Do you ever listen to book-related podcasts? If so, which ones and why?

This is a timely BTT question because I’ve just recently started listening to Books on the Nightstand, a really fantastic podcast about books and reading. I found it a couple weeks ago when searching iTunes for new podcasts. BOTN was one of the top results when I searched for “books” and “reading.” I downloaded a couple of episodes and was hooked. It’s hosted by Ann and Michael, who are sales reps for Random House. I like their opinions about books because they clearly know what they’re talking about and they’ve recommended dozens and dozens of books I’m not familiar with, but would love to read. Most of the recent additions to my To Read list on Goodreads have come from BOTN and I highly recommend the podcast if you’re a bookworm like me.

Jaywalker Socks in Knit Picks Felici fingering weight, colorway Rainbow
@ Ravelry

It’s certainly not the most original idea (search: Rainbow Jaywalker on Ravelry), but I finally made myself a pair of rainbow Jaywalker socks. I’ve knit the pattern before, so I thought about making these toe-up to be different. However, there seem to be some fiddly issues with the sizing on the toe-up Jaywalker pattern, so I knit these cuff-down to make things easier.

The yarn I used is Knit Picks Felici. It’s very soft and I loved watching the colors change. However, I noticed a few negative things about the yarn. First, there are bits where the dye is kind of muddy–like there is green on the yellow parts, or orange on the yellow parts. It’s really not noticeable in the pics, but I could point out the spots if I looked for them. It doesn’t affect the general appearance of the socks, so it’s not a huge deal, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Second, I found knots in each ball of yarn. Not cool–especially with self-striping yarn, where abrupt color changes will be obvious. Luckily, both of my knots were toward the end of the toe, so I was able to work around them, for the most part. But I was disappointed because knotty yarn is just a pain.

When I bought the yarn, I noticed that Knit Picks had it listed as a Last Chance colorway. It’s now no longer available on their site. Maybe the aforementioned quality issues are to blame? I have another two balls of Felici in my stash (the Marine Life colorway, I think), so I’m hoping they won’t have the same issues as the Rainbow colorway.

Having said all that–I really do like the finished product! They’re happy and cheerful and I have dubbed them my Rainbow Brite/Care Bear Stare socks. They’re by far the most colorful socks I’ve ever made, and small gripes about the yarn aside, I love the way they turned out.

Footnote: not only is the Knit Picks rainbow self-striping sock yarn discontinued, but so is another rainbow colorway I have in my stash, Regia Nation Color in colorway 5399. I’m puzzled as to why both manufacturers have discontinued such an awesome colorway. Looking at stashes and projects on Ravelry, both yarns seem pretty popular; so why discontinue them? It’s a mystery to me.

So, let’s talk about how much I hated this book.

Well…hate is a strong word, but appropriate in this case. I just didn’t enjoy reading this. As I did, my reaction to the story would ebb and flow: at times the story was interesting (therefore, I kept reading) and other times it would get really, really boring (and I would question why I didn’t just give up on this). I guess I could have stopped reading it, but by the time I thought about it, I figured I was past the point of no return–I was about halfway done at that point–so I stuck with it, hoping the end would be satisfying. Nope. No cigar.

To be specific, the main things I disliked (other than the plot) were the timeline and the characters themselves. The story takes place in a short amount of time, but it jumps around quite a bit; I had to re-orient myself because it wasn’t always clear that we were in a flashback. As for the characters, the teenage boys didn’t have very realistic voices. They said “yo” a lot and talked about girls and sex, but at times their dialogue sounded nothing like real teenagers. That was distracting. Lastly, I didn’t sympathize with the characters. I thought the protagonist/sometimes narrator Tim was interesting, but he didn’t redeem the novel for me. That’s another thing I didn’t like–the narrative shifted between first person point of view in the form of journal entries, to third person omniscient, then back to first person. Again, just distracting for me.

