It is starting to feel like I may never finish A Gentleman in Moscow, which is too bad because I actually am enjoying it (and because it’s overdue to the library). It just refuses to be rushed, a characteristic it shares with very few other novels I’ve encountered. I really would like to get to some other novels, like Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, which I also have out from the library right now (and which will be due back imminently). My current audiobooks are Crocodile on the Sandbank and Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Corner (although so far I’ve only listened to her preface in which she talks about the ideal places to read a book). Oh, and I did start Meet Cute, a collection of YA romantic short stories.

My Cherry Blossom hat is in the round now and onto its main color. I still need to figure out where the skein of brown yarn is that I’m thinking of for the branches and procure some beads. (I have some, but I think they’re more red than pink, which is what I’d prefer.)

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

Here are a couple of the books, both sophomore entries in caper mystery series, as it turns out, that I read back at the start of the year:

Teetotaled, by Maia Chance
In this sequel to Come Hell or Highball, Lola Woodby, the chocolate and dime-store detective novel-loving Prohibition Era widow who lost her philandering, debt-ridden husband and her status all in the same week, is back with her Swedish cook-cum-detecting partner Berta in another caper. This time they’re after a diary and have been required to check into her brother-in-law’s fat farm health spa in order to retrieve it. But as so often happens, they’re not the only ones who aren’t what they seem to be and before they’re able to complete their mission, a senator’s wife is dead and the owner of the diary is on the lam. This is a series of books just begging for a filmed version, à la Miss Fisher, with a similar sense of humor and joie de vive in its storytelling and an equally distinctive cast of characters. Lola is far less confident than Phryne, but is determined not to lose the apartment where she and Berta have holed up (her late husband’s secret tryst location) and be forced to return home to her overbearing mother. A really fun series for those who enjoy historical mysteries.
Pages: 320. Library copy.

The Unbreakable Code, by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
This sequel to The Book Scavenger picks up soon after we leave Emily and James in their previous adventure. At the launch party for the manuscript they found, their teacher drops a coded message, which Emily saw him pick out of a purse. Unable to leave a puzzle alone, they set to work solving it, which puts them on a collision course with their teacher, a Gold Rush Era myth, and an arsonist out for revenge. Add to that concerns about money for Emily and her family, worries about eccentric publisher Mr. Griswold (who is suffering PTSD from his attack in the first book), and anxieties about helping to plan their school’s President’s Day dance, and Emily really has her hands full. It’s not as good as the original book, but still enjoyable. I’ll definitely read the upcoming third book in the series and recommend it to puzzle-loving middle graders.
Pages: 368. Library copy.

I have a bunch more books to update you on, but figure if I just share a couple at a time, it’s less overwhelming for me to write and far shorter for you to read.

Despite having had a snow day today, I can’t really tell you how I spent it. I mean some of it I can account for. But the rest was just frittered away, not knitting, not reading, not doing much of anything.

Which accounts for this photo of a book you’ve already seen and of a new knitting project that’s not further along. I’m into the third part of A Gentleman in Moscow and I suspect the action will pick up soon. I can see the author laying the pieces in place for what is to come. I’m still listening to We Were Eight Years in Power and the print copy is also in my hands for referring back to. I’ve also started listening to the first Amelia Peabody novel, Crocodile on the Sandbank.

The yarn is the start to Yoshino Cherry Blossom Hat. I opted for cherry pink for the brim instead of brown the way the pattern calls for. And I might opt for regular rib instead of twisted rib, because I think that’s stretchier and the pattern repeat is 36 stitches long, making it hard to just add a couple to the cast-on the way I’d meant to.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is a quarterly favorite of mine — what I’m hoping to read this season. Before I answer, I thought I’d look back at a few previous iterations of this list, as well as some of the lists for what I’d hoped to read in 2018, to see how I’ve fared previously.

In January, I wrote about 10 of the books I’d meant to read last year. I have since read (and enjoyed) two of them — Wonder Woman: Warbringer and Magpie Murders.

In December, I shared 10 2018 titles I intended to read this year. While, as of today, half of that list has been published, thus far I’ve not read any. I’ve bought Down and Across and it’s sitting in the pile in front of me.

I am doing better in terms of the books I wrote I planned to read this winter: I’ve read three — Teetotaled, Turtles All the Way Down, and Far from the Tree — and am on the hold list for a fourth.

Finally, I went all the way back to last spring to see what I’d hoped to read then. I’ve finished four of them and have a fifth on the go currently.

