Book Round-Up: I Forgot to Write About Several Books Edition

 It's been a tough year.

Sourdough by Robin Sloan: Lois is a computer programmer who feels lost until she learns how to make sourdough bread. This is not a typical return-to-simpler-things book, though;  Sloan is too smart for that. Lois uses her background in technology to improve the bread making process and joins a collective devoted to cutting-edge food production. It's an unusual book about the delight of making things, and the second one I've read with a sentient sourdough starter.

Better than Fiction by Alexa Martin: This, I'm sorry to say, was a disappointment. The protagonist runs a bookstore even though she hates to read, but instead of a novel about expectations, bookishness, and intellectual snobbery, it was a mediocre romance complete with sassy best friend, meddling aunties, cartoonishly evil antagonist, and secrets that didn't merit the angst they produced.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett: I loved this "cozy historical fantasy" about a British academic dealing with dangerous fairies, skeptical townspeople, and an annoying colleague. I'm excited to read the next one when it comes out this winter.

Jewelry Photo Dump

 I've made a lot of jewelry over the past few months that I forgot to document on the blog, so here it is.

A gorgeous strand of amazonite from Allegory Gallery inspired me to do some knotting again. I added rose quartz, beryl, and faceted moonstone to make a very long necklace that can also be wrapped around my wrist. I don't wear pastel colors much, but this is a lovely combination:

 I don't know how I got it into my head that I needed a Prince necklace, but who am I to turn down an excuse for purple jewelry? The silver charm is one of a pair of earrings, and the beads are a strand of amethyst I got for free from Lima Beads's delightful annual Easter egg hunt on their website.

 While spending hours on the Lima Beads website I found a cute project for necklaces to wear together, so I made two to create a set of sorts with some other necklaces:

 Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries was a fun book with a beautiful cover that inspired me to embroider a pendant with wintry flowers and a sinister hand:

 

 

 Many years ago at a needlecraft store I picked up two knotwork pendant kits by Teresa Layman. One I made for my mom right away, and the other languished in a box until recently. Soooo many knots. French knots, colonial knots, knots where I lost control of the thread ...

 

 I haven't made brick stitch earrings with fringe in decades, so that had to be remedied. I've included a picture of the first "draft," too wide and with the wrong size thread. More fringe earrings are in my future.

 Finally, a simple necklace I made with the African Christmas beads I can't get enough of:

Phew!

Sue Spargo's Bloomed SAL

 

 

I started this back in May, when I was 80 days into the 100DayProject and desperate to stitch something new. For a few weeks, Sue Spargo demonstrated different embroidered flowers and stems, all done on a piece of wool felt. I used a smaller piece, so I only did one of each flower (and omitted a couple). This was a joy to stitch, so fun and pretty.

Some close-ups and in-progress pictures:

To finish it I backed it with a piece of cotton and did some "big stitch" quilting with pearl cotton that matched the felt; as you can tell, I didn't worry about even lines or precision. I was inspired to stitch the false binding closed with french knots, rather than slip stitch -- faster, more fun, and another way to add texture.

 

Love it! And now I get to put it away until next spring.

Hot Peppers

 Remember the cellini spiral bracelet I made ages ago? I decided I really needed some earrings to go with it (one can never have too many earrings). After browsing through the Cellini Peyote Freaks facebook posts, I settled on the "Pepper" beaded bead designed by Cath Thomas.

Because I wanted to use the same beads I used for the bracelet, I had to size up the called-for beads, from sizes 15, 11, and 8 to 11, 8, and 6. But the pattern also called for size 11 delicas, which would now be too small. Instead I substituted more 11s:

 I wish I had taken a before picture -- mid-process, the beading looked like a total disaster. But when I zipped up the two sides it all came together like magic.

But, I wanted the green to be more prominent. A brief discussion on facebook told me there was such a thing as size 10 delicas, so of course I had to buy some (such a sacrifice, going bead shopping). I'm even more pleased with the results:

As you can see, I also made a chili pepper, just for fun, using the called-for sizes. 

Yay!

Book Round-Up

 Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh: This satire of "Bright Young Things" between the Wars is sharp and brutal, even laugh-out-loud funny, but as the book progresses it also gets bleaker (Waugh got divorced while he wrote this). I admired it, and I'm glad I read it, but I wasn't in the right headspace to spend so much time with vapid, superficial people. Warning: the n-word shows up a couple of times, which I was not at all expecting.

