Robynettely

An interesting stat (to me anyway): Nine (1/8) of the books on my library holds list are sequels to things I've already read. I think only six are non-series books by an author I've read before.  LHC #265: "Silver in the wood" by Emily Tesh. eBook, nice and short and delightful. The follow-up is on the list.   LHC #266: "How we learn to move" by Rob Gray PhD. Hard copy because that's what the library had. There are a lot of pics in this book and they are low-quality. While the concepts are interesting, I had to make an effort to relate them to the activities I participate in.  Most interesting perhaps was the brief discussion of habit and automatic portions of a movement, and whether automation is something we should even strive for. For me, if there's a portion of a movement I can automate, that's a win, because then I can focus on something else, e.g., automating the embusen of a kata. But is that even automated? At the same time, the idea th

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Continued to think thoughts.  Short Stories:   After posting that short story from last month onto the workshop, I picked one of those short stories I'd started and forced a plot onto it.  Critted  5  Got back  4 Submissions  0  Out there   0   Rejects   0 Knitting Cathar  (self). Started month with two inches done above the armholes. Listening to audiobooks, I finished the fair isle portion, cut the steeks, and set up and knit the neckline. Just the endless finishing now.   Blushing Cloud  (Knitty S/S24). Started the month with (still) three inches of back done. Socks take priority.  Elbrus socks (Knitty first fall 2024). Finished.  Elbrus socks II . Started the first.  Pole shorts  (Joan McGowan-Michael). I knitted these several years ago, but the crotch was too narrow so I rarely wore them. I still had a bit of yarn so I added a couple of inches, much more re

LHC #260: "Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels" by Katherine Anne Porter.  I put this on my list because of my ongoing writing project about a pandemic, but that was two years ago and I've barely worked on that project in the last year to be honest. Question for myelf: Why am I so afraid of reading old things? I had trepidation about this, but in fact it was a delight. Not sure these would count as novels these days, as I read each one basically on a bus ride to/from dance class.  LHC #261: "Run, Hide, Repeat: A memoir of a fugitive childhood" by Pauline Dakin.  eBook. I wanted something less stressful because Klara and the Sun was getting me down, and a whole lot of things had a waitlist, so I chose this. I spent most of the book wondering which character was going to wind up with what mental disorder, very satisfying. Good read.  LHC #262: "The Mountain in the Sea" by Ray Nayler. eBook. I wanted this one because it was the next longest on the

  Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Continued to think thoughts.  Short Stories:   Rewrote the ending of the story I pulled out last month. Started a couple of other short stories, but they're more percolating.  Critted  3  Got back  1 Submissions  0  Out there   0   Rejects   0 Knitting Cathar  (self). Started the month in the color work of sleeve 2. Due to a 10-hour round trip in the car to Cleveland one weekend, I finished the sleeve and attached it to the body. Then due to listening to an audio book, I did two inches. Every row is shorter than the last! Hope to finish the fair isle portion in August.  Blushing Cloud  (Knitty S/S24). Started the month with (still) three inches of back done. Socks take priority.  Rainbow II.  Finished both.  Sashiko project:  Nothing.  Ruffle skirt:  Nothing.  Purple Romper:  I'd love to wear this this summer. Unfortunately, that means I'd have to work

"Don't sleep, there are snakes" by Daniel Everett.  Recommended to me by a translator I work with, someone gave it to me for Christmas. I found I didn't have a whole lot of sympathy for some of Daniel's situations, pretty much for the reason he expected.  LHC #256: "The Princess Will Save You" by Sarah Henning. eBook. I bet I put it on my list because it's a gender-swapped princess bride complete with pirates. What's to go wrong with that? I found the unrelenting awesome-genius-righteousness of the good guys and the endless stupid-shallow idiocy of the bad guys tedious after a while but it wasn't terrible. The plot was good, just sometimes the writing was not very subtle.  LHC #257: "The Man who was Thursday: A Nightmare" by G.K. Chesterton. eBook. It was on my list because of Neil Gaiman. Quick read, very fun. Not many women!  LHC #258: "Klara and the Sun" by Kazuo Ishiguro. Audio book because I had the eBook on hold f

LHC #251: "Foundryside" by Robert Jackson Bennett.  ebook. I started off thinking this was way too simplistic, but it was good clean fun.  LHC #252: "City of Broken Magic" by Mirah Bolender. Audiobook to get me to and from food bank farm day and then another drive to Ottawa. Way too much unimportant detail, or maybe it was misplaced characterization and worldbuilding, for my taste.  LHC #253: "Four Lost Cities" by Annalee Newitz. Audiobook. Nonfiction might work better for me for long car rides. I finished a sweater working on this!  LHC #254: "The sin in the steel" by Ryan Van Loan. Hard copy because it was the only format available. This was really fun, even if a huge portion of it was zombie battles and I got really tired of hearing about ichor, and sometimes nothing would happen for chapters on end because characters (okay, the main character) would rail on and on, not letting others get a word in edgewise.  LHC #255: "Half-Blood Blues