Small Town Hermit

Today’s color is the exquisite Da Duku. As soon as I pulled it out, I couldn’t wait to start knitting with it.

In fact, I got so excited that I forgot that this pair of socks was going to be a 3×1 ribbing pattern and just started knitting away. I was able to work two single round stripes of yesterday’s color, and then I just knit and knit until I ran out of yarn. I will take out two rounds so that I can repeat the striping sequence I used after the toe. That way I won’t have to guess how much yarn I need for the stripes, although I have been guessing pretty well so far about how many rows I can knit with each day’s mini skein.

The pictures don’t really do the color justice. Overall it looks like a lovely, deep, piney green which tends a bit toward teal in it’s lighter shades. Even the lighter gray bits show hints of green. Those little pin stripes above the toe make me happy, too.

Tomorrow’s skein should get me through the heel, hopefully with enough to stripe into the next color. If I use two more skeins after the heel, I should have a nice, mid-calf length sock.

Since today’s knitting didn’t involve paying attention to rows for stripes, starting a toe, or turning a heel, I was able to multi-task to some degree. I am not a big believer in multi-tasking because you can only truly focus on one thing at a time, but if I knitting every stitch until I run out of yarn, I don’t have to look at my hands the whole time, so I can read a bit. It has to be on a screen, however, so that the text is standing upright on it’s own. (I have yet to find a holder which positions a paper book in such a way that I can read while I knit, so usually I alternate between the two.) I stick with articles and book excerpts because I don’t do well reading whole books on a screen.

After watching a video which referenced T.E. Lawrence, I wondered if his letters had been published, and I found myself reading a excerpt from Lawrence of Arabia’s Secret Dispatches During the Arab Revolt 1915-1919. The contents were authored by Lawrence, but Fabrizio Bagatti collected, verified, and organized them for the book. Reading the introduction reminded me how poorly educated I am on the subject of world history.

I have been looking for well-researched, readable history books lately, preferably social history in the context of politics (or political history in the context of society, technology, and economics) so that I am not just reading about men and their wars. I want to learn about the whole picture and not just about the main players and to learn more about those main players. Two books about Queen Victoria are on their way to me courtesy of the fine folks at Discover Books. I discovered (ha!) them through either amazon or abebooks, I think. Whenever I see a third-party seller on a bigger site, I try to purchase directly from the seller’s website. At first I thought it was a single location, but it is a rather large network, although still independent as far as I can tell. (I feel like my favorite companies — audible, woot, Book Depository in the UK — keep getting absorbed into RAMJAC, er, amazon. I remember when amazon was the upstart. Sigh.)

At any rate, I have made several purchases and been nothing but pleased. I would say that their grading is on the conservative side. Several books listed as “good” have turned out the be like new. They do have a lot of former library books, but all have been at least in good condition, if not very good. Prices are generally between three and five dollars. They always seem to have a promotion for 15% off if you buy three or more used books (they have new books, too, often discounted significantly), and the free shipping threshold is $9. The packaging isn’t fancy, and it will take more than a day or two to receive the books, but they do provide tracking numbers.

Based on the graphics at the bottom of the page, they do more to promote reading than sell books.

Why do I mention them? Well, for one, it’s a great deal. For another, buying used books falls into the reduce and reuse categories, which is related to the next point. I have read articles and received newsletters from several independent booksellers urging me to shop early because not only do supply chains continue to be tangled and broken but the increase in online shopping has increased the demand for cardboard and reduced the supply of the wood pulp used to make books.

That’s right. The pandemic is hitting bookshelves. Publication dates are being pushed back, and the new books which are being released will be in shorter supply. Now that’s what I call a crisis!! ***

What is more serious than me not being able to get my hands on every book I might want to read as soon as I find out about it is that the pandemic has been rough on independent bookstores, which were facing plenty of challenges prior to 2020. Again, in the hierarchy of necessities, books rank below food, water, shelter, heat, electricity, and so forth, but booksellers and writers need to pay for those things, too, so support your local (or even not so local) bookstores. There are so many great ones out there, and they work hard to share information, build community, and provide entertainment. Links to my favorite independent booksellers are here.

Today I went to the Toadstool Bookshop to search for the T.E. Lawrence book, and before I could even run the search, I found out that Kate DiCamillo has a new book out called The Beatryce Prophecy. I might have squeaked with joy. They didn’t have the book I came for, but I think it might only be available from UK sellers, so I wasn’t overly concerned. Besides, Beatryce sounds like more fun.

So many books, so little time, right? I really need to read more, so now that my knitting assignment for the day is complete, that may be my plan for the rest of the evening … now that I have spent more time nattering about books than originally planned. Good night.

_{*** Please take that last sentence lightly. Very lightly.}