I should make a specific reading plan for this week. I'm trying to read a book set in each U.S. state this year and just finished books for Iowa, Alaska, and South Carolina! Such a fun challenge. :)
Can’t wait to read your rabbit hole vs rabbit trail post! I always call everything a “rabbit hole,” but I realize now that “rabbit trail” is actually what I mean!
Melissa, I came so late to Murakami, and during covid I started reading his stories and not they thrill me. the first paragraph of that new story! Let's read it together? I used to resent him and now I sorta look forward to his weird packages...
Brian! I'd love to read it with you. "Weird packages"—so apt. A week is really not enough time. Too much to savor. I might have to steal one of my kids' Kindles for a long airplane-mode read.
Covid reading would make a great post. I binged on Emily St. John Mantel because I had to reread Station Eleven in the first weeks of lockdown. Which: why?? You'd think I'd have run far away from pandemic literature but my urge was to immerse in it. I had an ARC of her Sea of Tranquility and it was perfect for where my head was at the time. And then, well, once I start reading her I have to read the whole shelf.
I’m definitely a book glutton and my tastes are very eclectic. I’m in Simon’s W&P slow read (loving it), a Waugh group and Bradbury group both on IG, a read-along of Ulysses (I can finally check that off bucket list) with StoryGraph group hosted by Audrey-an audiobook app with guide notes included. Audrey is actually where I first was introduced to Simon Haisell as a book guide. I’m also reading one Agatha Christie book a month for the #ReadChristie2024 hosted by The Official Agatha Christie on IG. For funsies I’m reading Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie in Search of America. Oh, wait! I’m also in a group reading Ronald Dahl’s kid lit for the summer! 🙈😅
Ah Kelly, you're my people for sure! Impressed you've managed Ulysses. One of these years I'll find enough focus to stick with it. I make it a little farther each time.
Kortney! I've got a post on handwriting in my drafts! Sparked by my recent thoughts on how much Scott's writing means to me. The real pleasure—fleeting in these keyboard days—of seeing a friend's handwriting. How connected I feel to a person at the sight of their unique penmanship. Like yours! You're possibly the only friend I've made in, I don't know, the last twenty years??, whose handwriting I know really well. Your poetry postcards kept me uplifted during radiation. Every day, those bits of light waiting for me after the heavy walk up the porch steps. Such a gift.
It's a mythical country. A place I hear stories about, wonder if it really exists, always follow the traces when they appear. Someone should draw a map.
Lollllll yes! sometimes I think about just going through and posting the fragments. I've got hundreds of them at Bonny Glen, and a scary amount amassing here already. Plus Scrivener, Notes, Notion, notebooks, gah. I think all my *finishing* energy goes to novels. With posts, either I write in one gulp and hit send before I start overthinking, or the piece lingers half-formed forever.
Posts that want images are the worst lingerers! I'm still such a 2005 blogger at heart!
I'm such a book glutton! I love following multiple threads and having books going at many different levels. Thanks for pointing me to Simon's group! I've been dreading finishing that trilogy bc I know what happens to Cromwell and I don't want to read it. :( Maybe in a group I could get through it!
Tonia, Simon's weekly posts are really quite remarkable. They've beautifully enriched the experience for me. And they're evergreen: I can see myself finishing the trilogy and starting right back at the beginning. I too feel that dread as we approach book three. Oh, Cromwell. A man I never expected to love.
So I accidentally got ahead in Wolf Hall, then just finished it way ahead of schedule. Then I read the next two immediately 😔 so much for community reading. I liked The Mirror and the Light so much. Cromwell’s voice and memory are a big part and I just like to be with him. Even in the tower.
I feel like you are a more sturdy reader than I am, so I think it will be ok. Even though you *know* where things are heading, it doesn't feel forced or foreboding. Simon's group begins reading on July 22. I think I may try a reread at the slower pace.
Oh gosh, read the Moomins! What a treat you're in for. Those books have been in a near-constant rotation of readalouds with my younger kids (now 15 & 18 so not that young!) for years. Start with COMET IN MOOMINLAND. (One of my favorites!)
I had the fun of stitching that one as a demo piece for Rebecca in advance of her Creativebug class! I've done several demos for her & am working on another one right now. Her designs are great fun to stitch. But I hear you on the half-finished ones! I have a lotttttt of in-progress pieces by various designers as well as my own original designs. I think that's one reason I love when Rebecca asks me to stitch for her—there's a deadline! This girl needs deadlines. 😄
Just this weekend I was thinking about several of my unfinished personal projects (an embroidery series, another embroidery series, some house textiles, a bargello project, a bag I bought all the supplies for but haven't started making...yeah) and feeling like what I could really use is a Mary Poppins-type figure to stand over me and say: Work on *this* one. Because I have the drive & the creative vision & the know-how! It's just the DECISIONING I can't do.
