Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
A Strange Scottish Shore by Juliana Gray
Not Our Kind by Kitty Zeldis
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashore
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
W. B. Yeats: Selected Poems and Four Plays, Ed. by M. L. Rosenthal
Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier
I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest
Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
September 1, 1939: A Biography of a Poem by Ian Sansom
The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

Holy Toledo, that's a lot of books. That was my last order from Book Outlet, which I am now studiously avoiding, especially on bad days.

And, a few more (again, top to bottom):

• The Readers' Room by Antoine Laurain - from Meryl Zegarek Public Relations, Inc., unsolicited
• Finna by Nino Cipri - purchased
• Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams - purchased

Agnes at the End of the World is another plague book. I missed the conversation between author Kelly McWilliams and Mike Chen about releasing pandemic books during a pandemic but it was the fact that he mentioned her and the upcoming discussion that piqued my interest. I am really enjoying reading pandemic novels. I guess tolerance for them at a time like this depends on the individual; I know some people can't stomach them, right now.

The Readers' Room was unsolicited and I'm not currently accepting ARCs at all (although I don't totally discount the possibility that I might accept one I can't bear the thought of not reading, at some point) but it looks fun and I'll give it a go.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves
• Where Are the Galapagos Islands? by Megan Stine
• The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
• Finna by Nino Cipri
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD

When I was reading Finna, I decided that the next book I needed to finish was Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?  I'd been dragging my feet and wasn't even out of the introductory part. I hate it when I let a book linger like that, although I never had any trouble picking up where I left off. It's memorable and meaningful. The rest . . . I'm just letting books call to me, right now. The City We Became and Finna are both multiverse books and I would have waited a little longer between them if I'd remembered that. However, when I get to my reviews you'll see that they're quite different.


Currently reading:

• Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier
• How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt

Posts since last Malarkey:

• Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan (book review)
• The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Sweet kitty kiss and a new catnip toy (cat photos)
• The Plains by Gerald Murnane (book review)
• They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Elsinger, Scott, and Becker (book review)
• Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump (book review)
• Fiona Friday (cat photo) 

In other news:

This week was weird. I'm done with my painting class and I felt at loose ends, all week, because I've had a pretty strict routine (read the lessons, watch the videos, start the assignment, finish the assignment, review, take test, upload photo of assignment) for about 8 weeks and all of a sudden . . . huh, what do I do with myself? I decided to clean up my painting area, since it's actually a stretch of the kitchen counter, thinking I'd put down a fresh drop cloth and start something new in a couple of days. Instead, Husband immediately buried that area in flour and dishes as he practiced for his next Zoom baking class. And, then we cleaned it up and he buried it again. Cleaned it up a third time and went to Target and . . . yep, buried it. I'll try again, today.

Anyway, that kind of threw my week off-kilter. I'm ready to start my next creative project but I'm not sure what it'll be. I really have to hurry up and cover that counter as soon as I clean it, though —before it disappears, again.

On Wednesday, Huz went to work at the office for the first time in weeks. Then, he took off Friday to celebrate our anniversary. We hopped on the Natchez Trace Parkway and drove to a favorite restaurant to pick up food, popped into a grocery store on that side of town, then came home and ate, took a nap, and went on a second drive to the bank. After that, we watched the final episode of The Mandalorian, which we both thought was excellent. Pandemic anniversaries are fun! I'm not even kidding. Huz is normally traveling on most anniversaries and birthdays, so I was a bit shocked when he said he was not only home for the day (which is our temporary new normal) but taking off work. So cool.


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