Cecelia Holland – Yarn, Books & Roses

The Saturday Update: Week 20

Twenty weeks into the year I’m now in a place that I never could have imagined a year ago. Let’s be honest, if you read science fiction books you know all about pandemics, but who thought we’d be living that scenario now? A year ago I was facing down some very scary possible diagnoses and pressing for medical interventions to help me; I was forced to self-isolate as my doctors doubled down on my immunosuppressant drugs to get my systemic sclerosis symptoms under control. I’m tolerating the additional drugs, but my risk of infection remains high. Then I self-isolated when flu season erupted late in the fall; in spite of my best efforts I caught the flu anyway. Sigh. Who could have imagined that there would then be a pandemic, a chaotic and ineffective response by my government, and then social bullying against people who wear facemasks and who comply with public health protocols? Yep, That is happening in my community right now. There is no place I can go that will be safe for me if other people refuse to wear masks and maintain a safe distance. I’m pretty much in stunned disbelief these days. I have no choice but to continue to self-isolate.

This is my new shirt that I plan to wear while grocery shopping, which I do carefully during the special “at-risk” shopping hour at my grocery store.

Whatever, the joke is on those rude anti-social idiots who have forced me to remain home with my yarn stash, books, and garden! I’m good.

Knitting

Look at what got done this week!!

My V-Neck Boxy sweater is ready to enter service.

I loved this color yarn so much that I bought an extra skein of yarn to use for socks, or something. I didn’t quite know what I would do with it, but I wanted options. I also bought a skein of contrasting yarn at the same time thinking that I could maybe put together a nice piece to go with the sweater. I was thinking Fair Isle armwarmers at the time, but this week I decided that this yarn wanted to be a cowl.

A Garter Snake cowl, to be specific. The cowl begins with 50 rounds of brioche, and then will move into garter stitch while the brioche forms a peak in the garter stitch background. This is going to be so perfect with my new sweater!!

I also pulled out a pair of simple socks that have been hibernating in a project bag for a few weeks while I focused on the sweater. How cute will these be?

My local yarn store got these intriguing little balls of yarn to make self-striping socks. Hey. I had to try that out!! The yarn is from Lollipop Yarn, and the sock is my own usual 64 stitch vanilla sock recipe.

Finally, I am ready to return to my latest knitted cat project. Poor Maya has been waiting and waiting for her knitted twin to arrive. Now that the sweater is off the needles I am ready to focus on that project and should get it done in the coming week.

Garden

Nothing spectacular is going on in the garden… plants are slowly adjusting to the outside, perennials are emerging from the ground, and my frost-damaged rose bushes are slowly putting out new shoots and leaves. Since I can’t go to the local nursery these days I put the seeds from old plants into cleared garden soil. I have a bag of old flowers (with their seed pods) in the garage that was given to me years ago by a cousin… I think that those seeds will end up in the back garden. Some ancient allysium seeds actually sprouted in the front rose garden so I’m hopeful about the other seeds that I just planted from old, dried flower pods. See, lots of work is going on, but not much to show off in pictures.

Except for this… Painted Lady butterflies have descended on my flowering plants. Yay!! Happy times!

Books

I tend to watch news channels during the day while I knit and quilt on my current projects. It is kind of background noise that won’t interfere with my counting of stitches or my focus while sewing a nice, straight seam. I do watch enough to become amused by the backgrounds that people have chosen for their video commentary. You know, some are in the living room and we see furniture and neutral walls with maybe some prints on them. Others choose to speak in front of a shelf with a few carefully arranged plants, pots, pictures, and some token books. Some of the backgrounds are just sadly vacant of evidence of life. Then there are the people who speak in front of a bookshelf stuffed full of books…

Oh my gosh!! I love those people!! Some of them have books that are crammed into the shelves with books on top of other books, scraps of paper marking places poking out, and the chaos of a dedicated bibliophile. Others have nice tidy bookshelves with a few pictures of family and mementos included. I ignore what these people are saying as I search the bookshelves to find books that I have too. Yes! Stacey Abrams has a copy of The Night Tiger on her shelf!! Beto O’Rourke has all of the Aubrey-Maturin books by Patrick O’Brian on his shelf. The mayor of Dallas, Texas (Eric Johnson) has the same copy of Einstein: His Life and Universe on his shelf that is on mine! I can’t help it… I am thrilled to see evidence of my connection and shared interests with these other people. I love it!

