Good News!

I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Strout and most of her books. I didn't love Amy and Isabelle, and I think Abide With Me and The Burgess Boys only earned 3.5 stars, but for me, the rest of her books are easily four and five stars. 

Tell Me Everything was published on September 10, and it was probably my most anticipated book this year. I got excited when the cover design was revealed, and even more excited when I requested and was approved for an ARC. Once I had the book in my hands I wanted to read it in one sitting but somehow still savor it to make it last.

Strout tells us more of Bob Burgess' story; remember him from The Burgess Boys? But the book is about so much more and so many more people, including Bob's wife, Margaret, and his first wife, Pam. It's also the story of how Bob comes to defend a local man accused of murdering his mother. There is a small mystery about who committed the crime, but it's more about the changes that Bob helps the accused man make in his life. Bob's brother Jim also appears in this novel with some important revelations for Bob.

Bob meets Lucy Barton frequently so they can take walks together. Their relationship is one of good friends who share a special emotional intimacy until possibly, they don't. This part was a bit worrisome for me, but it all came together wonderfully at the end. In one of my favorite developments, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge get together to tell each other stories about "unrecorded lives". I will be thinking about these stories and their meanings for a long time.

I greatly enjoyed revisiting many of Strout's past characters, especially Olive, Lucy, and Bob, and their interactions with each other now that many of them live in Crosby, Maine. Because Strout has caught the reader up on many favorite characters, this book feels as if it could be an ending to the Lucy Barton series. There were parts of the book that felt as if they might be moving too slowly, but Elizabeth Strout's novels have never been page-turners or plot-driven. They are stories of humanity, love, loss, empathy, and true human connections, and in these respects, this is one of Strout's best. 

Lucy stood up and pulled on her coat. "Those are my stories," she said, and then bent down to put her boots back on. "But you're right. They are stories of loneliness and love." Then she picked up her bag and said, "And the small connections we make in this world if we are lucky." And then to Olive's amazement, Lucy said, smiling at her with a gentleness on her face, "And I feel that way about you. A connection. Love. So thank you."
Olive said, "Wait." As Lucy turned, Olive said, "Well, phooey. I feel connected to you too. So there. " She stuck out her tongue.

 

Much of my enjoyment of this book was tied to the fact that Strout brings Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge together for some great conversations. Despite the fact that she can be a curmudgeon, Olive is one of my very favorite fictional characters. We get to know her in Olive Kitteridge and see her struggles to become “oh, just a tiny—tiny—bit better as a person" in Olive, Again. So what's the good news I was referring to?

I read this interview with Strout in The Guardian last weekend and then I got to the good news:

Any chance you’ll be revisiting Lucy, Bob and Olive?
I don’t know; but I do know that no matter what happens, Olive Kitteridge will never die on my watch.

I was half afraid that Olive was going to die at the end of Tell Me Everything, but she does not. Now I can keep hoping that maybe I'll get to visit with Olive again, especially because I now know that Elizabeth Strout will keep her alive. That's the best news I've heard in a long time! 

Unraveled Wednesday: 9/11/24

I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers today for a look at knitting and books. I've been waiting for an order of potholder loops for a week and a half and they just shipped yesterday, so no new potholders this week. I have been working steadily on my Sparkly Hitchhiker, so this is what it looks like. 

There are three groups of (yarnover, k2tog) every twelfth row (they're hard to see) and I'll probably continue this to at least row 48. I was sure I wanted to knit something with sparkly yarn, but to be honest, every time I pick it up, I'm less attached to the sparkles. I'm far enough along that I'll finish it and maybe it will be a gift for someone who wants or needs sparkles more than I do. 

The designer of the Washington Beanie that I was knitting for Justin released the third revision of the chart for the hat last week but I haven't worked on it since she released the second revision. I will probably rip out all the colorwork that I've done and maybe re-think the hat completely. I like how it looked when I first saw it on instagram, but the chart is something of a nightmare and I'm not sure I can produce that hat from the chart. The revisions were made so there would be fewer duplicate stitches but I think I'll have to completely rework the chart. So I may just spend some time perusing Ravelry for a better hat for Justin and see what I can find. 

I've been dragging my feet on finishing up an ARC from Netgalley and I'm also slowly reading The Pocket. So I would have an audiobook to listen to while I was knitting, I chose Up to No Gouda. I haven't been able to settle into a new book for quite a while and then saw this series at the library. The title pun was slightly amusing so I gave it a try. Up to No Gouda was worthy of 2.5 stars rounded up but that's about as far as I can go. Carly Hale is a young widow who has dreamed of opening up a grilled cheese restaurant and she returns to her hometown in Vermont to do just that. Lyle Bagley, the town bully, gets killed behind the dumpster of Carly's restaurant so, of course, she needs to solve the mystery of who murdered him. The grilled cheese varieties that Carly served were some of the best things about this book, but even they were not exceptional. This is the first book in the Grilled Cheese Mystery Series (stop laughing; it's a thing!) but I don't think I'll read the others in the series. 

