Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is Top Ten Books I Wish I’d Read as a Child. Even though I always read a lot, I missed a bunch of classics. While I’m glad I’ve gotten to read them as an adult, I bet reading them as a kid would have been even better.

1. Matilda by Roald Dahl. The two Charlie & the Chocolate Factory books were the only Dahl I read as a kid, and, honestly, I liked the movie better. But obviously I would have loved this book about a girl reader. (Actually, I see now that this book didn’t come out until I was in high school, but I don’t care. I’m keeping it on the list.)
2. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Bill Konigsburg. I honestly do not know how I missed this book as a kid. A favorite of many of my favorite people, it falls squarely in the sort of books I loved as a kid and also seems like the sort of book that my dad would have loved to share with us if he’d known about it at the time. Apparently the whole family missed out on museum-sneaking adventures. (Although, it should be noted that Grey Kitten and I had our own adventures at the Met when we were in high school, so it may be that I didn’t actually need additional inspiration.)
3. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Nowadays, when I see a book compared to The Westing Game, I know it is nearly guaranteed to fall into my wheelhouse. The possibility of magic, but maybe mystical magic and maybe just sleight of hand. Possibly a heist. Definitely subterfuge. And a payoff at the end.
4. The Swallows and the Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. This series of two families in early 20th-century England — one on vacation and one local — who have sailing and camping adventures all summer is criminally unknown in the U.S. It wasn’t until I was going to the U.K. for the first time and asking an online book group for recommendations that I was introduced to it. I still haven’t read all of them, but I collect them as I find them, the way I have with other childhood series I’ve loved. (There is a made-for-tv series that I was excited about right up until I learned they introduced new, extraneous adult characters and elements into the story.)
5. The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper. It took a while for me to grow into fantasy novels, but it seems like this might have moved the needle earlier had I read the series, particularly since the first book is set at Christmas and I do love me some holiday books. Probably, though, the second two books in the series would have been more my speed as a kid.
6. Half Magic series by Edward Eager. Karen gave me a couple books from this series as a going-away present when I moved, because I was really reluctant to leave and, I think, she sensed that I needed some inspiration to embrace the adventure I was about to embark upon. I am glad, therefore, that I didn’t read it as a kid because I got to read it when I needed it most.
7. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. Plucky girl (why are boys never plucky?) stories, particularly those set in England of yore, were the sort of books I loved as a kid. (See Frances Hodgson Burnett’s works.) This was probably a little more gothic than I would have chosen on my own, but I was more of a finisher as a kid and I think I would have enjoyed it once I got through it, particularly since the story wraps up very patly.
8. The Pippi Longstocking books by Astrid Lindgren. I was definitely aware of these books growing up and they even made a movie based on it when I was in middle school, but somehow I missed their delight until much later. I have since dressed as Pippi for Halloween at least twice. (It requires my hair to be long enough to pull into braids. I waited to cut my hair one year until after Halloween just so I could play her.)
9. The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston. I liked stories where time is fluid at a certain fixed point, so I feel like I would have loved this series as a kid.
10. Momo by Michael Ende. This is another book Karen introduced me to. Ende is best known as the author of The Neverending Story (which people often better recognize from the film, rather than the novel), but his other books are equally charming, especially this one about the importance of spending time doing things we love. There’s a possibility some of the lessons might have gone over my head as a kid, but I suspect not.

How about you? Are there titles you’ve since read that you wished you could go back in time to hand to your earlier self?

I’m pleased to report that I finally started a book that has no pictures and can still hold my attention. The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary is the last of my #TBTBSanta gifts, and I’d been holding onto it for … today, I guess.

It’s about two Londoners who come to share a one-bedroom apartment — one sleeps in it during the day and the other at night. They communicate via post-it notes, and it’s sweet and exactly right for a point in time when we’re also living sub-optimally. I only began it this evening and am already past the crucial 50-page mark. I assume I know how it’s going to end, and I’m glad. I crave concrete happy endings right now. I don’t want wishy-washy. I don’t want to be continued in the next volume. I want mostly forward movement and “they lived happily ever after. The end.”

Otherwise, I’m intermittently listening to Size 12 Is Not Fat, by Meg Cabot, and, with Rudi, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I still have The Cruelest Month out in audiobook, but I haven’t had it in me to listen to it this past week. I probably should finish it off, though, since April ends next week. It just makes me so tired to think about.

In the same way that I’ve been having a hard time concentrating on books, I’m also having a hard time focusing on knitting. Probably I need to find something to knit on big needles that is just back and forth or round and round. When life gets too much, sometimes it’s helpful if your yarn size grows, too. Or at least that’s what I’ve occasionally found in the past.

But I haven’t moved forward with finding a worsted or bulky project, so I content myself with having knit three rounds on the second Smock Madness sock since last week. Hey we knitters know that eventually all those small efforts will add up.

