Math Trumps Blocking.

Birdsong of A View From Sierra County has a new venture, natural dyeing, she's named Nature's Cauldron. This intrigues me, I've always liked natural colors - undyed wool mostly but dyeing with organics is a nice alternate. (Possibly there are exceptions to the natural rule.)

My adorable brother calls me up Saturday to check to see if I was raptured (alas no) but also lets it slip that he'd gone to the Prosperous and Beautiful Sheep & Fiber Fest that day and had bought Nerissa (one of their kitties) a sheepskin rug but his own sister??

Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Darn. I've been collecting natural wool as souveniers from various places - I'm planning on making a Cowichan style sweater out of them eventually, or possibly a Lebowski style pattern. 

Stefanie of So Many Books has a nifty link. The Guardian UK is (was?) asking for help building 24 hours of fictional time using lines from literature. Here's the link to the Literary Clock to date.

(entirely different literary clock link - picture used without permission so it's possible I'll have to remove it. But isn't that cool?).

 

When the Boogyman goes to sleep at night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books, he stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

Guns sleep with a picture of Chuck Norris under their pillow.

Crop circles are Chuck Norris's way of saying to the aliens "Don't make me come up there".

Chuck Norris is what Willis was talkin' about.

The only thing fear has to fear is Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris can roll a stone and make it gather moss.

Chuck Norris can stand at the bottom of a bottomless pit.

Chuck Norris made the forest petrified.

I may have spent all day last Monday knitting the final interminable rows of my Curve of Pursuit watching Walker, Texas Ranger.

Math trumped blocking but it came out pretty nicely. Oh phooey, that's a picture of the first felting go 'round. The wrinkles have been erased and it's felted to a more consistent blanket-like texture AND the washbasin in the garage is sparkly-clean, not that it helped, I had to toss it in the washing machine and dryer again.

  Mom's project continues apace. One of the downsides of using a cross stitch pattern for a chart is that not only do you have to repeat every third row but it's not set up to knit easily. I've been wrapping the yarn a stitch or two in advance of a color change on some of the return rows - one advantage is that I'm going to felt the whole thing to make the book bag sturdier. Felting means that I can whack the occasional (see pic) loose end.

READING: Not so much. I've started and stopped a number of books (Here, There & Everywhere, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (which I hope and pray portrays them as such imcompetent evil buffoons because Tim Weiner as biased as the CIA says or the good stuff is redacted and protected by secrecy acts, because otherwise we are doomed).

I'm cheating on both of them with Juliet and despite the fact that it's a pretty sure thing that it's going to be a love story, (I'm psychic that way) I think Juliet is going to get read more or less in one sitting. Wow, it looks like it's going to be a movie. (No. Book trailer). Weirdly I don't have a copy of Romeo & Juliet in my bookshelves. iPhone to the rescue! Online text. I was looking for the forward but I'll pick up a copy somewhere today.

LatelyI have had this strange feeling that I'm not getting anything done.

Strange because normally, outside of work and its incessant deadlines, I rail against the mindset that one has to accomplish something every hour of one's day.

But there it is. My stash isn't discernibly diminishing (and considering that wool prices are about to rise and the economy continues to flounder, that may be a good thing).

My bookshelves are spilling over with books I haven't read yet.

Oh no. I just realized my entire problem with that is that I have no good excuse to buy anything new. Sheesh. I do not need/want anything new! Plenty on hand! I've beeen brainwashed by my culture.

Hez sez, "Shhhhh. You will fix me tuna, draining the tuna juice into a small glass bowl when I awaken. And be quiet about it."

 

August & September Books Read

Back in the beginning of August I picked up God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicholson.

I like it.

It's pretty fascinating. The various knaves, the holier than thou types and the how-on-earth-did-they-get-that-gig? men that were responsible for what might very well be the only well written-by-committee work in existence. The contemporary background (Guy Fawkes figures prominently - evidently King James took it very, very personally that they tried to blow him up) and the fallout from that event are fascinating.

I just can't seem to read more than 10 pages at a time. I'm still only halfway through.

Poor Josephine: A Biography by Andre Castelot started back on...July something. I returned it to the library.

What did I read, you ask? (Huh. You're not asking? I'm telling anyway. So there.)

The Book of Spies by Gayle Lind. A book historian and restorer claims that she wasn't driving in the accident that killed her husband but all the evidence points to it. A man confides in his college friend that he thinks money is being diverted from a bank account to terrorists. The Book of Spies, a book from the legendary Library of Gold is donated by an anonymous donor and displayed at the British Museum. Is there a global conspiracy behind all this? Is the legendary Library of Gold true? If you need to ask, you're in the wrong genre. A pretty good gripping yarn but if you have to put it down, use a bookmark. I managed to miss the first encounter with the assassin, The Carnivore, and the man is practically the moral compass of the book. 

Rue and Rosemary by Seanan McGuire. A half fae/half human changeling, Toby Daye (October) lives in San Francisco, and is not only a PI but a knight of Sebastian of Pleasant Hill. I mean Shadowed Hills. (I love that it's local to me). This is big stuff for a changeling. (Being a knight, not necessarily living near me, although you can understand her excitement. If she knew). A pureblood friend of her mother's is brutally murdered and in true fae/wizard fashion, Evening Winterrose curses Toby to find her killer. I don't think Toby would let it go, with or without the curse. A cast of characters that includes Tybalt, King of the Cats (who IMO looks and sounds like Michael York circa Romeo & Juliet, 1968), a teenage changeling that hero worships her, and a water-hag help Toby in her quest. (Did I mention that she spent 14 years as a fish in the Japanese Tea Gardens?)

Let's see. I was trading genres back and forth. Spy, Urban Fantasy, Spy.