SAME. I was literally standing in my studio last night looking at half-finished projects and stacks of patterns and supplies. Need to commit to finishing literally any of them! Like I have no business planning new projects until I use what I have (except my husband found out last night that his good friend and his wife are expecting twins after a long road and obviously the babies need hand knit blankets 😂 maybe I need a two out, one in rule?!)
Exactly right!!! Obviously!!! Obviously I need to make curtains for the new house!* Obviously I need to set up my old neglected loom now that I have room for it! Obviously I need to make a little phone pouch because my favorite summer dresses don't have pockets!
Crafting is a sneaky mistress. 😆
*We've been in the house for a year. How long will I keep calling it new? It feels new still. Maybe a house is new until you make the textiles for it!
I can't wait for the podcast with Tia. It's a tough subject, and one that I have dealt with personally although not to the extent Tia has.
Right now I'm listening to Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono. I'm not usually an audiobook fan because I need to smell paper and turn pages, but this audiobook, read by Bono, is incredible.
Interfused with U2's music and Bono's soft Dublin accent, it received Audiobook of the Year at 2024's Audie Awards. It's honest to a fault, vulnerable yet brassy. I am in Chapter 12 right now, and I've laughed and cried multiple times throughout this book so far, and we're only up to 1982. And U2's conflict of faith vs. rock-stardom is so heartfelt; in fact, the missionary vs. musician conundrum nearly broke up the group after their first album. Highly recommend with the caveat that Bono occasionally discusses adult themes, sometimes with adult language.
Well, I LOVE a list, and I love to read - how on earth has it not occurred to me to make a list of my specific reading intentions for the week?! What a brilliant idea - thank you so much!
I kid myself that I have more than one book on the go, but no, I'm a cheat. I can't count the pile of books which I've started but then put down in order to give another my full attention from beginning to end, now can I? 😂
I’m a newly proud book glutton. It has only happened fairly recently when I started to reread books for comfort but also wanted to read something else at other times. Then it became a comfort or cosy read at night and whatever else during the day. Currently I’m on the #wolfcrawl & W&P with the excellent Simon Haisel, Ulysses on Audrey - although I’ve slipped back a bit with this bonkers of a book - and Emma for Austen in July. I absolutely adore reading as part of a group. As well I read non fiction in between and cosy books at night. I absolutely adore your idea of a notebook dedicated with a plan. I keep track of my reading on a habit tracker sheet along with my exercise plan - which also tends to fall behind the more my reading groups increase. Oh well.
I'm a very promiscuous reader, but not a lister of books. Or, rather, I like to list them after I read. And I like to list what I'm currently reading in conversations with other readers. But my brain doesn't really like making a list of of things to be read this week and checking it off. In fact, that idea kind of hits an anxiety trigger? I like to be free to change my mind and a checklist often gives me a dreadful sense of obligation which I would then feel guilty about it I didn't get to something. I prefer to go with the flow.
I love read alongs very much. But many of them go at too fast a pace for me. I hate feeling behind. So I have to choose carefully.
Recently I've been jumping on on the Close Reads podcast-- we just finished To Kill a Mockingbird and are currently working on Kristin Lavransdatter. And starting on Sing Unburied Sing by Jessamyn Ward.
And since Sophie and I just read Emma this spring I'm following the discussions with John Halbrook's Personal Canon Formation. But not really rereading for that.
I just got A.E. Stallings Archaic Smile and her translation of Hesiod's Works and Days. But I don't have anyone to read those with. They're just fun for me.
One of my favorite parts of reading is picking out the next book to read, so much excitement and possibility!…which sometimes results in too many books being started before I’ve finished the ones I’ve already opened
I should make a specific reading plan for this week. I'm trying to read a book set in each U.S. state this year and just finished books for Iowa, Alaska, and South Carolina! Such a fun challenge. :)
Ooh, fun! I'd love to see your list!
Here it is so far! I read the first Charlotte book for Massachusetts :) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-lPt5AP_r_vbgmNiwFFxd81JbDOf1ahtLEKBQEhYe5g/edit?usp=sharing
Can’t wait to read your rabbit hole vs rabbit trail post! I always call everything a “rabbit hole,” but I realize now that “rabbit trail” is actually what I mean!
I'm addicted to both. Rabbit-trailing so often leads to rabbit-holing!
Omg! There's a new Murakami?!?!
I KNOW, RIGHT?!
Also: hi!! Always gives me such a smile to see you!
Melissa, I came so late to Murakami, and during covid I started reading his stories and not they thrill me. the first paragraph of that new story! Let's read it together? I used to resent him and now I sorta look forward to his weird packages...
