Books, Books, Books

Sat down and read all of the recently released Lord Sunday in one sitting. Last book in the series and it manages to put a new spin on what's been happening in the previous six books to the point I think I have to reread them. The Keys to the Kingdom series is pretty young adult and the books are pretty thin- it's one of those series I'd love to see rewritten as doorstops for a more adult audience.

And before that I read The Steel Remains which was on a blog post about all of the remake movies they're doing this year and next and what they could be making from books instead. Apparently there is going to be a new Highlander movie and that's my childhood so when the blogger said "make steel remains instead" I had to see what was so special about the book that it beats out my beloved Highlander. And as much as I love Highlander I'd rather see Ringil hacking things up on screen right now.

The Cobb County Library Book Sale yielded up an almost complete set of hardcover Vampire Chronicles (only need two more) and I've been rereading Interview with the Vampire. It's the book that besides the Narnia books owned my childhood. And its funny- there's moments I remember almost word for word in it, then there's parts I can never recall- like Babette. I always forget who she is. Louis is still very emo. I wish Vampire Lestat had been one of the other hardcovers I'd picked up- I'm almost done with Interview already and ready for Lestat to start behaving badly.

Clive Barker's Abarat series was supposed to have the third book out last summer (also the original release date for Lord Sunday before it was moved back) but I'm beginning to suspect it's never going to come out.

And I picked up but did not start rereading the first book in the Bloody Jack series. I read the first five in three days when I checked them out of the library a few years ago- Jack is actually Jackie whose family dies of plague (i think?) and she joins the Royal Navy while passing for a boy, fights pirates, becomes a horseman, gets sent to a boarding/charm school for young ladies, joins a whaling ship, falls in love with another sailor, ect, ect. Crazy nautical awesomesauce.



Look at the second to last job title in the subtitle of the novel. I'm pretty sure when I read to book five I'd only gotten to the soldier/sailor part. Now she's a mermaid. Or she was book before this.

MERMAID.

And I thought the book where she's a horseman was going to be badass.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

Curse of the ADD knitter

Having seen Jean's post about knitting I feel the need to blog about it too.

I have come to realize over the last few weeks of knitting that I am hardcore ADD about it. I have at least ten projects going at the moment, and I sort of move between them depending on what I'm interested in working on at the moment. Give me something I'm inspired with and I'll work on it day and night and get it done in three days.

Give me something I am not so inspired with and it will sit in my knitting crate for a year.

And lately (much to Mom's horror) I have been frogging those uninspiring things. Frogging is where you pull the needles out of the project, then rewind all the yarn out of it, then do something else with the yarn. I used to be afraid of doing that because of all the hardwork I'd put in. Now I'm just like, urg, I can use that yarn on something else. Or I want the needles back.

Which is nice. It saves yarn. And Mom makes this face like :O only so much better. You can tell she wants to take whatever I'm frogging away from me.

Anyway, long story short, I have two shawls going at the moment, a pair of gloves in sock weight yarn (oh god all of those tiny little stitches), a pair of gloves with cables, at least two scarves... And I have a pair of gloves to finish for one of my WriMos.

And then today, knowing all of that, I found a pattern for fingerless gloves where you embroider words on the knuckles and it made me think of one of the sailors in Master and Commander who has "HOLD FAST" tattooed on his knuckles. I go to look at the yarn, see there's some I have in my stash already, but they're in some gloves from two years ago that I have never worn or finished. When I get home those things are getting frogged. Now if I only knew how to embroider so I can do little ships and Here There Be Monsters things all over the rest of the gloves...