The lesson here is that no matter what I put on this list, I’m likely to only read, at best, half of them, which is really depressing, but in keeping with how fast I add new titles to my TBR list. Without further ado and for whatever it’s worth, here are the Top Ten Books on My Spring TBR List:

• Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff came out last week. It’s the final book in a chunky epistolary trilogy set in space that I’ve loved and I may have begged the library to hurry up and buy copies so I can read it. Maybe.
• The Great Spring: Writing, Zen, and This Zig Zag Life, by Natalie Goldberg comes from my list last spring. I did start it and it induced severe eye rolling on my part, which is really too bad, since I own my copy. I’d like to give it one more try to see if it was just me or if I ought to send this one out into the wild.
• I will read everything that Rainbow Rowell writes, but I draw the line at buying comic books that I’m pretty sure will later be collected into a book. (And, yes, I do understand how the comic book industry works and know that they’re not going to do that if enough people don’t read those flimsy little zines. I just don’t care to give in to that stupid system.) However, lots of people did buy her Runaways series of comics with Kris Anka, so it will be made into a book, The Runaways, Vol. 1, due out in April.
• I got Me Before You by Jojo Moyes in my TBR Secret Santa package in December. Now that we’re moving into spring, I can read books that I know will make me cry again.
• Ashley Weaver’s Murder at the Brightwell was part of my last Ninja Book Swap package. I’m in a mystery mood right now, particularly of a historical bent, and anticipate this being a fun new series.
• I attended an author event last week for The Radical Element, a collection of 12 stories about “daredevils, debutantes, and other dauntless girls.” It contains stories from authors I like, authors whose longer works I haven’t yet gotten to, and an author who also works as a D.C. librarian.
• David Grann’s true crime nonfiction Killers of the Flower Moon is outside my comfort zone, but it was a National Book Award finalist and he is a fellow Conn alum, so I feel like I should at least give it a short.
• Speaking of the National Book Award, I have Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jessmyn Ward out of the library right now and intend to start it as soon as I’ve finished the overdue Towles book. Each of her books is on my TBR list, so I’m hoping to finally be able to cross one off.
• Morgan Parker’s poetry collection There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé was one of two books of verse I bought myself for my birthday. I’ve started one of them and am looking forward to beginning this one soon. I’m thinking of reading several poetry books during April.
• Finally, the aforementioned Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi. It’s partially set in D.C. and Jenn really likes it, so I’m hopeful. (Also, he said nice things about Jenn when I met him last month, so that’s definitely a count in his favor.)

What are you looking forward to reading this spring?

I managed one Fée Dragée sock within the Sock Madness timeframe, which ends tomorrow at noon. Once I kitchener the toe and submit photos in the morning, I should officially qualify as a cheerleader, which means I’ll still get the rest of the patterns and will be able to knit along at my own turtley pace. I look forward to a completed pair in a couple more weeks.

I haven’t read any more of A Gentleman in Moscow since last week, but it’s soon due back to the library, so I need to get moving on it. Pashmina, which was a Cybils finalist, has been my travel book this week. It’s a slim graphic novel about an Indian-American girl and her immigrant single mom. We’ve just reached the Oz part of the story, that takes place in India in full color and I’m very excited to learn what happens next. On my phone I’m still listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ We Were Eight Years in Power, which has been very compelling thus far.

I’m joining Kat for her weekly Unraveled Wednesday:

As I showed yesterday, my current knitting is Fée Dragée, which I think of as my “Go, go, Gryffindor!” socks, even though my gold is technically a peachy orange when not rammed up against red yarn.

My reading is a little all over the place right now, but in a good way, I think. My fantasy chunkster is Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer, which is significantly overdue at the library and which will start accruing late fees if I don’t return it this weekend. My historical fiction, which I just started tonight, is Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow. It’s probably not something I would have picked up on my own (although I probably added it to TBR mountain when it came out), but it is routinely cited by my book group as a favorite, so I figured I’d give it a shot. The first couple chapters were funny, in a wry sort of way, so I’m hopeful even though adult novels wherein a protagonist must stand up against an oppressive regime usually end poorly. The slight book next to my sock is Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths, by local poet Elizabeth Acevedo, which I treated myself to on my birthday and which I have tucked into my knitting bag. She has a new YA novel out this week, but I want to finish her poetry collection before moving on. Finally, in my ears I have Ta-Nahesi Coates’ latest essay collection, We Were Eight Years in Power. I’m up to year four and have not yet canceled my hold request for the print copy, because I think I might want to read certain sections (such as tonight’s on the Civil War) with my eyes, where I can better process and retain information I want to refer to later.

How about you? Are you reading or crafting anything interesting?