Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals:

• Don't You Know There's a War On? by Janet Todd - from Fentrum Press for review

Only one book showed up in my mailbox, this past two weeks. Don't You Know There's a War On? arrived unsolicited and it looks totally up my alley, so I'm going to put it on the calendar for May reading, June at the latest. I have not responded to any ARC offers at all because they've all been e-galley-only offers and you know how I hate e-books. I always said if the industry ever went entirely to e-galleys, I'd stop reading ARCs but wondered in the back of my mind if that view would be altered by the lure of new titles. Nope, I was right. I can't even get myself to read the e-books I've purchased, so it doesn't make sense for me to accept e-books. I won't take on anything I don't absolutely expect to read in a timely manner. I understand the reasoning behind the change and I'm hoping the publishing industry will rebound when this horror is over. 

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• The Suicide Run by William Styron
• The Song of the Tree by Coralie Bickford-Smith
• Flamebringer by Elle Katharine Smith

Ugh, only 3 books in 2 weeks. I was already having a subpar year but this is ridiculous. Pandemic, you are cramping my style. 

Currently reading:

• The Love Story of Missy Carmichael by Beth Morrey
• Nature's Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy

I actually did read some of Nature's Best Hope, this week. Nonfiction is probably not the best thing for pandemic reading, at least for me, but I'm not giving up on this one. When I do pick it up, I enjoy the reading. However, on the off chance that this slim volume takes me another few weeks to finish, I'm going to drop it from the "currently reading" lists in future Malarkey posts (because it starts to bug me when I have to look at the titles of books I haven't finished for weeks and weeks). When I finish it, then you'll see more about it. And, I will finish it.


Most recent week's posts:

• Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel (book review)
• Such a Fun Age by Kylie Reid (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Current mood (cat photo) 

Posts are from the week before last. I meant to put up one last post and mention that I was going to take a week off but I didn't manage to finish that post and figured it's not like everyone's hanging out here waiting on me, anyway. I think everyone's been pretty preoccupied.


In other news:

This was my first week with a spouse at home and I love having him around but . . . but . . . well, you know. It isn't a perfect situation. Our house is kind of a modern ranch, I guess, just one story and we have no basements in our area because the clay soil shifts depending upon the amount of moisture (which makes basements leak). So there's no second story or basement for me to retreat to. Add to that the problem that our house is quite open, we only have area rugs so sound travels, and Huzzybuns set up his home office smack in the middle of the house. All that meant that I was unable to do my normal routine for the entire week. No streaming exercise classes, no banging around doing housework except when he's between calls, no singing loudly (I sing a lot).

Huz's also been taking over my computer when he needs to do certain calls that he can't do using his own computer, which apparently hates Zoom, so I will do my best to fit in posts when I can but sometimes it may simply be impossible because I have to give up my computer for the cause. It is what it is. I am really relieved to finally have my husband working from home and still employed when so many others are out of work. We'll just have to figure out how to find our balance.

In two weeks, I've watched so little I can tick everything off for you almost on one hand:

• Hampstead (movie)
• Sense and Sensibility (comfort movie)
• One Man, Two Guvnors (streamed for free by Britain's National Theatre)
• One episode each of NCIS, Rush, and Chicago Fire
• A bunch of silly videos of musicals rewritten with pandemic lyrics (I love the British family doing Les Miserables)
• Lots of Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert shows from home, a little of Trevor Noah, and way too much news

I'm not quite as obsessed with the rising pandemic numbers as I used to be because they're now so large that it's too much for me to wrap my head around. I've found it increasingly upsetting to discover that I have friends who fall into the "conspiracy theorist" category (via Facebook) or who parroted the line about it being more important to "keep the economy going" than stop people from dying (that one I unfriended) so I decided to start paring back on Facebook visits, yesterday. From now on, I'm going to do my best to simply post links to my reviews and leave.

For those who are interested in reading about emerging diseases, the book Spillover by David Quammen is a good (and scary) place to start. Click on the title to read my review, published in 2014. New diseases emerge regularly and while the book is outdated because it was published prior to even the Ebola outbreak of 2014, it's still relevant.

I hope everyone is staying home, healthy, and safe (with plenty of toilet paper).

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