Unraveled, Week 29/2023

At last, it's finally the day I get to leave on my trip! But first, a quick check-in with Kat and the Unravelers!

I finally finished Mo's socks last night; a lot of work came in the last two days, keeping me busy during work hours, and then I had to pack. But all is good, and these are now with their new owner.

Although I usually try to match socks when I'm knitting with self-striping yarn, but I wasn't going to with this yarn because of the long striping pattern. However, I just so happened to finish the first sock in precisely the right place to start the second sock at the same point in the sequence. Don't you just love it when things work out like that?

I'm taking another skein of Fibernymph Dye Works with me to knit socks for my mother for a holiday gift (yes, I am planning ahead!):

The colorway is called Cosmic!

In spite of not having much time the past couple of days for reading for pleasure, I have managed to finish another four books since this time last week!

When Katie raved about The Garden of Evening Mists and mentioned that it was a daily deal in the Kindle store, I knew I had to buy it and read it right away. And I was not disappointed. This book deals with a lesser-known theater of WWII and brings attention to the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in what is today Malaysia. But it also brings a humanity to the circumstances of war and has a lot to say about the many complications of being in a multicultural society where there are so many competing interests. Not only is the story compelling (and heartbreaking, I admit), but the writing is simply gorgeous. I really enjoyed this one and highly recommend it! It's more than a decade old, so you may be able to find it more easily from your library. I gave it 5 stars.

No sooner had I finished that book than my library hold on Yellowface came through from the library -- and boy oh boy, was that a wild ride! I plowed through it in about 24 hours. As the title implies, this is a book that addresses race and racism as well as our assumptions about someone based on their race (or what we believe their race to be). But it also deals with the very cruel world of book publishing, and from what I've heard, the world that's portrayed in this book isn't far from the truth. This is a very different world from Babel, Kuang's last book, but it's every bit as intriguing. Like Babel, though, there are plenty of elements of the plot and the characters that will leave a bad taste in your mouth -- and that's kind of the point, I think. I gave it 4 stars.

I told you I probably wouldn't get through the summer without reading the last Maisie Dobbs book, and really I didn't make it much more than another week. A Sunlit Weapon takes place about 10 months after the last book, in the fall of 1942. The Americans have finally entered the war, and their ranks have swelled in England as the Allies combine their efforts to defeat Hitler. Maisie accepts a case that involves both the death of an aviatrix and a Black American soldier whose white countryman has gone missing, leaving him under suspicion. At the same time, Maisie is focused on events within her own family and feeling the conflict between her personal life and her career. I'm fairly certain this is the last book in the series, and though I would have loved for Maisie to see the end of WWII, I think everything wrapped up in a very satisfying way in this last book. I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, in preparation for Ann Patchett's new book, which comes out next month, I sat down and read Our Town on Saturday afternoon when I had the house to myself for a few hours. I had never read or seen it before, though I knew the basic gist of the story somehow. I was hoping to find an audio version, as I think plays are better when they're performed, but came up empty on both Libby and Hoopla, so reading with my eyes it was. I may see if there's a performance I can watch online somewhere. This was an easy read but not terribly exciting for me; I gave it 3 stars.




I pulled out Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone the last several nights before bed and read maybe a couple dozen pages; I hadn't cracked it since we were in Florida in March, and I'd clearly forgotten what was going on. Perhaps when I get back from my trip, I will buckle down and try to get through the rest of it (approximately 580 more pages). I am not dragging that tome with me, though, and am sticking with ebooks for my vacation reading. I've got The Postcard downloaded and ready for my flights today, not to mention a very full Kindle library if I get through it quickly.

That's all for me for now -- I'm off to try to get a run in before I have to leave for the airport! I hope you're having a good week and will try to keep up with everyone, but obviously I'm going to be rather busy the next several days. I promise a full report of the retreat when I'm back!