Check out As Kat Knits for people who manage to knit whole rows at a time and who’ve finished bunches of books.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to look over book titles and determine ten that we think would make great band names. Here are ten from my to be read list:

1. The Friday Night Knitting Club
2. Gods of Manhattan
3. Queens of Animation
4. Still Life with Tornado
5. Team of Rivals
6. Party of One
7. The Way Home
8. Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (pretty much every Fannie Flagg title would work as a band name)
9. Moominsummer Madness
10. Rancid Pansies

Have you come across any book titles that bands should consider?

Sometimes you just need Paddington to read to you, and he’ll do it as long as you bribe him with marmalade sandwiches. Honestly, I think he’d do it even without the treat.

Tonight’s book is A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, edited by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick, and my Christmas present from Karen. It’s a series of letters from famous writers, artists, scientists, and leaders to children about a shared love of books. Each letter is accompanied by an illustration, and each pairing is thoughtful and thought-provoking. It’s not the sort of thing you can plow through if you expect to enjoy it, but is lovely to dip into for a few letters each night.

The sock is last year’s Smock Madness, which I discovered when I was moving bags around. Sock #1 is already done, which makes it a better project than this year’s Sock Madness socks, which are only up to the heel flap of the first sock. Wool socks are a part of my daily quarantine wardrobe for at least another month, so finishing a pair would be a nice gift to myself.

Fine. Let’s get my metaphorical house in order and get caught up on some book reviews. To start the year, I finished two books I really enjoyed:

The Art of Theft, by Sherry Thomas

In the fourth of the Lady Sherlock mysteries, Mrs. Watson comes to Charlotte with a Christmastime request — would she be willing to … retrieve … something on behalf of an old friend?

What can Charlotte say? She owes Mrs. Watson such a debt of gratitude. So despite her hesitations, she agrees. But this isn’t the sort of heist that can be accomplished with just the two of them. It’s going to require the assistance of Lord Ingram and Stephen Marbleton — and even her sister Livia — to pull this off. Acquaintances from earlier in the book series will cross their paths, as will at least one character from another Thomas series (which I’m now excited to read).

They will all journey across the Channel to France, where they must gain access to an exclusive Yuletide Ball. Charlotte, always one step ahead of murderers in her previous adventures, must now figure out not only how to successfully resolve Mrs. Watson’s friend’s request, but also how not to get caught in an international intrigue or in the crosshairs of a power play.

Charlotte’s adventures continue to be some of my favorites. I was lucky enough to get to attend an event at Loyalty Bookstore back in the fall with Sherry Thomas and to be in the room when she got to meet Kate Reading, a local voice actress who reads the Lady Sherlock audiobooks. The next book in the series is due out in the fall, so you still have plenty of time to get caught up with this great series — either in print or via audiobook.

Pages: 297. Personal copy.

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, by Kate Racculia

The first thing you need to know is that there is an eccentric old billionaire, Vincent Pryce, beloved by many in Boston, who is about to drop dead at a hospital fundraiser. He has set up a Poe-inspired quest to celebrate that fact, and the prize may be some of his wealth. Everyone in Boston is very interested.

Second, you need to understand that Tuesday Mooney is very nearly always the smartest — and most reclusive — person in the room. As a development researcher for the fictional equivalent of Mass General, she likes to think of people as puzzles to be solved, which makes her both good at her job and off-putting to be around, except to a couple key people: her best friend, Dex, a drama queen stock broker, and Dorry, the motherless teen girl from the apartment next door who worships the ground she walks on. She also has just made a new friend, rich playboy Nathaniel, who refuses to fall neatly into any of the boxes she’d created for him when she researched his family. Oh, and there’s also Abby, who disappeared when they were teens, and who may or may not be haunting Tuesday.

People’s true identities must be sussed out. There are games within games within games going on here: peel off one layer of the onion only to reveal the next. Players will have to confront both inner and outer demons to solve Pryce’s puzzles, and Tuesday will not only have to learn to play well with others but also to trust them in order to move ahead and be considered for the final part of the game on Halloween night.

This is The Westing Game for adults and a well-crafted, multi-layered mystery of identity and reliability and, even, ghosts. Highly recommended.

Pages: 359. Library audiobook.

Total January reads: 2 books; 656 pages.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share the cause of how we’ve added certain books to our physical TBR piles. I decided to focus on ten books I bought because I loved their author’s earlier work:

1. Threatened by Eliot Schrefer, because of Endangered
2. Sleeping at the Starlite Motel: and Other Adventures on the Way Back Home by Bailey White, because of Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
3. The Blue Shoe: A Tale of Thievery, Villainy, Sorcery, and Shoes by Roderick Townley, because of The Great Good Thing
4. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, because of Eleanor & Park
5. Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo, because of Because of Winn-Dixie (and others)
6. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, because of Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths
7. Odes by Sharon Olds, because of The Dead and the Living
8. The Great Spring: Writing, Zen, and This Zigzag Life by Natalie Goldberg, because of Writing Down the Bones
9. The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson, because of A Walk in the Woods
10. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, because of Housekeeping

How often do you buy books from an author, perhaps without giving it your normal amount of consideration, simply because you loved one of their previous works?