Wednesday afternoons have mostly been pleasant recently, so I’ve been spending the time between my midday book group and my evening volleyball game at a pleasant cafe that’s along my bike ride between the library and home and close to a bike dock. They have a southern-facing patio that offers lots of sun and serve pots of tea and just enough tables to accommodate those of us who want to sit outside in the spring. Today, I opted for a bowl of yogurt and granola to accompany my tea.

This shot was taken early in my visit today, because I had not yet begun the heel flap, which I’m now past the halfway point on. It seems possible that I’ll be done with the pair sometime next week, depending on how much time I have to knit.

The novel is Maia Chance’s Gin and Panic, the third volume in her Discreet Retrieval Agency mystery novel. Set in Prohibition Era New York and featuring a young, down-on-her luck society widow and her Swedish former cook, the pair have founded a service, using detecting techniques gleaned from some of their favorite pulp magazine stories, in which they intend to retrieve items for people, often those belonging to Lola’s former social strata, and instead get themselves involved in (and often suspected of) associated murders. There’s a handsome gumshoe beau and an unhandsome gangster beau and lots of drinking and baked goods and costumes you can imagine straight out of Miss Fisher (except placed on a figure where the girdles are straining a bit more because of said baked goods). It’s light, fun fare and in this one the estate where the murder occurs is located in a fictional town not far from where I went to college, so I’m enjoying it. The fourth novel is already out and I think D.C.’s library system has a copy (or maybe has one ordered), so I don’t even wait for the next installment to be written!

If you’d like to see more of what folks are reading and crafting, head over to As Kat Knits.

I stopped by the tail end of the Friends of the Arlington Library book sale today and came away with six things: three Christmas items (two detective stories, including one whose author was, until recently, a mystery of its own, and a dvd of Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas), a favorite childhood title, The Saturdays; a book by a favorite author (Fannie Flagg) that I hadn’t yet read; and a children’s book called A Book Dragon, which I bought solely for the title.

The total bill for the bunch came to $2.25. Not a bad haul, eh?

Do you like to partake of library book sales, and, if so, do you have any favorite finds?

I picked up a new book at the library earlier this week — Deanna Raybourn’s A Dangerous Collaboration, the latest in the Veronica Speedwell mystery series. Set in Victorian England, the series is a gender bending homage to Sherlock Holmes, although Speedwell’s Holmes is far more equaled by Stoker’s Watson than is usually the case. This addition to the series is set on an island off the Cornish coast and features a castle with a poison garden. I’m sure we can all see where this is going to go. And I’m excited for it to do so.

I’ve been in a reading slump recently, so the area around our couch is currently littered with books that I’ve dipped into, expressed interest in continuing, and then put aside for something new, which also fails to snare my attention fully. Less than 24 hours after starting this book, though, and I’m past the treacherous waters of the 50-page mark, so I’m hopeful.

I have also been carrying on with Ladee Hubbard’s The Talented Ribkins and Questlove’s Creative Quest on audio. I’m narrowing in on the halfway mark for the former, which remains both interesting and vague, as our septuagenarian narrator is slow to reveal important details from the past to his niece and his readers. The latter audiobook is fine, and Questlove just revealed the importance of the Stevie Wonder episode of The Cosby Show to many of our now middle-aged hip hop pioneers.

I did not get caught between sock #1 and sock #2 for my stripey stockinette pair. This is the first second sock of 2019, so it’s a pretty momentous knitting occasion for me. I’m hopeful we’ll be able to carry on quickly through. And I just have the toe of the first of my Smock Madness sock to finish before moving on to the second one of that pair, as well. Progress on my shawl has stalled, but it has been suggested to me that if I complete some major item on my to-do list that that feeling of accomplishment might carry me through some of the other tasks, so I may put some energy into wrapping it up. Plus, we’re getting into the weather where I can start going out with just a tshirt and shawl into the evening, so this would be a perfect time to get it off the needles and onto my shoulders.

Want to see what other people are reading and crafting? Head over to As Kat Knits.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us about the things that automatically make us want to read a book. I rarely will buy a book based just on these things (with a couple exceptions), but mostly these are things that will get them added to my TBR list or maybe my library request queue:

1. Written by favorite authors: Pretty much if J.K. Rowling, Barbara Kingsolver, Jasper Fforde, or Rainbow Rowell write a book, I will buy it with no further recommendation needed.
2. Heists. I love heists on the screen and on the page.
3. Set in places I’ve lived or places I’ve visited. With the latter, it’s because being able to picture a place intimately is a huge plus. With the former, it’s both because I love to see these couple places represented well and also a little bit because I want to catch an author out in what they’ve gotten wrong. I’ve put down books set in my D.C. neighborhood because they described the Dupont Circle fountain incorrectly or because they referred to M Street in Georgetown as being townhouses. (Rudi and I have mulled whether I could generously give this one to the author, and I have not given up the idea of returning to it, particularly as I bought my copy of the book and had it inscribed by the author.)
4. Epistolary novels. I love me some letter writers.
5. Found families. I love it when a disparate group of individuals comes together to take care of each other.
6. A personal recommendation from someone whose book opinions I tend to agree with: My folks are usually pretty good with what they recommend to me. My best friend, Karen, although we’ve both had some notable misses. My friend Amani, who early in our friendship let me tag along with her to a bookstore only to remark later that I was the first person who didn’t make her feel rushed in her favorite sections. Raidergirl3, because I think we value a lot of the same things in the books we like.
7. Feminism. I like strong women, or women who become strong through the course of the story.
8. Retellings — of fairy tales or classic stories. Updated takes. A change in point of view. Sherlock Holmes stories tend to particularly suck me in. And Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series falls a bit into this through the Bookworld bits.
9. Children’s stories in translation. They sometimes take me a while and oh my god I hated Bronze and Sunflower, but I always like to give them a shot.
10. Authors as main characters. Either featuring fictional authors, or fictionalizing real authors (such as Stephanie Barron’s series of mysteries with Jane Austen as the protagonist).