I was going to summarize the plot, but you know…suffice it to say that the plot was disjointed and wrapped up in a very contrived way. I was ready for a creepy, possibly supernatural story, but this one really disappointed me, so I can’t recommend it. The funny thing is, both Stephen King and Neil Gaiman loved the book, which is what had peaked my interest in it to begin with. Different strokes…

Last year, I read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and loved it. I was hoping that Catalyst would be as good, if not better. The first half or so of the story was pretty good, but I found the second half (and the book overall) disappointing.

The blurb on the back cover is pretty vague. It describes Kate Malone, a high school senior and overachieving minister’s daughter who has her heart set on attending MIT. She believes she knows the course her life is headed on, but soon finds out that she doesn’t.

There’s a series of events that then take place, but which seem to have been created in an attempt mainly to move the plot forward, rather than develop the characters in a better way. I expected the story to be more Kate-centric; while she is the main character, I didn’t really like the way that the story veered away from her at various points.

I suppose I expected the story to be about something different, which left me disappointed when I figured out what it was actually about. Also, I was hoping that this would live up to the greatness of Speak, which it didn’t do. Nevertheless, I do enjoy Anderson’s style of writing and will continue to read her books.

Yesterday I turned 30. I wasn’t too distressed over it–my 20s were pretty tumultuous, so in a way I was relieved to leave them behind. I’m hoping that it’s gotten to the point where I’m no longer phased by numbers. In my mind, I’ve always felt much older, and not just in an “I’m very mature” way, but rather, “Sometimes I feel like I’m 80 on the inside,” if that makes sense. I never really had a wild youth, haha. So anyway, I’m hoping that my 30s are much better than the decade that preceded them.

I had the day off work anyway for July 4th, so I pretty much lazed around the house and took naps. lol I received some awesomely AWESOME yarn from M, which I love and will make pretty things with.

Birthday yarn of awesomeness:

I also ate way too much ice cream cake, but one’s birthday is the best time for making excuses, like being lazy and eating too many sweets, right?

Ok, so I’ve seen Eclipse twice now and I’ve moved from “feeling kind of meh/iffy about it” to “liked it overall.” Here is a list of things that stood out to me (originally posted this in the Twilight group on Ravelry, but I’ve kind of elaborated on them here).

(This post contains dozens of spoilers, obviously!)

Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t have much interest in this book when I first heard about it, so I hadn’t planned on reading it. Then I kept hearing about it and it had really good reviews, so I figured I’d give it a try. It’s kind of hit or miss with me when I read a bestseller. Sometimes I see what all the fuss is about; sometimes the book doesn’t resonate with me. This one did the latter.

[I won't summarize the book since I don't think I'll be able to do it properly without spoiling some of the plot elements. Anyway, I'm sure the Amazon summary can give a better (albeit generic) overview.]

I knew this was going to be a good read when I teared up during the prologue. Yes, really–the prologue. It’s that well-written and engrossing from the start. It’s strange to be that affected so early in the novel, but the prose is beautifully constructed–the only other author I can think of whose prose affects me the same way is Anita Shreve. And since it was so early in the book, I didn’t have a chance to really connect with any of the characters yet, so the fact that it was that moving so soon was surprising, but really powerful at the same time.

As the story progressed, I definitely became emotionally invested in the characters (particularly the main character, Jacob). Beyond this, however, were elements of the plot itself that were unexpected. There were moments that seemed predictable at the beginning of the book. However, when they were fully revealed later on, they took me by surprise. That’s sort of rare, but when it’s beautifully executed, it’s quite a delight to experience as a reader. I felt like part of the conclusion was kind of rushed, but it didn’t bother me too much since both the characters and plot were fully developed. And I really, really liked the ending.

Footnote: Water for Elephants is being made into a movie (and being filmed right now, actually). I’m not sure if I like the idea of Reese Witherspoon as Marlena, but I do like her in pretty much every other movie I’ve seen her in. Jacob is being played by Robert Pattinson (yes, really) and I have hopes that he’ll do well in the role. I’ve seen him in non-Twilight movies and really liked him–his performance in Remember Me was largely overlooked, sadly. So, I’m looking forward to seeing if the movie will capture the same emotions conveyed in the book.