Brian! I'd love to read it with you. "Weird packages"—so apt. A week is really not enough time. Too much to savor. I might have to steal one of my kids' Kindles for a long airplane-mode read.
Covid reading would make a great post. I binged on Emily St. John Mantel because I had to reread Station Eleven in the first weeks of lockdown. Which: why?? You'd think I'd have run far away from pandemic literature but my urge was to immerse in it. I had an ARC of her Sea of Tranquility and it was perfect for where my head was at the time. And then, well, once I start reading her I have to read the whole shelf.
I’m definitely a book glutton and my tastes are very eclectic. I’m in Simon’s W&P slow read (loving it), a Waugh group and Bradbury group both on IG, a read-along of Ulysses (I can finally check that off bucket list) with StoryGraph group hosted by Audrey-an audiobook app with guide notes included. Audrey is actually where I first was introduced to Simon Haisell as a book guide. I’m also reading one Agatha Christie book a month for the #ReadChristie2024 hosted by The Official Agatha Christie on IG. For funsies I’m reading Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie in Search of America. Oh, wait! I’m also in a group reading Ronald Dahl’s kid lit for the summer! 🙈😅
Okay, I actually spelled Roald Dahl’s name correctly, but autocorrect knew better. 🙄
Ah Kelly, you're my people for sure! Impressed you've managed Ulysses. One of these years I'll find enough focus to stick with it. I make it a little farther each time.
Thanks! Oh love the distinction between rabbit-holing (footnotes) and rabbit-trailing (tangents) – perfect!
It's why you're such a kindred spirit! Like me, you're enchanted by both!
Love seeing your handwriting and hand work 💙
Kortney! I've got a post on handwriting in my drafts! Sparked by my recent thoughts on how much Scott's writing means to me. The real pleasure—fleeting in these keyboard days—of seeing a friend's handwriting. How connected I feel to a person at the sight of their unique penmanship. Like yours! You're possibly the only friend I've made in, I don't know, the last twenty years??, whose handwriting I know really well. Your poetry postcards kept me uplifted during radiation. Every day, those bits of light waiting for me after the heavy walk up the porch steps. Such a gift.
100% agree with this! When something arrives in the mail with kortney's writing on it your heart just feels better. <3
It really does!
Note to self (and I really really mean it): send more postcards.
Postage rates go up on July 14, so now is a good time to buy stamps 👍
Ah good tip!!
....Lissa's Drafts....
It's a mythical country. A place I hear stories about, wonder if it really exists, always follow the traces when they appear. Someone should draw a map.
Lollllll yes! sometimes I think about just going through and posting the fragments. I've got hundreds of them at Bonny Glen, and a scary amount amassing here already. Plus Scrivener, Notes, Notion, notebooks, gah. I think all my *finishing* energy goes to novels. With posts, either I write in one gulp and hit send before I start overthinking, or the piece lingers half-formed forever.
Posts that want images are the worst lingerers! I'm still such a 2005 blogger at heart!
Fragments are lovey things…like the stray threads from a project all gathered.
And thank you for your kind words. It was an honor to make and send cards to you, a way of praying with my hands.
I'm such a book glutton! I love following multiple threads and having books going at many different levels. Thanks for pointing me to Simon's group! I've been dreading finishing that trilogy bc I know what happens to Cromwell and I don't want to read it. :( Maybe in a group I could get through it!
Tonia, Simon's weekly posts are really quite remarkable. They've beautifully enriched the experience for me. And they're evergreen: I can see myself finishing the trilogy and starting right back at the beginning. I too feel that dread as we approach book three. Oh, Cromwell. A man I never expected to love.
Right? That Mantel is something else.
So I accidentally got ahead in Wolf Hall, then just finished it way ahead of schedule. Then I read the next two immediately 😔 so much for community reading. I liked The Mirror and the Light so much. Cromwell’s voice and memory are a big part and I just like to be with him. Even in the tower.
But will I survive it?
I feel like you are a more sturdy reader than I am, so I think it will be ok. Even though you *know* where things are heading, it doesn't feel forced or foreboding. Simon's group begins reading on July 22. I think I may try a reread at the slower pace.
A reading plan! Brilliant idea. I recently cut back on some read alongs because I was overwhelmed; this is the perfect way to manage everything.
I read The Summer Book last year and adored it; which of her books should I read next?
Oh gosh, read the Moomins! What a treat you're in for. Those books have been in a near-constant rotation of readalouds with my younger kids (now 15 & 18 so not that young!) for years. Start with COMET IN MOOMINLAND. (One of my favorites!)
Thank you for the rec!
