Thursday, August 16, 2007

Odds Fish!

This summer has been all about the book for me. (No, not The Book, the book, one of them there trendy slang terms for reading). I get enough time off during the day at work to do some reading, I read in bed in the evenings, and on my days off (yes, I knit too.) I've chewed my way through Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Harry Potter (5, 6 and 7), a number of books by Jasper Fford (I like to keep my evenings reads relatively light), Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (I've yet to read Robinson Crusoe), Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (a short play), and now I'm starting The Troublesome Offsping of Cardinal Guzman, by Louis de Bernieres (I love Captain Corelli's Mandolin) and I also picked up a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. But the single most interesting book I have read this summer has been the Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. Usually when reading, I want to get to the end, I like the writing style, so I want to see how the author wraps it up. But when reading The Scarlet Pimpernel, I just wanted to know what happened next! I can't think of any other book (or movie, or play, or anything) that had me pumping my fist like a frat boy at a football game when the protagonist pulled a damn clever one over his nemesis (and since I was laying face down in bed at the time, maybe it wasn't the brightest idea either). Anyway, Scarlet Pimpernel, definitely made my reading summer!

The Swallowtail shawl is winging it's way across the country right now, and look! (I broke out the 35mm, I couldn't let it go without getting *some* visual record).
I am working on Exchequered from the Spring '06 Knitty, and have determined that my method of holding yarn, it does not work for double-knitting, but I am playing with it, and it is coming along reasonably (thank you, Alice!).

So how are you all? What have you been reading? Knitting? How are you spending your summer months otherwise? For those of you who are students (like me!) , are you ready to go back?

3 comments:

melissa said...

i'm reading the golden spruce, by john vaillant, right now. you might like it - it takes place in your neck of the woods, and it's actually a non-fiction book that reads like a novel, about this golden spruce that was chopped down by a logger-turned-environmentalist. it's very man vs. nature. good stuff!

Ellen said...

I recommend "The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton" By Kathryn Hughes - a long-ish biography but easy to skip through. I thought I knew who this was (and I knitted the fingerless gloves by Brenda Dayne) but nothing I thought was true. And she was very young when she died - only 28.

For very short reading, I've been enjoying "The Alpine Advocate" series by Mary Daheim. I used to be a reporter and this series brings back the good/bad old days.

Knitting is large and pumpkin shaped.

BEESTLYproducts said...

Wowserz! your an animal.
I've read "no one belongs here more than you" by miranda july, Harry Potter &, and I'm chipping away at "demonology" by rick moody.

I'm still knitting my EZ seamless raglan and I'm going to strart knitty's RPM socks tonight.