Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• Slinky Malinki's Cat Tales: Five Favorite Cat Stories by Lynley Dodd and 
• Maiden's Trip: A Wartime Adventure on the Grand Union Canal by Emma Smith, both purchased
• Bad Order by B. B. Ullman - from Sterling Children's Books for review
• Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim - from Berkley for review/tour
• Shred Girls 1: Lindsay's Joyride by Molly Hurford - from Penguin Random House for review
• Gravity is the Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty, and 
• The Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton, both from HarperCollins for review
• Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler - from Crown for review via Shelf Awareness
• Pinky Got Out by Michael Portis and Lori Richmond - from Crown for review
• There's Only One You by Heling, Hembrook, and Butcher,
• Koala Is Not a Bear by Gray and McAlister,
• Butterflies On the First Day of School by Silvestro and Chen, and 
• If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon by Lapin and Ceccarelli, all from Sterling Children's Books for review

Whoa. That's a lot of books. And, most of them arrived this past week. I ordered the book of 5 cat tales, Slinky Malinki's Cat Tales, after some troublemaker from Australia in my cat group mentioned growing up with the Slinky Malinki and Scarface Claw books. I looked them up online and discovered that the least expensive way to get a taste of Slinky Malinki was to order a hardback of 5 cat tales from Book Depository. Slinky Malinki must be exclusively an Australian thing because the book was shipped directly from Australia (there was an Australian customs tag affixed to the envelope). I read them aloud to my husband and I think he has a thing for Slinky Malinki tales, now. Seriously, he loved them.

The rest . . . well, let's just say I was not expecting such a windfall. I also bought some books at the dollar store when I went to look for something entirely un-book-related. And my library had a shelf of free books that I plucked a few titles off of, as well. Most of the free books are in terrible shape but that just makes it easier to let go of them after I've read them. I may have also spent $2 at the library sale in my old town. OK, yes, I did. I confess. Plus, I got a book called Cat Poems from my youngest and his future bride for Mother's Day. And, Brittanie and I traded a few books when we went to Paint Night. So, obviously, I need to spend the next couple of weeks figuring out what to get rid of.

I opted not to photograph all the library/dollar store books but I did post a pic of the freebies to Instagram and I took a picture of the dollar store purchases, which I may also post there. The $2 library stack is still in my trunk. I just didn't feel like gathering absolutely everything to photograph, today.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• The Free Speech Century, ed. by Bollinger and Stone
• There's Only One You by Heling, Hembrook, and Butcher
• Koala is Not a Bear by Gray and McAlister
• Slinky Malinki's Cat Tales by Lynley Dodd
• Pinky Got Out! by Michael Portis and Lori Richmond
• The Size of the Truth by Andrew Smith
• Butterflies on the First Day of School by Silvestro and Chen
• If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon by Lapin and Ceccarelli
• Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein

DNF:


Last Day by Domenica Ruta - I'm only mentioning this book because I got far enough into it to feel like I can say something about it. I DNF'd it at p. 80. Last Day is a dystopian tale about a day that's celebrated as the last day of Earth, annually, but the end has never come. One of the characters is terrified of Last Day but the rest treat it like a holiday, no biggie, till it actually does become the last day. The last day of life on Earth had not arrived when I gave up. I liked the author's clever use of language and the quirkiness of the story and characters (you know one character is going to be fun when she pops a shoestring in her mouth and swallows it) but I found it fragmented and difficult to get to know any of the characters very well. I battled with it for days because I wanted to like it but then I finally gave up when I realized it was frustrating me and I kept putting it down for good reason. This is particularly interesting to me because I've been toying with a story idea of my own that I was intending to set up in the same manner, stylistically. Now, of course, I'm rethinking it.


Currently reading:

• The Unspeakable Mind by Shaili Jain
• Cat Poems (various authors)
• Shred Girls: Lindsay's Joyride by Molly Hurford

I really enjoyed the 50 pages I read of The Unspeakable Mind (a book about PTSD) but then I decided the time had come to focus on finishing The Free Speech Century so I set The Unspeakable Mind aside and plan to return to it, this week. Cat Poems is a tiny book that I stuck in the drawer after reading 16 pages. Oops. I pulled it out, this morning, and will continue with that, also. And, as to Shred Girls . . . I've read several middle grade books, recently, and I've found that most of them take me a while to get into. Whether that's got something to do with the reading level feeling a little awkward to me or something else I'm not sure, but the ones I've read have all come together nicely in the end. So, I'm hanging in there in spite of the fact that I am not currently enjoying Shred Girls at all. Hopefully, it will improve. The part I've read was mostly set-up.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• Far Flung by Cassandra Kircher (book review)
• On Democracy by E. B. White (book review)
• Summer of a Thousand Pies by Margaret Dilloway and No Flying in the House by Betty Brock (book reviews)
• Fiona Friday: Fresh laundry (cat photo)
• Things are happening and Malarkey is not one of them (just chatter)

In other news:

The best news of the week is that Izzy kitty is 100% back to normal. It took a full 6 days for her to recover from licking avocado out of the bottom of a bowl and 4 of those days were really rocky but she didn't require a third tummy-soothing shot. She's been very happy, energetic, and affectionate, since her little tummy stopped aching. I can't tell you how relieved I am.

The second best news of the week is that I finally changed my browser to Chrome with the help of Kiddo (who is home between semesters) and it worked! I can reply to comments on my blog, again. Woot! I went back and replied to all the comments I could find on previous posts. Hopefully, I got to all of them.

We watched the conclusion of Les Miserables on PBS, last night, and I thought it was absolutely perfect. What a wonderful production. I'm aware that much of the rest of the U.S. population was watching the finale of Game of Thrones. I also watched the finale of The Big Bang Theory, last week, and found it almost perfect. There was one thing I found disappointing. I'll put it in white text in case of spoilers for those who may still not have seen the ending: I was hoping Raj would find true love. Highlight that empty-looking bit to see what I wrote, if you're interested, but please -- no spoilers in the comments, for those who haven't looked at their DVR copies, yet.

The only other news is that it's getting hot, now. I'm never ready for summer but it feels particularly awful being driven indoors, this year, since we have a marvelous new patio. I love it so much that I want to spend all my time outside, walking around on it and going up and down the steps, reading and sipping cool (or hot) drinks, watering the plants, sitting by a fire and chatting, etc. It's been such a wonderful addition to our house that if the slightest drop in temperature with a bit of wind happens, out the door we go (but with mosquito repellant). Autumn is going to be so fun, this year.

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