Also just noticed your Dropcloth sampler! Lovely! I have three half finished ones 🙃
I had the fun of stitching that one as a demo piece for Rebecca in advance of her Creativebug class! I've done several demos for her & am working on another one right now. Her designs are great fun to stitch. But I hear you on the half-finished ones! I have a lotttttt of in-progress pieces by various designers as well as my own original designs. I think that's one reason I love when Rebecca asks me to stitch for her—there's a deadline! This girl needs deadlines. 😄
oh yes I feel you on the deadlines!
Just this weekend I was thinking about several of my unfinished personal projects (an embroidery series, another embroidery series, some house textiles, a bargello project, a bag I bought all the supplies for but haven't started making...yeah) and feeling like what I could really use is a Mary Poppins-type figure to stand over me and say: Work on *this* one. Because I have the drive & the creative vision & the know-how! It's just the DECISIONING I can't do.
SAME. I was literally standing in my studio last night looking at half-finished projects and stacks of patterns and supplies. Need to commit to finishing literally any of them! Like I have no business planning new projects until I use what I have (except my husband found out last night that his good friend and his wife are expecting twins after a long road and obviously the babies need hand knit blankets 😂 maybe I need a two out, one in rule?!)
"obviously the babies need hand knit blankets"
Exactly right!!! Obviously!!! Obviously I need to make curtains for the new house!* Obviously I need to set up my old neglected loom now that I have room for it! Obviously I need to make a little phone pouch because my favorite summer dresses don't have pockets!
Crafting is a sneaky mistress. 😆
*We've been in the house for a year. How long will I keep calling it new? It feels new still. Maybe a house is new until you make the textiles for it!
I can't wait for the podcast with Tia. It's a tough subject, and one that I have dealt with personally although not to the extent Tia has.
Right now I'm listening to Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono. I'm not usually an audiobook fan because I need to smell paper and turn pages, but this audiobook, read by Bono, is incredible.
Interfused with U2's music and Bono's soft Dublin accent, it received Audiobook of the Year at 2024's Audie Awards. It's honest to a fault, vulnerable yet brassy. I am in Chapter 12 right now, and I've laughed and cried multiple times throughout this book so far, and we're only up to 1982. And U2's conflict of faith vs. rock-stardom is so heartfelt; in fact, the missionary vs. musician conundrum nearly broke up the group after their first album. Highly recommend with the caveat that Bono occasionally discusses adult themes, sometimes with adult language.
Fellow book glutton raising their hand proudly. 📚
Well, I LOVE a list, and I love to read - how on earth has it not occurred to me to make a list of my specific reading intentions for the week?! What a brilliant idea - thank you so much!
I kid myself that I have more than one book on the go, but no, I'm a cheat. I can't count the pile of books which I've started but then put down in order to give another my full attention from beginning to end, now can I? 😂
This girl needs a reading plan! 😁
I swear no list I've ever made has brought me more satisfaction than I get from ticking off bits of my reading list. Such an easy high!
I’m a newly proud book glutton. It has only happened fairly recently when I started to reread books for comfort but also wanted to read something else at other times. Then it became a comfort or cosy read at night and whatever else during the day. Currently I’m on the #wolfcrawl & W&P with the excellent Simon Haisel, Ulysses on Audrey - although I’ve slipped back a bit with this bonkers of a book - and Emma for Austen in July. I absolutely adore reading as part of a group. As well I read non fiction in between and cosy books at night. I absolutely adore your idea of a notebook dedicated with a plan. I keep track of my reading on a habit tracker sheet along with my exercise plan - which also tends to fall behind the more my reading groups increase. Oh well.
I'm a very promiscuous reader, but not a lister of books. Or, rather, I like to list them after I read. And I like to list what I'm currently reading in conversations with other readers. But my brain doesn't really like making a list of of things to be read this week and checking it off. In fact, that idea kind of hits an anxiety trigger? I like to be free to change my mind and a checklist often gives me a dreadful sense of obligation which I would then feel guilty about it I didn't get to something. I prefer to go with the flow.
I love read alongs very much. But many of them go at too fast a pace for me. I hate feeling behind. So I have to choose carefully.
Recently I've been jumping on on the Close Reads podcast-- we just finished To Kill a Mockingbird and are currently working on Kristin Lavransdatter. And starting on Sing Unburied Sing by Jessamyn Ward.
And since Sophie and I just read Emma this spring I'm following the discussions with John Halbrook's Personal Canon Formation. But not really rereading for that.
I just got A.E. Stallings Archaic Smile and her translation of Hesiod's Works and Days. But I don't have anyone to read those with. They're just fun for me.
One of my favorite parts of reading is picking out the next book to read, so much excitement and possibility!…which sometimes results in too many books being started before I’ve finished the ones I’ve already opened