I’m nearly up to the heel turn for my socks, which is very exciting. I will be glad to have finished a project and to have new stripey socks to wear.

I’m almost halfway through Light from Uncommon Stars. I don’t know that enjoy is the right word for such a book, but I’m caught up in the story now and want to see if everyone will do right by one another.

I finished listening to A Marvellous Light (loved it) and have moved on to Cassandra Peterson’s memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira. I’m still in early days, but I’m enjoying her voice so far.

Head over to As Kat Knits to hear about what others are reading and crafting.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share the Top Ten 21st Century Books I Think Will Become Classics.

I’m not sure my reading preferences will line up with canon, but what can you do:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
3. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
4. The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
5. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
6. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
7. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
8. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
9. March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
10. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Interestingly this list features a lot more books by men than my usual lists. I wonder what that says about my internalization about the inherent value and timelessness of male subjects and voices. Probably not good things.

What books do you consider modern classics?

Look! It’s progress on knitting! This is the second of a stripey rainbow pair I began last year and put aside after the first one was complete. One of my coworkers recently learned to knit and another crochets and so we’ve started a knitting circle, with last week being our first meeting. I felt confident that I should have something to work on — and also, I’ve lost my knitting mojo a bit and stripey socks are potato chip knitting.

On the reading front, I’ve been dipping in an out of print books in search of one that holds my attention for more than a chapter. Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki may be that book. I’m up to page 30 in this sci fi novel about a woman who bartered her soul to the devil (I assume for violin prowess, but that part has yet to be revealed) and now is in the final year of needing to find seven other people to send him. There’s also a transgender runaway who may be a violin prodigy and a starship captain and mother of four who’s in hiding on earth with her family and passing their time making doughnuts. That’s a lot to squeeze into 30 pages.

In the ears, I’m adoring Freya Marke’s A Marvellous Light, about a man who gets a government job only to find out it’s as a liaison to the magical world. On top of that, the guy he’s replacing has gone missing, and he’s been cursed in an effort to get him to reveal a magical secret, and he’s maybe falling in love with the magician who’s his counterpart.

How about you? What are you reading or crafting? Head to As Kat Knits to see the roundup.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share books with adjectives in the title. Here are ten such books that I either currently have borrowed from the library or am on the holds list for:

1. An Impossible Impostor by Deanna Raybourn
2. The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
3. Broken Horses by Brandi Carlisle
4. Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim
5. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
6. Vampires, Hearts, and Other Dead Things by Margie Fuston
7. Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny
8. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
9. Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
10. A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey

How about you? What are some of the adjectives in your library stack?

Spring arrives next Sunday, which means it’s time to consider the books I’d like to read as the weather warms and the sun stays up later and I’m able to read outside without my fingers freezing.

For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl, here are ten books I hope I get to before summer arrives:

1. An Impossible Imposter by Deanna Raybourn (the next book in the Veronica Speedwell series)
2. Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sãenz
3. Sherry Thomas’ Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
4. Reclaim the Stars, edited by Zoraida Córdova
5. Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
6. Emily Henry’s Book Lovers
7. My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand
8. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
9. Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club
10. Amanda Gorman’s Call Us What We Carry

Which books are you looking forward to reading this spring?

I’ll admit I haven’t been doing a ton of knitting or reading recently. Sock Madness has stalled for me at 17 rows of knitting in a week, which makes finishing a pair in a second wholly unlikely. Tonight’s contribution to the endeavor was finding a cable needle.

I’m having a little more success reading in print. I have a book that I’m making progress through, albeit it slowly. I like the characters and the plot, but I’m loathe to see unhappiness come their way, which is surely has to for a short while in order to advance the plot. That I know the ending will be happy is probably what keeps me plodding along.

What’s had the most resonance lately is the audiobook of Stephen Spotswood’s Fortune Favors the Dead, a gumshoe novel featuring two female PIs in 1945 New York City, one of whom has MS and the other who is a bi former-circus employee. I don’t know if I’d be speeding through it quite so much if I were reading it in print; the reader does a good job honoring the this-side-of-parody approach Spotswood takes, which makes it a fun listen.