What are you making and reading this week?

Zooming Out

I had something weird happen last week, and I want to show you what it was in a series of three photos. Each one is zoomed out a bit, and the third one clearly shows what happened. 

The d*&% squirrels chewed on my battery, while it was in the engine compartment!

I went out to start my car and go to the grocery store, but it just made a clicking sound and wouldn't turn over. Cars are John's area of expertise, so he used his voltmeter on the battery and only got a reading of 7.9 volts. The voltage should be close to 12, so I clearly needed a battery. When John took it out of the engine compartment, it was clear why I needed a battery. 

The squirrels have chewed through the wood of our roof cornice three times and nested in our attic. They have demolished my outdoor hanging Christmas cactus, pulled leaves and buds off of my potted hibiscus plants, and broken branches on my mandevilla. I have never liked the varmints and now that they've reached this strange level of destruction, I like them even less. I'm not a violent person but I may have to rethink that policy when squirrels are involved!

Unraveled Wednesday: 9/4/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today for the first Unraveled Wednesday in September. I've been working on my Sparkly Hitchhiker but it looks pretty much the same as last week except it has a few more teeth and some more rows of yarnovers. You've seen it plenty of times before so I'm sharing a potholder that has taken me way too much time this week. This pattern is a labyrinth so the top/bottom and side/side are not mirror images of each other. That makes it a little harder to weave (at least for me) because each row is different, with varying configurations of over and under. 

I'm leaving it on the loom until I have plenty of time to check my weaving. This one will be for Ryan, and he's detail-oriented enough to find any mistakes I've made. I think I've corrected all my mistakes and dead ends but I want to be sure when I bind off. It was a fun one to do!

I only read two books this week. I've loved Frindle ever since my kids read it in elementary school. Andrew Clements wrote a draft for a sequel before he passed away in 2019. His family worked with his Random House to publish The Frindle Files posthumously. I didn't write a review for Frindle on Goodreads; it seemed unnecessary for a middle-grade book published 28 years ago. But Frindle has a special place in my heart, so I was anxious to read The Frindle Files. In this sequel, Nick Allen has grown up and become an English teacher himself. While the original story taught readers about the power of words, The Frindle Files continues that lesson with the added question of whether technology can add or detract from the potential of language and how it's used. I didn't find this book quite as charming as the original, but I am grateful for Andrew Clements' draft and for his family and publisher making Mr. Clements' last story available to readers. Three and a half stars rounded up.

What are you making and reading this week? 

Tomatoes Are Tasty

Rutgers' Research Farm is only a few miles from where we live, and last week we went to their annual Open House and Tomato Tasting. I've been to the farm before, but I hadn't attended the tomato tasting, so I didn't fully appreciate what a wonderful place it is. (There was a lot to see so this is a picture-heavy post.)

We walked through several fields of sunflowers to find more than 50 varieties of tomatoes ready for our tasting pleasure. 

There were tents with small, medium, large, and cherry tomatoes. Some were more acidic than others, and a few bordered on bitterness. To be honest, after tasting more than 50 varieties, all I could really say was they tasted like tomatoes. There weren't any that really stood out for me that I thought we had to grow next year, but it was incredibly interesting that there are so many varieties with such great names. 

But it wasn't all tomatoes; the farm also grows fruit trees. There were peaches, apples, and even beach plums to taste. 

Pristine is a wonderful apple that tastes almost like a cross between an apple and a pear. I would plant a few of these trees if I could find them. 

There was a monarch lady there that we talked to for quite a while. She had caterpillars busily munching away on their milkweed leaves and also chrysalises. She was very enthusiastic and offered some hope for the future of monarch butterflies. 

It was 97 degrees and everyone was sweating profusely, so it was a bit of relief to hop in a wagon and go for a tractor ride around the 390 acres. I had a better idea of all the volunteers, employees, and students that it takes to manage the farm. 

There were pollinator gardens and I also learned that what I had thought was some sort of sedum was actually Joe Pye weed. 

Joe Pye weed , not sedum

And in case all this wasn't enough, there was also basil tasting. Rutgers has developed a regular basil variety that is downy mildew resistant (DMR), and they are working on breeding lemon and Thai basils that are also resistant. They had prepared giant pans of orzo with three lemon varieties and three Thai varieties. They asked all of the attendees to evaluate the taste and aroma of the six different test varieties so they could better evaluate the plants and their commercial viability. It doesn't do much good to have a basil that is resistant to downy mildew if it doesn't also taste good! We each got to bring home a regular Prospera DMR basil plant that is already available commercially.

I'll think of the great time I had at the tomato tasting when I'm using my basil in spaghetti sauce this winter!