My Other Hobby

The problem with having a busy week and multiple projects is that you don't make too much progress on any one of them. I'm still working on my sweater, the baby sweater, and the Mister's socks. My sweater has a nearly complete body (I'm about halfway through the ribbing at the bottom). The baby sweater is a little further along than it was the last time you saw it, and I'll be working on finishing the body tonight. The Mister's socks are now in the home stretch, as I've gotten through the gusset of the second sock and am now cruising down the foot.

It looks like I might be playing a game of yarn chicken on this sock, but as the first sock weighed just slightly less than half of the whole skein, I might just squeak it out.

Seeing as the knitting is not all that exciting at this point, I thought I'd talk about what I've been reading lately -- I really haven't talked about books here in a long time! I've been reading more this year than I have in years past, probably because I am reading more e-books these days (which means that I can read while I knit or spin because there's no need for an extra set of hands to keep the book open).

One of my favorite books that I've read so far this year is Beautiful Wreck by Larissa Brown.

I'm fairly certain that I bought this book when it first came out in 2016 (it was published by Cooperative Press, which you might know more for its craft books) and started reading it shortly thereafter, but I didn't get beyond the first chapter at the time because I didn't really understand it. I thought I'd give it another go because I'd heard so many great things about the book, and I quickly discovered that the first part is meant to be a bit confusing because it's set in the future -- and then nearly all of the rest of the book is set in 10th-century Iceland. I found the story very compelling, albeit a bit implausible (as is any story involving time travel), but the writing is just beautiful. I have also recently read the first part of the sequel, which was good but not as good (and I'm anxiously awaiting part 2).

Currently I am reading Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper. This book has been on my wish list for several months, and I finally broke down and ordered a hard copy last week when I was ordering some books for Rainbow. I'm glad I got a physical copy, because I can already tell that this is a book that I'm going to want to display in my library. I'm only about 30 or 40 pages in so far but am enjoying it immensely. Being a word nerd, the subject matter appealed to me right off, but Kory has a wonderfully humorous way of approaching the field of lexicography. (It also doesn't hurt that I've since found out that she's a knitter!) If you enjoy reading about the English language and its idiosyncrasies, and you don't mind a bit of profanity, then you'll enjoy this book. I'm looking forward to reading more of it this weekend.

Do you have any great books that you've read recently that you'd like to recommend? I'm always on the lookout for good books to add to be "to read" pile!