Unraveled, Week 21/2021

Well friends, we've made it to another Wednesday! That means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers to talk knitting and reading. And it's been a productive week in both areas for me.

I have primarily been focused on knitting my Threipmuir sweater this past week, specifically on getting through the colorwork yoke so that I can move on to the stockinette portion (for which I will not need my eyes as much as I knit). I finished the colorwork yesterday, and I'm almost through the last of the short-row shaping below it and very soon will be ready to split the sleeves from the body and start the long process of knitting the body.

This project has actually taught me a new technique: the ladderback jacquard method of dealing with long floats. I've been aware of this method for a while and understood the general method of it, but I hadn't yet tried it, and to be honest, when I cast on this sweater, I didn't even realize that it used this technique. It's only used for a small number of rounds in this sweater, but it's very handy and can see how I can use it in the future. (And hey -- that's another item crossed off my 21 in 2021 list!)

I've also been working on my brother's socks and have passed the heel on the first sock, though I messed it up a tiny bit because I was knitting on it on Saturday afternoon when we were at a little happy hour party with some friends and family. My brother will never know the difference, frankly, so I just went with it (and I dare you to even find the error -- I can't even seen it anymore!). Now I'm knitting until I'm out of yarn or the leg seems long enough, whichever comes first.

Reading has been continuing at a good pace, though for a while I felt kind of at a loss as to what to read next so as not to mess with my bingo plans. I have finished three books in the past week.

When I was between holds and didn't want to start anything too heavy, I decided to read one of the many books I have in my Kindle library from Amazon First Reads (those freebies you get every month if you have a Prime account). Sorry I Missed You sounded like a fairly silly and easy read. I am sorry to say it was silly, but not in a good way, and not good. I didn't hate it, but I didn't particularly like it, either. The plot is way too complicated and unnecessarily convoluted, and the writing is confusing at times. I know some of you will wonder why I bothered to finish it, and my only answer is that it was quick to read and by the time I realized I wasn't going to care for it much, I was already most of the way done (and there was a bit of a mystery that I wanted to know the answer to). I gave it 2 stars.

I thankfully got very lucky with my next read when I got surprised by a hold coming up from the library; I wasn't expecting to get Piranesi for a few more weeks at least! And this was a good one -- I read it cover to cover over the course of Monday. You can read the description of the plot on Goodreads, but trust me when I tell you that it really won't tell you much. This is the kind of book you can start reading without knowing anything, and you need to be prepared to be completely confused at the beginning, but it will all come together beautifully in the end. This novel is propulsive and completely original, and though it made me think of The Secret History quite a bit, it's unlike anything else I've read. I gave it 4 stars.

After reading a book in a day on Monday, I repeated the experience yesterday when I finally read 84, Charing Cross Road. I know many of you have already read it and enjoyed it, and I've been meaning to get to it for a while. I actually tried to read it on Monday as an ebook from the library, but when I opened it, I discovered that the one version available was not in English! Luckily, I found it available as an audiobook (less than 2 hours long) on Hoopla, so I listened to it yesterday afternoon. I'm actually very glad I listened with my ears -- I think it's such a lovely experience to hear it performed with authentic accents! I really enjoyed this collection of letters, as so many of you have, and I gave it 4 stars.

I am now (im)patiently waiting on some library holds, including one that has said it should be "available soon" (meaning I'm first in line) for more than a week now. I've decided that it's safe to start my bingo reading now because, according to Mary's rules, any book that's finished on Saturday or after counts, so I began The Autobiography of Malcolm X last night before bed. I have owned this book for many years, perhaps since high school, and I can tell that I started it at least once before because I have found some creased corners of pages, but obviously I was not quite ready to read it then. I am not even a chapter in at this point, but I can already tell it's going to be a powerful read.

How about you? What are you working on and reading these days? If you're participating in Summer Book Bingo, have you started reading for it yet?