My reading life continues to be unsatisfying much of the time, all because of my dumb decisions.
For one thing, I had the brilliant idea to start reducing the truly ridiculous number of books in this house by finally picking up titles I suspect might not be my thing and giving them 50 pages to impress me. Shocker: none of them have and every week a couple more move out to various Little Free Libraries. This is good for the shelves, but not so good for getting excited to go up to bed and read every night.
For another, I keep placing holds on books that I do think will be my thing and ugh, almost everything is so lame and disappointing. My reading journal is an endless list of titles with ‘Not my taste’ or ‘No info I’d use’ written beside them.
I did read four good things, though:
Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Workshop (2013)
I have owned and enjoyed my 1981 edition of Knitting Workshop for many years, but this updated edition (with colour photos!) has a lot of bonus material. This might be one to request for my birthday.
Everyone On This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (2023)
Last August, I read and enjoyed Stevenson’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone and I think I enjoyed this one even more. Amusing, clever, creepy.
Lark Rise (1939) and Over to Candleford (1941) by Flora Thompson
Lark Rise and Over to Candleford are the first two books in what is now a trilogy usually grouped together as Lark Rise to Candleford and sadly I was unable to finish the third before the end of April. Described as semi-autobiographical novels, these are extremely detailed accounts of daily life in a tiny hamlet in 1880s England. Fascinating reading. (And nothing like the tv adaptation.)