String Notes

Yes, much fictional goodness in my life. If I’m working very hard, as I have been, I still need to make time for mental relaxation. This time of year my job doesn’t require much physical exertion, but mental exertion is still work.

Based on a recommendation I found somewhere or another online, I took a stab at the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. A wizard in Chicago (in the phone book under W, no less) has all kinds of problems, personal and supernatural. And both. Nick tried the first one a while ago and never got into it, but I found them quite entertaining. I do actually think he’ll like them if he gives it another go, and I made sure to read him strategic quotes to encourage that. The books are (in order): Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1), Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2), Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3), Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4), Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5), Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, Book 7), Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8), and White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9).

Nearly, that is. My local public library is missing one, so I haven’t read Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) yet.

In other series news, I had no idea that Kate Wilhelm had a series of legal thrillers until I stumbled across one on the aforementioned library’s new book shelf. Returning to the beginning, I’ve now read the first three, and the fourth is sitting on my bookcase. The first in the series, Death Qualified, has a science fiction element that I enjoyed, but that has vanished from the later books Best Defense and For the Defense. Not surprising, really: when I finished the first one, I had no idea how even a writer of Wilhelm’s caliber was going to be able to turn that into a series.

Hm… apparently I’ve read nothing but series fiction lately.

Kathy Reichs: Bones to Ashes: A Novel is the continuation of her series about a female forensic anthropologist who splits her time between North Carolina and Montreal (coincidentally written by a female forensic anthropologist who splits her time between North Carolina and Montreal, so you know the science is pretty good).

Lois McMaster Bujold: Legacy (The Sharing Knife #2), the sequel to the fantasy novel Beguilement (The Sharing Knife, Book 1). Nothing too original, but I enjoy Bujold’s writing.

Ian MacLeod’s The House of Storms is the first book in a series. I enjoyed the alternate-universe Victorian England, but this dragged at places (possibly those whether the author thought he was being the most clever).

Okay, series fiction and nonfiction about string, really. You’re surprised, right?

Anne Pollard Rowe: Warp-patterned weaves of the Andes I wish this one were in print, because I’d like to own a copy. There are some gorgeous textiles in here, and I learned some new things and had a fantabulous number of new ideas.

Anne Jackson Freemantle: The Unicorn Tapestries The Unicorn Tapestries are on display at the Cloisters in New York City, and yet somehow I’ve never been. That must change. I hadn’t realized there was a newer book on the tapestries by Adolfo Salvatore Cavallo: The Unicorn Tapestries in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications). I’ll have to track that down.

I’ll get back to the tapestries a bit later this week.

Total: Does that really make 71? Apparently, unless all that reading has destroyed all traces of counting ability. The inspiration for keeping this list was a “read 50 books” contest at my thrice-mentioned public library. I’ve reached that goal in the allotted time, but I’m enjoying the process of keeping a tally. It cuts way down on the “now who wrote that book I read last week?” problem that I’m oh-so prone to, so I imagine I’ll continue with the list.

In celebration of finishing the book challenge (must remember to take list to library for free bag), I present to you the final (for now) entry in the “Socks at Work” series. (No more until I finish some socks!)

These are my favorites – bright purple worsted-weight textured and cozy. The best part of winter is that I can wear them again. These socks are the reason I started knitting socks in the first place. I developed a yen for bright purple socks, but couldn’t find them anywhere. Well, how hard could it be to knit some myself? Thus I took the first step on a long, slippery slope… These aren’t my first socks – those are the not-quite-matching brown ones posted previously, but they are the inspirational ones.