, right?) I also started (for the third time) a pair of vanilla socks over the weekend and, thanks to the drive home Monday and an all-staff meeting this morning, am now pretty much through the heel flap. Probably a couple more rows to go and then we turn the corner and head into foot territory.

Yarning along with Ginny.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from The Broke and the Bookish is Books That Made Me Laugh:

• Mama Makes up Her Mind by Bailey White: This book had me laughing out loud on an airplane.
• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde: Actually, almost everything Jasper Fforde writes. It’s like a Monty Python skit in a book, except without the stupid bits.
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: Arthur Dent, the main character, spends most (all?) of the book in his bathrobe because he ran out from his bed to prevent a construction crew from knocking down his house, and then an international construction crew knocked down his planet. Also, Vogon poetry.
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson: Funny nonfiction. You’ll be laughing so hard, you won’t notice how much you’re learning.
• The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett: One of fantasy’s funniest writers and the first book of the series that takes place on a world the shape of a disc. Features animate luggage and an inept magician.
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman: It would be inconceivable to leave this novel, upon which the movie was based, off this list.
• Better Nate than Never by Tim Federle: A hilarious romp for the middle-grade theater nerd in all of us.
• The Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parrish: This picture book series features a maid who just doesn’t understand that things get said symbolically or have multiple meanings.
• The Pippi Longstocking series by Astrid Lindgren: The strongest girl in the world who lives on her own, wears mismatched stockings, and fights injustice.
• The Paddington Bear series by Michael Bond: Paddington is too sincere and too much trouble not to be hilarious.

How about you? What sort of books do you find funny?

I know, I know. I never finished February’s list. But March’s list is short, so let’s get these up, shall we, and then circle back to February’s longer list later this week.

I only finished two books last month:

The Grind: Inside Baseball’s Longest Season, by Barry Svrluga

I like to read at least one baseball book a year. At last fall’s National Book Festival, Sarah wanted to hear Washington Post sports columnist Barry Svrluga speak, so I tagged along and enjoyed his talk about following the Washington Nationals around to cover what is the world’s longest sports season. In your head, you might be saying, “But baseball is only played for six months.” You would be right … sort of. There are games for six months, nearly every day. In a modern regular season, there are 162 games, but that’s over the course of 183 days. That means a baseball player only gets a maximum of 21 days “off” over those six months, and even then they’re probably working out for part of each one or traveling. They report to spring training six weeks before the season, and modern players are expected to arrive at spring training in shape from the off-season. This book is a fleshed out collection of the columns that he wrote, each focusing how people within various parts of a baseball organization deal with it. Because that schedule doesn’t just affect the players on the roster. It affects the coaching staff, the administrative staff, the scouts, players in the minor leagues, and all of their families. And, according to the book, each and every one of those people is carrying the weight of it.

As a baseball fan for many years, I admit that I hadn’t thought about baseball in this way before — neither about how little time away from the job they get (if your job affords you the luxury of two consecutive days off in a week, think how grumpy and less productive you might become, no matter how much you love what you do, if suddenly you were expected to give nearly all of them up for six months at a time) or how much of the burden of that falls on support staff and family members.

The book is a fast read, only ten chapters in all, and it does feel like it came from a weekly newspaper series. That said, if you enjoy baseball or how any large organization becomes successful, I’d recommend picking it up.

Pages: 176. Library copy.

Death at Wentwater Court, by Carola Dunn

This cozy mystery, set in 1920s England, is the first (of 22, to date) in a series about Daisy Dalrymple, a journalist and the daughter of a late viscount. (In case you aren’t up on your titles, as I was not, a viscount is better than a baron, but not as good as a baron/count.)

At the outset of her first novel, Daisy has convinced a magazine editor that her unique combination of journalistic skills and aristocratic connections make her the ideal person to write a series of articles about the homes of the gentry. She has come from London out to Wentwater Court to interview and photograph Lord Wentwater and his estate. Upon arrival, she discovers that in addition to him and his wife (they were recently wed) and his four grown children, those in residence at the estate include his sister and her husband, the eldest son’s fiancee (and her brother, who was Daisy’s late brother’s best friend and is Daisy’s on-again, off-again admirer), and the gentleman friend of Lord Wentwater’s daughter.

It is this gentleman, a truly unpleasant fellow, who turns up the next morning dead, and Daisy is asked to take a few photos of where the man’s body was found. When she discovers an anomaly and reports it to the detective who has been asked to investigate, she is pressed into becoming his secretary during interviews and finds herself knee-deep into the investigation.

Let me say that the plot of the mystery is stretched a little thin at points and that the secondary characters are not especially fleshed out, but neither was what drew me into the story. Daisy is a plucky, but kind character, as is Alec, the Scotland Yard detective sent to the estate, and they both have interesting back stories I’d like to learn more about. They are characters with potential, and I can also see a potential for the mysteries themselves improving, too, as we get further into the series. If you like the Maisie Dobbs books or Lord Peter Wimsey series, I think Daisy will appeal to you, as well.