My downstairs bookshelf. I used to have 4 bookshelves in my house, and over the last few years I’ve slowly pruned them down to just two. In the era of digital books I’ve really cut back on hardbound book buying.

This bookshelf has all of my sock knitting books and some smaller knitting books. It also has most of my science geeky books, and all of my hardbound historical novels by Sharon Kay Penman, and several science fiction books. My favorite two books in the world, Floating Worlds and Great Maria, both by Cecelia Holland, are also on this shelf. And on the bookshelf upstairs. When a book is your favorite it’s important to have several copies just in case…

My upstairs bookshelf. Do you see all of those books on the shelf above MacKnitzie? That’s my collecion of the Aubrey-Maturin books. Out of sight at the bottom of the shelf are piles of more knitting and weaving books.

So, what am I reading this week? I have settled down and am finally able to read complicated books again. I’m reading the latest historical novel by Sharon Kay Penman about the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century.

King Baldwin IV and the Kingdom of Jeruselum. Hundred of pages. I’m in book heaven.

I’m also deep in the 16th century as I’m reading this book about Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell.

Both of these are huge books with lots of convoluted interactions and political maneuverings. Perfect for long spring days at home in our time.

Have a great week, everyone!!

Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.

Return to Reading: Three Good Books

I am just nuts about books. I have been, and always will be, a voracious reader who hoards and treasures books. I have multiple copies of my very favorite books so that no matter what happens, I will always have them. (My most collected books so far: Great Maria and Floating Worlds, both by Cecelia Holland.) I can’t imagine going through a day without reading. I have books stacked up in a reading queue and more on hold at the library. I am a reader.

Except that suddenly stopped this spring. Around the time my rheumatologist moved me to stronger drugs I realized that I was having a lot of trouble with vocab recall and speech, and I was really struggling to read. Maybe I just needed a better book, I thought, and kept prowling book stores and the library hunting for that illusive great read. It just didn’t matter; no matter what the book was my mind just skittered around and refused to engage in the story. A book that would usually take a few days to read dragged on for a couple of weeks; by the time I finished it I couldn’t remember what it was about. Crazy. Thank you scleroderma!!

Last month I scored a form of CellCept that would play nice with my digestive system and finally settled into a consistent drug regimen. I think that it actually takes weeks (and months) for the full benefit of these immunosuppressant drugs, but this month I have actually finished three (pretty darn good) books, and the last one I raced through in just a few days. OK, the drug is also causing some sleep disruption, but I’m finally reading again!! Woohoo! Here are the books of October:

stuff — MacKenzie is my reading companion. 🙂

The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz

This book is a continuation of the Millennium series by the deceased Stieg Larsson. Oh, my goodness. Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are back. If you aren’t already familiar with these characters, let me just say that Blomkvist is an investigative reporter who is the champion of truth, loyal to his friends, famous for huge exposés, and sometimes hauled into court. Salander is… well, she is different. She’s brilliant, a computer hacker extraordinaire, a survivor, a champion, and probably a sociopath. She is broken, and she if fabulous. This book brings back the flavor of the previous books with the same intricate plotting; a murder, a conspiracy, convoluted electronic trickery, and the pace of a perfect thriller. I don’t think that it was quite as dark as Larsson’s books, but it was still a really good read.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Sometimes a book is more of an experience than a story. OK, did I mention that I’m having vocab recall and brain fog issues? Reading this book just messed with my head but was so amazing that I kept going. The story unpacks in bits and pieces back and forth in time as we learn about the life of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor of the last century. Dorrigo falls in love, goes to war, survives the horrific ordeal of building a railroad in the jungle as a Japanese prisoner of war, becomes a famous war hero, marries, has children, and carries a book of Japanese death poems. It is a magical story of love, guilt, endurance, survival, betrayal, and endless charges ahead in the face of impossible odds. I’m not completely sure that I understand this book, but it haunts me still.