How about you? What automatically makes you want to read a book?

On my way back from my book club, I stopped by a cafe to spend some time in the sun today. It felt glorious to be able to strip off my sweatshirt and sit outside comfortably. A pot of tea and a strawberry muffin didn’t hurt things, either.

I’m ready to start the second sock of that stripey pair. I made them extra long in the leg, but I’m about to hit baseball season, so mindless stockinette isn’t a problem.

I began On the Come Up by Angie Thomas. So far I’ve learned what a snapback is, which are baseball caps that have those very flat rims and leave the sticker on the brim and have rather perpendicular tops. I knew they were a thing; I just failed to realize they had a name. I don’t know why; I mean, everything has a name. So, a new thing.

I also started Ladee Hubbard’s The Talented Ribkins on audiobook. It’s about an otherwise ordinary family, where everyone has a superpower, like the ability to make maps of places they’ve never seen or to scale walls without aid of ropes. There’s hints of how these talents may have been useful in the Civil Rights movement, but the main character spent many years using his talent for a mobster, who now thinks he’s owed money.

All the other books are still on the go. Finishing things seems to be a problem these days — one I obviously need to address as due dates approach!

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what other folks are reading and knitting.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is audiobooks. Because the focus within that is up to us, I thought I’d share some audiobooks that really worked for me:

1. The Harry Potter series, narrated by Jim Dale.
   Yes, Dale’s Hermione is awful and screechy (and while Hermione can be screechy, that’s not her default) and his take on other female characters isn’t much better, but each one of his characters stands on their own — and there are a lot of them over the course of seven books.
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, narrated by Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, John Lee, and Juliet Mills.
   I listened to this after reading the print book, which is good, because I knew what was going to happen and didn’t have to feel all the feels the first time through listening. This multi-voice cast does a great job with the story and really bringing the correspondents to life.
3. See You in the Cosmos, narrated by Kivlighan de Montebello, Brittany Pressley, Graham Halstead, Michael Crouch, and Jason Culp.
   Another multi-voice cast brings this heartwarming middle grade novel about an eleven-year-old boy, his dog Carl Sagan, and his quest to launch a golden ipod (filled with the sounds of the world around him) into space as he journeys across the west and as his family life falls apart — and rebuilds itself in new and surprising ways.
4. The Woman Who Smashed Codes, narrated by Cassandra Campbell.
   This nonfiction history was a recent read for me. Campbell does such a good job narrating a book written by a guy that I kept being surprised she wasn’t the author. She really brings cryptologist Elizebeth Smith Friedman to life and helps you appreciate the great debt we owe her — both for her work bringing Nazis in South America to justice and for helping to develop the very codes that form the bedrock of our modern spy system — and our modern electronics. (If you like Campbell as a narrator, raidergirl3 has a whole list of books narrated by her that she recommends.)
5. Becoming, narrated by Michelle Obama.
   I love this book. I love this woman. Listening to her read it just makes me feel so much better about the world.
6. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, narrated by Xe Sands.
   Sands does a good job voicing an 85-year-old New Yorker heading out for an evening stroll on New Year’s Eve in 1984 and thinking back on her life.
7. Norse Mythology, narrated by Neil Gaiman.
   Count me amongst those who would listen to Gaiman read the phone book. He has such a surprisingly soothing voice for someone who makes a living with his pen. For me, listening to this title allowed me to better picture the story peopled by the actors of the Marvel movies, from Tom Hiddleston to Jamie Alexander to Anthony Hopkins.
8. A Conspiracy in Belgravia, narrated by Kate Reading.
   I love the Lady Sherlock mysteries and Reading (pronounced “redding”) does a great job reading. I love when people’s names and occupations match up! Rudi and I listened to this one together and both of us enjoyed it.
9. Creative Quest by Questlove.
   I’m still in the middle of reading this self-help guide to creativity from the literary drummer of The Roots, but am really enjoying his casual approach to the narration. He paused at one point in talking about a French chef to phone the guy and ask him to pronounce his name. He intersperses his explanations of drummers whose work has inspired him with beats they’ve laid down. It just really works in this format.
10. The Fox and O’Hare series, narrated by Scott Brick.
    This is a cheesy heist series, and Brick’s reading makes certain interactions between FBI agent Kate O’Hare and master thief Nicholas Fox seem more salacious than sexy, but maybe they would come across that way on the page, as well. Either way, this is totally ear candy.

Are there audiobooks you’ve particularly enjoyed listening to?