Miscellany

This is a catch-up post. January was not a good month for my blogging. I spent most of it reading. I had two book clubs last month, one just beginning and the other after a month's break.

I also DID get my first COVID vaccine shot - Pfizer - and had no problems. I am scheduled for my second shot next week, the 10th, in the morning. 

We had our first significant snowfall in two years on Sunday. We got about 4-6 inches. Fortunately, the complex has a superior snow removal company and we were clear by late morning. No new snow is expected in the next week (good for the forecast for getting my shot next Wednesday).

Our B&B book club resumed well. We had a good discussion on "Marrow and Bone", a fiction book about a road trip through 1989 Poland. While I thought it was only okay, several enjoyed it. Honestly, I really don't get most of the fiction I read for this club. But I do like the nonfiction. We only have four this year so it will be a struggle. 

Our first meeting of the Mysterious Book Club was last week. We have seven members and six showed up. Our seventh has COVID and didn't really feel well enough to attend (virtually/ Incidently, both clubs are meeting virtually). My friend Dave and I started the club, so Dave selected the first book, a post-WW1 Scotland Yard series. It's a favorite of both of us so we had high hopes. 

Unfortunately, I don't think it went that well. Maybe it was because three of the members were new - three of us came from the B&B club - and might have been intimidated. We meet again in March (we meet every other month) so we will see how it goes.

I also re-read the last Inspector Rutledge again. It came out last February as they all do. I always re-read the last one in preparation for the next new release which comes in February. I've already pre-ordered it from Barnes and Noble. It is due to be released on February 16.

So my fiction is over for a short time, and I have decided to make a push to finish Wilkie Collins' A Woman in White. It was written in about 1880 or '86. Collins is called England's Edgar Allan Poe. He began the mystery thriller in England. 

It is over 600 pages and I still have about 190 pages to go. I began it last May! But it has been easy to drop off and pick back up again. Hopefully, I can finish it before my Rutledge gets here.

As I said - I didn't get much done last month except reading.

Reading Matters (n.)

I've been off on my reading for the past couple of weeks. I am catching up slowly. You can see from the photo at the left what I am currently attempting. We'll see how it goes. The one fiction book, The Woman in White, is a longish read and will probably take another one to two months. That's okay because it is easy to stop at various points without losing the train of the story. The "book club" book is rather depressing; it's about the writer's mother and how she fighting, or rather living with, the cancer in her body. It does talk about books that they read. Or more precisely, books they have read in his youth.

On another reading front, we finished the year in our book club and are now selecting books and the monthly reading order. I haven't chosen my book yet; my list is down to 15 candidates. It was only 14 yesterday, but I passed one of bookcase and a book just called out to me, saying, "Add me, add me...', so I did. I sent out an email to the other members to help me choose and have heard back from a couple. Ultimately, though, I know I will have to decide. I set a deadline of November 30th.

Before we broke the meeting I brought up the idea of starting a mystery book club. I said that it did not necessarily have to meet monthly, but may every other; or possibly quarterly. So far I have three others who are interested. I would like to keep it smallish - say 6 to 8 members. We'll see.