As always, I’ve been lazy about sharing what I’ve finished reading this year. Let’s take the next step toward getting caught up. I read five books in February, but am just going to share the first two with you today, since they unintentionally share a theme:

Words in Deep Blue, by Cath Crowley

In this Australian y.a. novel, Rachel has just moved back to the city where she spent most of her growing-up years. She, her brother, and her mom had moved out to the coast a couple years earlier, but tragedy has struck and Rachel has returned to live with her aunt after high school. Adding to the stress of big life changes and their accompanying seismic waves is that, just before she’d moved, she’d declared her undying love for her best friend in a letter. And he’d never responded. Now, her aunt has agreed that she’ll help her ex-BFF’s family catalogue their bookshop’s inventory, including the room of books with letters tucked inside for various recipients, including the one she’d written Henry. She’s not going to mention it, though; nor is she going to share what drove her to move back.

Henry’s longtime girlfriend just dumped him, shortly before a trip they were going to take around the world. He’s devastated, particularly since it’s clear that at least part of the problem is that his life goals — to work in his family’s shop — and thus he are not ambitious enough for her. When Rachel walks back into his life, he’s delighted, particularly since he doesn’t know why she’d severed ties with him after she moved. But she seems to have changed, and there seem to be a number of things unsaid between them where there didn’t used to be barriers.

I really loved the idea of a bookstore with space devoted to books that meant something to two people, that published words can be so intimate as to constitute a shared experience. This was a heartbreaking read, but also a heartmending one, and I recommend it.

Pages: 288. Personal copy.

Do Fish Sleep?, by Jens Raschke, with illustrations by Jens Rassmus. Translated from German by Belinda Cooper.

Ten-year-old Jette’s brother, Emil, has been sick since he was a baby. He’s been in and out of the hospital with cancer. And, then, a year ago, he died, leaving everyone bereft, but without the capacity to talk about it. Their mother is particularly hard hit, leaving Jette to wonder if she’d loved her brother more. But Jette and Emil have talked about some of the big questions, such as whether fish sleep or not and how to come to terms with questions you might not be able to prove the answer to.

It doesn’t feel like we have a lot of fiction for younger kids coping with loss of a sibling. There’s a lot of genuine emotion in this book, but it deftly deals with the subject matter and lightens the emotional load a bit with accompanying pen and ink illustrations, so that it doesn’t end up feeling like an Afterschool Special. Recommended for young families.

Pages: 64. Library copy.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday at This Artsy Reader Girl, Things I’d Have at My Bookish Party, would have exhausted me in a pre-pandemic world. But right now? Can’t even begin to contemplate. So, I’m going with a variation on a theme (this was also my approach in college, when I couldn’t answer an essay question on an exam: answer a related question instead of the one actually assigned): Ten Books I’ve Read with Parties That Sound Fun:

1. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia: The costumed, funeral party on Boston Commons
2. Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory: Christmas tea for the royal family’s staff
3. Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: The royal wedding at the beginning, at least until the wedding cake crashes to the floor
4. P.S., I Still Love You by Jenny Han: The dance Lara Jean throws at the retirement home
5. Caraval by Stephanie Garber: I think it would be fun to observe Caraval (half Amazing Race, half Carnival, but I don’t know that I’d want to take part
6. Geekerella by Ashley Poston: I’ve never been to a Comic Con-like event, so this one is tempting
7. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone by J.K. Rowling: Harry’s first Christmas at Hogwarts (I thought about making it Harry’s birthday/Bill and Fleur’s wedding in Deathly Hallows, but that does end with Death Eaters, so in the end, I’d probably rather not… And the Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire was also a consideration…)
8. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli: Their prom involved way more walkways through trees and fairy lights than mine did
9. Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein: The library’s opening night
10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: The Netherfield ball

Come tomorrow I’ll remember a half dozen village fêtes, masquerades, and beach parties that I should have included, but this works for a start.

Have you ever wanted to attend a party you read about in a book?

I have just one more evening of reading The Flatshare. I reached a moment of peace, where everyone was still relatively okay, and decided to put the book down for the night. I looked at the chunk of pages left, then ticked off five separate story elements left to be resolved, and decided that was too many for 50 pages and that it must be 75. Turns out it was 80, including the acknowledgements. I look forward to the fast resolution.

I’m also nearing the end on my audiobook, Size 12 Is Not Fat, by Meg Cabot. Former pop star turned assistant residence hall director Heather has figured out who the murderer must be, but she has to convince Cooper still, not to mention, the N.Y.C. police.

I’m not quite as close to finished with my second Smock Madness sock, but I have memorized the pattern, so that has to be something, right?

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

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?