However, may I suggest that if you are interested in reading this series and in being surprised by plot twists that you not Google the character or the book, but simply request it from your library or book purveyor? A simple search of Daisy’s name gives away several plot points just in the descriptions on the first page of results, so if you want a spoiler-free reading experience, let my mistake be your guide.

Pages: 252. (I listened to the audio version, though.) Library copy.

I’ve had great fun doing the past two Ninja Book Swaps, and while I thought about sitting this one out, I decided that I’d enjoyed them too much to skip it. I sent a package off to Louise in Derbyshire and got one back from Kate in West Midlands, which I finally managed to collect from DHL this week after we had some difficulties getting it dropped off:

I didn’t even know that colored packing peanuts were a thing! Incidentally, Corey thought this was the best part of the package, since he loves packing peanuts. He tried to steal several of them!

Kate sent me two books I’ve been wanting to read from her personal collection: The Magicians, which I’ve been wanting to read since it first came out, and The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion, the latest novel by Fannie Flagg, who’s one of my favorite comfort-read authors.

She also sent me some shortbread cookies and a box of tea, which she, not being a tea drinker, picked up at her sister’s suggestion. I’m looking forward to late-night snacks while reading.

Finally, she sent me an ordinance map of Wolverhampton, where she lives. She did not reside there in 1901, however, but she included an awesome card guiding me around the map to find the spots where they would eventually build all the places she’d lived in.

Thank you, Kate, for such lovely gifts! I love them! And a hearty thank you to Bex, for organizing the swap! If you think this sounds like fun, I recommend signing up for the mailing list, which will get you reminders when the next round is coming up.

I’ll admit to being in a low place, which means I play more computer and phone games and watch inane or repeat television shows than do productive things like read or knit. I know some of what’s causing it and that time is just going to have to get me through the next couple weeks, which are likely to continue being hard. However, volleyball starts back up this coming week, sunset creeps later every day, and the ski season is over. I’ve sat outside several days this week and have gone on a couple bike rides. The garden is under way, and we’ll pick our baseball games for the year this weekend. Much like getting pulled under by a big wave at the ocean, I know that if I don’t panic about the sinking feeling, I’ll come out the other side a little battered, but not much worse for the experience.

That said, I did start a new book this week: Vaseem Khan’s The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra starts on the title character’s final day at work as a Mumbai police inspector before a medically recommended early retirement. It’s also the day he gets a letter from his uncle informing him he’s about to receive a bequest — a baby elephant. I’ve only reached the day after retirement, and already Chopra’s feeling a bit antsy. I don’t think retirement is going to suit him too well.

I’ve started carrying around, although haven’t yet started working on, the second sock of my Sock Madness pair. I cast on a random sock twice this month, once with too few stitches and now with too many, so clearly that yarn needs to go into time-out until it can decide it’s going to cooperate and fit a leg properly. Hopefully it will see sense and allow itself to be re-jiggered (60 stitches, maybe) before the next time I need some mindless knitting for a concert or meeting.

Yarning along with Ginny at Small Things.

Every spring, Carl hosts a reading event, Once Upon a Time.

This year marks the tenth year of the challenge, and I’m excited to participate once again. I’m even eager to review the books, which I’ve been remiss about the last couple years. I’ve found Quest the First is the best fit for me, so I’ll be reading five books that fit into the fantasy, fairy tale, folklore, or mythology genres.

While I reserve the right to change my mind about my choices or to add a secondary quest (which offer the options to read A Midsummer’s Night Dream or short stories, play games, or watch tv or movies within these genres), right now, these are the books I’m considering reading (you saw some of these the other day):

• Carry On by Rainbow Rowell: A Harry Potteresque school with a cast of characters that includes a chosen one, ghosts, and an evil nemesis, who may also be a vampire.
• Court of Fives by Kate Elliott: Apparently, it’s Little Women meets courtly fantasy. It got good buzz in my Twitter timeline when it came out. I’ve had it out from the library and it either needs to get read soon or go back to them.
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir: Another book I’ve had out from the library for ages. Sarah & I caught part of the author’s talk at last fall’s National Book Festival. I’m not sure if it’s my style (one of the main characters is a soldier), but I ought to at least read a few chapters to find out and return it if it’s not.
• Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan: A Newbery Honor book from this past year that features a magical harmonica. Do we really need to know any more?
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins: A lot of people have classified this one as horror (Jenn? What do you think? Is it overly intense?), so it might be an early exiter for me, but it features a library and a Zeus-like character
• Unnatural Creatures edited by Neil Gaiman: Short stories about magical creatures.

I’m noticing several of the books I’ve selected sound awfully intense, which hasn’t been my speed recently. Only time will tell whether I jettison all of the stressful reads in favor of some of the gentler fantasy I have on my shelves and my online queue (and in that list from the other day).

Have you read anything recently you’d recommend that falls into these categories?