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis: I'm mad that I read this. It has an interesting premise -- used bookdealer Ashlyn can pick up psychic impressions from books, especially the two she's found that tell both sides of an unhappy love story -- but it was terribly executed. The star-crossed lovers at the heart of the novel were snobby and insufferable, there was fatshaming and slutshaming (meanwhile the "slut" had the most interesting story, and the most integrity, of the bunch), the magic realism aspect was non-existent after the first few chapters, and, worst of all, the author wrote a terrible, offensive portrayal of suicide. I am mystified that this book is as well-reviewed as it is.

Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery: A palate cleanser! I adored the Anne stories as a child, but my paperbacks from the 1980s are falling apart so I'm treating myself to new, hardcover versions. I started with this one because it is my favorite and because it is the hardest to get, as it is not yet in the public domain. Montgomery really is an excellent writer -- perceptive, both clear-eyed about and forgiving of people's faults, and genuinely funny.

Once Upon a Prime: the Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature by Sarah Hart: Of course I'd be all over a book that unites math and literature. Hart displays both a deep enthusiasm for literature and math and a delightfully dorky sense of humor that made this a fascinating, engaging read. And now my list of books to read is even longer.

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link: One of my favorite authors is back! The short stories in this collection are riffs on classic folktales. Link has a talent for this sort of thing, incorporating modern details like jazzercise, brunch spots, and cellphones while keeping the dreamlike fantasy, and even horror, of the original tales.

An Early Start

 Disappointed that I didn't get to stitch any 12 Days of Christmas designs last December, I vowed to start early (February, I think) and stitch a few before summer ended. "A few" turned into "one," and that one was a large design (much bigger than I anticipated), but still! I have something to add to the collection!

 The design is from Gazette 94. It's a little too big to count as an ornament, but I love the colors.

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

Kuang's stand-alone fantasy novel posits a world where magic is the literal product of translation; silver bars inscribed with a word or phrase in two languages capture the meaning or implication that is lost in translation, producing an effect related to that lost meaning. Linguistic scholars at the Babel Tower in 19th century Oxford exploit this flaw in translation to aid the British Empire and its citizens. Kuang, who is a translator herself, understands all too well the impossibility of a translation that captures perfectly the intended meaning and all its nuances. She also peppers the narrative with lots of fun etymologies.

Kuang is interested in more than just a dark academia fantasy, however; at every step she challenges the reader to think through the implications of a magic system so thoroughly entwined with an empire determined to hold on to power. Robin Swift is a Chinese boy taken from his family and home country so that his linguistic talents, particularly his status as a native Cantonese speaker, can be developed and used in England's efforts to force the Chinese government to yield to unfavorable trade agreements. His cohort at Babel consists of other outsiders -- Ramy, a Muslim Indian, Victoire, a Haitian-French girl descended from slaves, and Letty, a white English girl expected to replace her brother after his untimely death -- who each grapple with their roles in perpetuating colonialism, in different ways. Robin, for example, must overcome his tendency to do what is expected of him and be the "model minority." Letty, on the other hand, struggles to reconcile the privilege she experiences because of her skin color and nationality with the very real sexism she faces. Witnessing the racism her friends face, she tries to dismiss it as the acts of a few bad people, rather than a symptom of a cultural, economic, and political system built on prejudice. And then there's Victoire, who has it worst as a Black woman; more than anything she wants to survive.

While the novel is highly praised (deservedly so), there's a strain of criticism I've seen pop up everywhere; namely, that Kuang was too heavy-handed in her condemnation of colonialism, that she should have allowed readers to figure it out for themselves. But if the themes of the story are something for us to work out, it becomes all too easy to just not do the work -- to skim the ugly parts and ignore all that unpleasantness that makes us feel vaguely guilty in favor of the cool, magical world centered around an actual tower (albeit not made of ivory). That's exactly what the Babel academics do, focusing on their fascinating work while turning a blind eye to its uses and implications. Kuang does not want us to gloss over the evil of what is happening, so she never lets us forget it.

It's not an easy read, but it is well worth it.