Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Hello everyone,

I was traveling to Seattle last weekend to help my daughter and didn't have time to get a post out. Timezones and jet lag are my friends...

I do have a number of finishes however. Two 6-hour flights gives lots of time for audiobooks.

I finished listening to Service Model. This was going okay and then fell off the rails about 75-80% through for me. By the end I was listening at 2-3x speed just to finish as it droned on and on, IMO.

I finished Not Quite by the Book on my Kindle. This was a cozy read, Nothing earth shattering but enjoyable well enough. It was just fiction, slightly romance-ish but not fully. Being set in western MA was interesting for me.

On the airplane I listened to a lot of Amazon Original collection short stories. I rate most of them 3 stars because they're just okay. Short stories are hard to develop too much. But they serve my attention span on a long flight. I finished: Cruel Winter with You, Crime of Fashion, A Classic Case, The Wickeds, The Knight and the Butcherbird, The Cleaners, The Prince and the Troll, Hazel and Gray. Of those I liked Hazel and Gray the best.

I am currently on the last short story in my library, The Princess Game.

On my kindle, I am reading The One That Got Away: A Short Story which is the Amazon First Reads free short story for this month.

QOTW:
What is the funniest book you have ever read?

The only one that comes to mind immediately for me is Dave Barry's Greatest Hits. Published in the late 1980s, I vividly recall being on road trips both with my husband and separately, my brother, where we read the different essays/articles out loud and we were just laughing so much. His style hit the funny bone of our 20-something sense of humor for sure.

Hello, all. It's been another slow work week, but I'm not complaining.

Finished:
Painted Devils by Margaret Owen - 5 stars - for a book about a cult. I am really glad I reread this, because I had forgotten a lot of it.

The Fallow Year by Margaret Owen - 5 stars - not for a prompt, I just wanted to reread it before finishing the series reread. It would work for interconnected short stories, if I hadn't already filled that prompt.

Comics & manga:
My Happy Marriage 05

I am currently at 18/50 for Popsugar (16/40 and 2/10).

Currently reading:
Holy Terrors by Margaret Owen - I read an ARC in early March, but I wanted to reread so I could highlight/make notes in the full release. Plus, I wanted to read it again while my reread of the rest of the series is fresher in my mind. This was my highly anticipated read of 2025.

Upcoming/Planned:
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi - not currently for a prompt.

To Steal from Thieves by M.K. Lobb - not currently for a prompt.

QOTW:
It's probably either one of Jenny Lawson's essay collections, or one of Bill Bryson's books.

Sorry for the belated post!

The Busy Body - A ghostwriter gets the chance to work with a famous politician but ends up watching her solve a murder. This was OK. The nameless narrator is kind of annoying but in a believable, mostly likeable way. I think this may not have been the best time to enjoy a moderate politician whose independent presidential campaign functioned as a spoiler leading to the election of someone referred to only as "that guy". Also I didn't think the mystery was great.

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World - An anthology of poems about nature by contemporary poets, commissioned specifically for this project. Also not a hit for me; I found I liked more of the ones toward the end, but I'm not sure whether that was an artefact of my mood or the actual poems.

Panda-monium - I'm still enjoying this series of kids' zoo mysteries. In this entry, the millionaire park owner has negotiated with China for a coveted panda placement, but when the specialized transport trailer arrives, the panda is missing! Surely the arrival of the FBI means that a middle-school student will not be solving the case this time...

QOTW: Not a lot is coming to my mind, either. I do remember a couple of incidents of actually laughing out loud while reading: one was Tristram Shandy, and one was a compilation of Dorothy Parker poems.