Bout of Books 31 wrapped up tonight, and while I didn’t complete all my goals, I’m counting it as a success. I finished my audiobook, Abby Collette’s A Deadly Inside Scoop. It was sort of a middle-of-the-road cozy about a young Black woman who stumbles over a dead body the same day she relaunches her family ice cream parlor. Her father ends up being the main suspect, so she and her BBC Mystery-loving best friend find themselves trying to clear him. I don’t know I’ll keep reading the series, but I’m glad I read the first one, particularly because BIPOC sleuths are hard to come by. I started George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain because it’s overdue and I want to see if I should request it again, buy it, or just return it and give it no further psychic energy. (I need to read a few more pages before I can decide.) So that was where my print mojo went, rather than to the graphic novel, which is what I’d planned to finish.

I did make it to all three Bout of Books Twitter chats (the two official and the bonus one), although only one of them did I arrive on time. Oh well.

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 10, and runs through Sunday, May 16, in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 31 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Once again I’ve joined up with the folks at Bout of Books, this time for their 31st readathon, spanning the course of ten years.

My goals for the readathon are two simple ones. I’d like to finish the audiobook I’m listening to, Abby Collette’s A Deadly Inside Scoop, and I’d like to finish one of the three graphic novels I have out of the library. I mean, I’d love to finish seven books over the week, but I have to work and things like that, so I thought I should keep things manageable.

And if neither of those goals happen, that will be fine too. After all, there’s no failing in Bout of Books; there’s just, occasionally, flailing.

For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, I originally thought I was going to get caught up on my 2021 reviews (And I still might! Stay tuned for tomorrow!), since I’ve only finished 10 books to date. But since that would call for more words than I want to write, I’m taking a page from Jana of That Artsy Reader Girl and simply giving you my last ten 4+-star reads:

1. Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas: I will always recommend the Lady Sherlock series.
2. An Unexpected Peril by Deanna Raybourn: Another solid Victorian-era mystery series.
3. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez: An enjoyable middle-grade novel about a boy who (sometimes accidentally and sometimes not) creates rifts in the multiverse and his new friend who doesn’t think he’s crazy for it.
4. Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev: The second novel in which this author takes inspiration from Jane Austen’s novels and applies it to a contemporary extended Indian-American family living in California. Warning: Don’t read while you’re hungry.
5. Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore: A suffragette tries to find a way to bring a member of the House of Lords around to her cause.
6. Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob: A memoir inspired by her son’s concern about growing up Brown in America.
7. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune: It topped my best reads of 2020, and I continue to adore it.
8. Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why by Alexandra Petri: A book of Washington Post satire columns that could only have been published during the last administration.
9. How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason: I don’t know what to tell you: While this is the second book on this list with a similar title, it is not remotely like the other. Great if you always wondered what the Star Wars trilogy would have been like if told from Leia’s POV.
10. Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert: A young, disabled Black British woman makes a bucket list (with the hopes of jumpstarting her life, rather than to do before it ends) and enlists the super of her new apartment complex to help her.

How about you? What have you read recently that you’d recommend fairly universally?

Just last night I wrapped up Murder on Cold Street, the latest Lady Sherlock novel by Sherry Thomas, and I’m still feeling a bit of a reading hangover from my favorite series, not quite willing to let go of my thoughts about Charlotte and Livia and Mrs. Watson and Ash. So I’m not quite sure yet where I’ll land yet on a print read, but it might be the comic collection of Check, Please!: Sticks and Scones by Ngozi Ukazu, about a hockey team at a small New England liberal arts college. I also wrapped up an audiobook this week, but I’ve moved on to A Deadly Inside Scoop by Abby Collette, the first in a new cozy mystery series set at an ice cream parlor in the Cleveland suburbs. I’m finding the reader’s style distracting and, for the first time, have sped up the speed in an attempt to see if that makes her less off putting. If it doesn’t, I may need to switch to paper on that one.

With my rainbow socks at the heel, I’m also feeling a little disconnected from my knitting. But I’ve started carrying around the bag that contains the Lightning Shawl, my oldest semi-active UFO, so I’m inclined to think that wants to come out of hibernation again. When I pulled it out of the bag to photograph, I discovered the needle and project had become detached, so some actual unraveling was necessitated to get the two reconnected once again. I think this had gone into timeout in its final strip because I’m working with scraps at this point and there was a weird blending that happened at the very midpoint of the shawl that looked unpleasantly obvious, so I don’t think that will end up having been even a minor setback. But wouldn’t it be great if 2021 were the year this finally became a wearable item, eight years after I started it?

Head over to As Kat Knits for the weekly roundup.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is favorite animals (real or imaginary) in literature:

1. Paddington, from the eponymous series by Michael Bond
2. Pickwick, Thursday’s pet dodo from Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series
3. Dog Monday from Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery
4. Charlotte, she of the web by E.B. White (let’s be honest; while Wilbur was fine, she was some spider!)
5. Mrs. Frisby, who led the rats of NIMH in Robert C. O’Brien’s novel
6. Lowly Worm from Richard Scarry’s various picture books
7. Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth’s pet sow in the P.G. Wodehouse novels
8. Glerk, the poetry-composing swamp monster from Kelly Barnhill’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon
9. Winn-Dixie in Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie (actually, she has tons of great animal characters; I could give her ten just herself)
10. Ivan the kitten from The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

Plus a shout out to the animal ensembles who abide in the Hundred Acre Woods and the Harry Potter universe. I couldn’t pick one, so I applaud them in toto.

How about you? Who are some of your favorite literary animals? (You can once again tell me in the comments, because we figured out the fix. Apologies to anyone who tried to leave me a comment in the past two weeks.)

This week’s knitting and reading is just a continuation of what was begun last week. I continue to love my new socks, and Sherry Thomas has yet to disappoint me with her Lady Sherlock series.

I’m past the halfway point in the latest Fox and O’Hare audiobook. Evanovich’s latest co-author, Steve Hamilton, is himself a well-regarded author, and this story is a more solid caper than the last one in the series, which was written with her son. However, I’m starting to realize that secondary characters must belong to co-authors, because this is now the second book in a row to forego bringing in Nick Fox’s Irregulars. I enjoyed the wackiness of that group and this book, while a perfectly fine addition to the heist oeuvre, is a much more Serious Story with moments of levity provided by circumstance (Kate ends up in the drink twice in a single day) than by characters.

Head over to As Kat Knits if you’re interested in what others are reading and crafting.