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

The Narrow Road just warmed me up for this one. Once again I was reading a rich and complex novel that centered on the life of one anchoring character, Holly Sykes. The plot is broken into 6 segments that move forward in time (thank you, Mr. Mitchell!) but also loop and reconnect to characters and events in the other sections. Holly is extraordinary in that she hears voices and has accurate premonitions; the plot deals with these supernatural elements but also builds rich characters and situations that kind of left me stunned. It was with this book that I realized that I was once again a reader. I was immersed in the story, drawn to the characters, and caught off guard by twists and turns in the plots. This book had several story threads going at once, and it should have been confusing, but it wasn’t at all. I loved it and even cried at the end.

Three good books in a row! When I logged them into Goodreads today I noticed that two of the books are on a list for the best books of 2015, and the third is on the Nook Best Books List. Yep! They were just great and what I needed to return to reading. The number one book on the 2015 Tournament of Books list is one called Station Eleven. Hey, it is a science fiction! Hmmm… I may have to check that out.

Books I Love: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

I really place a lot of emphasis on the first few lines of a book. I just love it when the author seizes the moment and transports me immediately into the book. In just a few well-chosen sentences I’m in another place, I have a feel for at least one person in the story, and I’m already becoming emotionally invested.

Here’s some examples of what I’m talking about. Each of these is the first sentence(s) of the book:

When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake – not a very big one. (Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove)
Other pilgrims offered silver at the shrine; Maria brought an armful of wildflowers. (Cecelia Holland, Great Maria)
Charles Howard had the feel of a gigantic onrushing machine: You had to either climb on or leap out of the way. (Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend)
He will come who treads the dawn, Tramples the sun beneath his feet, And judges the souls of men. He will stride across the rooftops, And he will fire the engines of God. –Uranic Book of Prayer (Quraqua)(Translated by Margaret Tufu) (Jack McDevitt, The Engines of God)

I absolutely love each of these books; when I read them I was captured within the first few pages. Within minutes I was in Texas, the Middle Ages, California, or on another planet investigating a lost civilization. That first impression carried me into the book and I was gone.

Quite frankly, I do struggle a little with non-fiction writing. I always start the book meaning to stick with it in a quest for self-improvement, but somewhere after a few chapters I drift off and never finish. I keep trying, though, to find those books that will really capture me and teach me about things I never knew or even imagined. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo is one of these books.

Here is the first sentence of the book:

Midnight was closing in, the one-legged woman was grievously burned, and the Mumbai police were coming for Abdul and his father.

All right then! I am yours forever, or as long as it takes to read this book.

That is exactly what happened. This book, which is an immersion into the lives of the inhabitants of the slum world of Annawadi, located on open land belonging to the Airports Authority of India, is amazing. The narrative focuses on Abdul and his family, but we meet their neighbors, friends, and family as we travel through the events leading up to the horrific night described in the first sentence of the book and onwards through the incarcerations and trials of Abdul and other members of his family. Along the way we discover the realities of grinding poverty, the continual graft and corruption running through the Annawadi world, the brutal truths of modern life in India, and the glimmers of hope for a better life and future. I am horrified, I am grateful for my life, and I feel compelled to do something to make some difference. I want desperately to get e-mail updates about how Abdul and other people that I met in this book are doing. It should be clear to you that not only was I captured at the first sentence by this book, but I was compelled to read it straight through over a couple of days.

That first sentence was a good predictor. This is a very, very good book.