The Enemy by Lee Child, the 8th outing of Jack Reacher. Jack is still in the Army (and probably has been up to this point - I think I'm reading them both randomly and backwards). A Colonel dies in a pay per hour cheap hotel on New Year's Eve and naturally the military wants to keep in on the downlow. Unfortunately his widow is also killed that night, the hooker is nowhere to be found, there's a suspicious worldwide shuffling of CO's on various bases and Jack Reacher is curious. Curious at first, then cornered by bureaucracy, Reacher shows why red tape and paperwork is not match for on hands on skill. Walt Kelly's Pogo came up with the title. 

Hmmm. Spy, Urban Fantasy, Spy, Urban Fantasy.... 

A Local Habitation (Seanan McMguire), Book 2 of October Daye. This time Toby's liege lord sends her to Fremont. No, she wasn't in trouble. (Although considering that she was on the case of locating his wife & daughter when she was turned into a fish and consequently his daughter was magically tormented and is now psychotic more or less........I'm not sure why he lets her live much less still love and trust her. The Fae. Their ways are mysterious.) But no, he sends her off to Fremont to check on another family member of his, his niece, January Torquill, Countess of Tamed Lightening who runs a computer company that's a Changeling think tank.Other than Toby being unbelievably obtuse at times, it was a pretty decent second outing. It helped that I liked April, the former Dryad housed in the machine and Quentin, the pureblood Fae fostered w/Sebastian that plays her loyal sidekick. More or less. 

I hope this is the last we've seen of Dare unless she finally realizes that Toby is a terrible hero. Toby seems to, but figuring eh, maybe you can save the next one, is not exactly my ideal.

Spike, her rose-goblin-cat.

Seanan has a very helpful pronunciation guide of the Fae at the beginning of the books but it'd be nicer if she gave a brief definition as well. If the singular and plural versions are identical, I wouldn't bother to list them. 

One Shot by Lee Child - I like the premise in this outing - a sniper kills four people in an area the city is trying to renovate and upgrade. At first the case seems insolvable but the culprit is quickly identified and arrested. Jack Reacher hears of the crime and sets out to the scene, luckily for the defense who are completely unable to locate him. But is it luck? A seasoned District Attorney is pitted against his daughter in one of her first cases. A loving and supportive sister is forced to confront the reality of her brother. And Jack? Is on the side of truth and justice, as usual, Reacher style.

Persuader by Lee Child. A mistake in Jack's past chances into his path and the con is on. The DEA has muffed an arrest so badly that they're not only off the books but one of their agents has gone missing. Jack has reasons of his own to aid them but is the mountainous steroid bundle Paulie finally too much for even Jack? (Hint: not the last Reacher novel). The book was gripping as usual, I love the twists Child comes up with but I was really hooked by the twisted Beck family dynamics in this one.

The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman. Oh, I liked this. Iris is now a 40-something NYC urban dweller, even if she grew up as a hotel brat in the Catskills in the hotel her parents managed. She has all but the ring (she's been seeing Jack for the last for ten years, Wednesdays through Saturday, a tragically scheduled romance, if you ask me),she's ABD, (all but dissertation) and the story unfolds with an assignment about fairy tales that she gives to two of her disparate classes, one for prisoners and another in the City College.

Her mother had published two out of three books about a Selkie's daughter. I admit, I was half expecting her mother to have actually turned into a seal and returned to the sea but no, the novel isn't urban fantasy but nearly as satisfying, following a 16th Century saint's necklace, her mother's mysterious past and death, obsession and love. All in all, a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.   

A Nameless Witch by A Lee Martinez. The horror, a witch cursed with bewitching beauty and a White Knight with a pure heart forced to battle together. A cute enough story. Her demon duck sidekick was my favorite.

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child. The 13th outing of Lee Child. This time Jack Reacher is minding his own business riding the New York Subway late at night. What are the odds that he'd run across a desperate mother with ties to state secrets and war criminals? Hmmm. 

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman. Separated, with her husband being difficult about her young daughter, a Latin teacher accepts a job at her old college by Heart Lake. Secrets and a long ago pact threaten her future. Carol Goodman weaves Jane's past as a college student and her present as a teacher with great effect. I love how she mirrored the past and present and unveils the many, many secrets. Jane might be the narrator of the story but she's not the one who drove the plot.

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna Whitlock. Serviceable enough. A nice introduction to Mary Tudor, Elizabeth's big sister.

The History of Civilization Volume 1 by Crane Brinton. I picked this up for a little background for the 1500's but ended up reading most of it. It's been a long time since I've read anything about the Romans and the Greeks that didn't involve England or the Huns. Pretty fascinating. A little jarring to see some of the biases from 1960 when it was clear from the text that they went to great lengths to be nondiscriminatory. Signs of their times. 

Die Trying by Lee Child - remind me never to wander the woods in Montana. Holly Johnson, FBI wunderkind, is kidnapped by a charismatic nutcase and Jack goes along for the ride. I appreciated that Lee Child gave Holly a bad knee/ankle/something to explain why she couldn't just take care of the lot herself, which she darn near did anyway.

Started: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Too soon to tell but I am already in love with her sentences. Example: The mission to Rakhat was undertaken not so much secretly as privately - a fine distinction but one that the Society felt no compulsion to explain or justify when the news broke several years later.

Knitting: started Chart C on Elizabeth I. Am fooling with the cross & crown pictured to make it a felted embellished patch on a bookbag for my mother. NOT THE FINISHED PRODUCT. Not even close. The stack on the patio table is the Tailored Jacket - I didn't realize how close I was to finishing it. If I get a few minutes to take a look at it this weekend, I think I'm going to seam up the sides & shoulders and start the sleeves. 

Tattoo of Mary Wollstonecraft by Sarah Schor.