Firefight – Brandon Sanderson

With the help of the Reckoners, David has managed to bring down the Epic Steelheart, and free the city if Newcago. But pretty soon, more Epics are on the way to try and bring down the Steelslayer. It’s quickly clear that they’re being sent by Regalia, who rules the city of Babylon Reborn, aka New York City.

So David and some of the other Reckoners are off to Babilar to find out what’s happening. Things in Babilar are certainly interesting, and while it’s clear that Regalia knows the Prof (the Reckoner’s leader, who is also an Epic), it’s very much not clear what she wants from him. There’s also the additional complication of Megan – also revealed to be an Epic in the last book. David has feelings for her, and desperately wants to save her from herself.

We learn a bit more about Calamity (the things that kicked off the Epics getting their powers), and that certainly tees things up for an interesting conclusion to the trilogy. Good thing I already have it waiting for me.

Shakespeare Wrote for Money – Nick Hornby

This is a collection of columns Hornby wrote for a magazine in 2007 and 2008, about the books he read (or sometimes why he wasn’t reading). I was amused to read his discovery of the entire YA genre (I’ve known it was a great source of really good writing for years now), and happy to see someone back up my opinion that while The Road is a good book, no one ever really needs to read it.

It’s also given me an idea of how to do my reading summaries next year, especially since I’ve been doing so much rereading that I don’t do individual summaries for. So we’ll see if I implement that.

Garden Notes

The community garden is officially put away for the season.  Well, sort of.     We have to clean up everything that needs to be cleaned up, and sign off on it by 11/1, and this being the last weekend before that date, I went ahead and pulled out everything that really needed to be pulled out.    And the Swiss chard and broccoli.    They were both producing quite a bit less, so I decided to harvest what was there, and pull those out – less to worry about later when it’s truly cold.

That leaves the kale and Brussels sprouts.    We still have not had a frost here – it’s come close, but not actually frosted, at least this close to the ocean.    Which is bizarre.    But means the brassicas are still doing great.    I also left the calendula – they still look good, and there were bees around them, so I figure I’ll leave them food as long as I can.

The Darkling Bride – Laura Anderson

This is one of those past and present stories, where a brooding location (Deeprath Castle in Ireland) links the past and present together in a mystery. In the present, we have Carragh Ryan, hired to catalog the library of Deeprath. The latest Viscount, Aidan Gallagher, has decided to give the castle away to the National Trust. He hasn’t been back since he was a child, and was the one to find his father, murdered, in the library. His mother was found later the same day, having apparently jumped to her death from the Bride’s Tower, the oldest part of the castle.

Carragh takes the job partially because she’s always been fascinated by Evan Chase, a Victorian author who married Jenny Gallagher, the only heir to the Viscount at the time. Jenny died tragically young, leaving a young son, who Evan Chase left in Ireland when he returned to London. He never wrote again.

Evan Chase was there to research the tale of the Darkling Bride, a fairy story associated with the family back to its Norman routes. Jenny had always associated herself with the Bride, and the painting she had commissioned for her wedding, showing both her, and the Bride, hangs in the room Carragh is given in the castle.

I enjoyed this story. You can pretty much see the plot twists coming from a mile away, though I will admit, it did take me a little while to settle on the murder. Still, it’s very comforting to ready this kind of story – perfect Fall reading.

Donnell Pond – Franklin, ME

Garden Notes

I dehydrated the Korean peppers yesterday – the kitchen smelled lovely.   About fourteen peppers gave me a about a pint jar’s worth of dried shards.   (Plus a little room for a desiccant pack – we’re paranoid.)    We figure we’ll grind on demand.   Not bad considering my yield this year wasn’t great.

I’ve got basil drying out today – I pulled the plants out this morning.    We haven’t had a frost yet, but some things are looking the worse for the wear, like the basil.   So I decided to get ahead of as much as I could this morning in the side garden.    I’d already pulled the zinnias out of the community garden when I stopped by yesterday to pick some chard.    They definitely did not enjoy something about the conditions over the past week, because they were fine last weekend.

The brassicas are still looking great, and the calendula at the other garden is plugging along gamely.   I’ll be planting garlic shortly.

Knitting Notes

Pattern: Damsel by Josee Paquin
Yarn: Quince and Co Willet in the Dory colorway
Needles: Size 6 circs

I decided to treat myself to the summer Quince Quarterly offering (level 1), because I figured it would be a fiber I didn’t usually knit with (it was – cotton), and it would be fun to get a random pattern.     I also really liked the colorway I ended up getting.  It’s not something I normally would have picked for myself, but it’s a lovely color.

This was a nice knit – just complicated enough to keep things interesting.   I finally got smart and bound off with a needle two sizes larger than what I’d been using, which made a for a much stretchier bind off than I’ve been managing lately.

The Willet is nice yarn, actually pretty soft for a cotton, though switching over to sock yarn for the other project I’m currently running does highlight that I still very much prefer wool to cotton.   But if I needed cotton, I’d go with the Willet any day.

Knitting Notes

This is Eurydice, by SpillyJane (a pattern I’ve been holding onto from a sock club from looong ago.)     The yarn is Lichen and Lace Matte Sock, in the Teal Tide colorway.   I’m making these for my Aunt N.  (I hope.   She has size 11 feet, and I’m not positive I have enough yarn.   We’ll see.)

I will say, having been working with mostly cotton yarn lately, this yarn feels so soft it’s not even funny.   I do love wool.

White as Milk, Red as Blood – Franz Xaver von Schonwerth

This is a lovely graphic novel with translations of fairy tales collected by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth not long after the Brothers Grimm had been doing their work there. His collection is not as well known because he did not publish it in his lifetime. They’re definitely familiar, but with little twists to the story that you can expect from oral history, and they’re also not the sanitized Disney versions. The illustrations are lovely – it’s a nice collection.