I picked up a couple more books at the library. I seem to be under the impression that the more that live at my house, the more likely I am to find my way out of the reading slump I’ve been in for more than a year.

So I thought I’d look at the books I currently have checked out and put them in a possible order for actually catching and keeping my attention. (This does nothing to solve the root problem of mental exhaustion caused by a never-ending tower of work that is rarely more than an arm’s length away in my life now, but I can solve one of those problems today and not the other.)

1. Deanna Raybourn’s Unexpected Peril: The latest installment in the Veronica Speedwell mystery series, just out this month.
2. Class Act by Jerry Craft: A companion graphic novel to one I enjoyed last year. Reading graphic novels often gives me headaches, but they do move quickly.
3. Carlos Hernandez’s Sal and Gabi Break the Universe: I’m two-thirds of the way through this middle-grade sci-fi novel about friendship and loss and just need an hour or two to finish it off and get it back to the library.
4. Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff: I love the YA sci-fi books this pair of Australian-dwelling writers make together. They’re action-packed, with distinct voices for all their characters and the found family trope that I love. But unlike in their first series, this one is willing to eliminate main characters, which throws a huge weight behind not reading it. I want all the characters I care about in a series (be it tv or book) to make it through to the end and I’d rather forgo the enjoyment of continuing the relationship than to lose them.
5. Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli: This romance is set here in D.C., which occasionally works out great and more often makes me stop reading as soon as the first wrong thing shows up. A local bookseller said nothing jumped out at her, so my fingers are crossed.
6. Janae Marks’ From the Desk of Zoe Washington: This middle-grade reader about a young baker who gets a letter from her incarcerated birth father started off slowly, but it’s gotten rave reviews everywhere, which suggests if I push through another chapter or two I’ll be hooked.

What books do you have lined up to read next?

With last week’s realization that I’d need to figure out how to solve my Sock Madness socks, I decided to spend some time revisiting old projects and wrapping them up. Maybe this weekend you’ll get some modeled stripey socks. If I’m productive, you might also get these Smock Madness. I’m a repeat away from the toe decreases, which means less than two hours until two finished pairs this week. That would be a nice feeling.

I’m also wrapping up some books that I’ve had lingering around the house and that the library is now adamant about wanting back. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe is a perfectly enjoyable middle-grade read (thanks for the recommendation, Rebs!), and, in any other situation, I’d have been done with it right after I borrowed it from the library. This being what it is, it keeps getting put aside and buried under work and whatnot near my couch.

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

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share ten funny book titles. Here are ten I’ve read (and recommend):

1. Come Hell or Highball by Maia Chance
2. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
3. Be Careful What You Witch For by Dawn Eastman
4. Visions of Sugar Plums by Stephanie Evanovich
5. The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
6. Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why by Alexandra Petri
7. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia
8. The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
9. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
10. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

How about you? Have you read any books with amusing titles recently?

So … Sock Madness 2021 … We can now officially chalk it up as the year I wasn’t paying attention.

See how we have two flowers next to each other?

We should not. They should be set off from one another, by half, so that they alternate down the leg like garden stepping stones, rather than like the rectangles of a hopscotch board. I just absolutely read the pattern wrong, which is a little irksome because I thought to myself that if I’d been designing this pattern I would have alternated them … exactly the way the designer did … rather than spacing the flower rows out by a couple dozen twisted rib rows.

It’s fine. I had already missed a smock on the other side, which would have eliminated me from competition anyway. But now I am left with the decision of what to do with the sock. Obviously it would be silly to keep knitting it the way I thought the pattern had been written, since I already didn’t think it should be done that way. I could rip it back to the start of the first flower and knit it right. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t gone far past it, but I do not love twisted stitches and would prefer not to redo a couple dozen rows. I could decide I’m doing a variation, with a row of flowers at the top, not dissimilar from a band of colorwork and then just alternate from the nearest spot it makes sense to begin down the leg, which could look a little wonky with flowers that close together vertically, but also might look fine. I could come up with some other sort of variation that stops the twisted stitches once I get to the foot. Or, I could rip back to the cuff, which is pretty and not so many twisted stitches I would resent having to replicate them on a second sock and knit some other pattern down the leg. Thoughts? Other ideas?

I started Ring the Hill tonight and have not gotten very far, because I’m having to stop myself from wanting to tweet out/highlight gems of quotes every couple paragraphs. I’m in a bit of a reading funk, so finding something where I like the language is helpful, but not really for finishing a book quickly. I’m also still listening to The Midnight Library, but it’s also not hooked me so much that I want to listen nonstop.

If you want to see what others are knitting and reading, head over to As Kat Knits for the weekly roundup.

The seasonal Top Ten Tuesday lists at That Artsy Reader Girl tend to be among my favorites, partly because they just require I give you a list of the books I’m looking forward to reading the most over the next three months. Easy!

Here are ten I’m hoping to get to this spring:

1. Let’s start easy. These are my two most recent purchases: Reynard the Fox by Anna Louise Avery
2. Ring the Hill by Tom Cox
3. Adding to my British animal theme, Jasper Fforde’s The Constant Rabbit was a Christmas gift. Plus, I will always read everything he writes, even if I don’t always love it.
4. I haven’t yet picked up Murder on Cold Street, the latest in my favorite mystery series by Sherry Thomas, because they only had one copy at the bookstore at Christmas and it was a gift. The library across the river has a print copy, so I’ve requested they put it on hold for me.
5. An Unexpected Peril by Deanna Raybourn only came out at the beginning of this month. I’ve added it to my library holds list, as well.
6. The final book in Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sisters trilogy, Act Your Age, Evie Brown!, also just came out.
7. Gish Jen’s The Resisters, a baseball meets sci fi dystopia novel.
8. I heard about Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli during a local bookstore’s Galentine’s Day event, plus it’s set here in D.C.!
9. Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse was one of the Alex Award Winners, a category of adult fiction which tends to appeal to young adults.
10. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

What are you hoping to read this spring?

Sock Madness, the sock knitting competition I enter each March and rarely advance through the play-in round, commenced on Saturday with the pattern Senbonzakura by Natalia Vasilieva. It has smocked stitches and beads and twisted stitches meant to create an overall effect of cherry trees in spring.

I’m using a skein of Hobbledehoy sock yarn in the colorway “Crosswords,” which I’m finding to be a pleasantly round, bouncy yarn. It tolerates the tiny crochet hook I use to add beads well. The beads are blue-tinted with a silver core and they were the best of the batch I had on hand against the variegation and red undertones (overtones?) of the yarn.

(You can see the four Rudi and I gave serious consideration to. The clear ended up not being right, the blue was just too blue, the red was matte and I didn’t love it as much as I wanted, and then there’s the silvery blue I picked.)

And, yes, I am already significantly behind where I should be if I want to advance. It’s great if I move on and also fine if I don’t. Either way, I should have a great pair of socks at some point.

I started From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks this evening. It’s a middle-grade novel about a girl who, on her 12th birthday, gets a letter from her birth father in prison. It’s the first one she’s ever received from him, but his letter suggests there have been others through the years. I look forward to finding out what happens next.

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