Since last weekend was a holiday weekend, I took the week off from the Friday Five. It was the second week since I’d revived the feature, so I was due for a break anyway, right? Right.
So, earlier this week I linked to Quelle Erqsome, she of fearless literary scholarship, dissertation writing, and equally fearless sock knitting. I’m hopelessly behind on my sock knitting, and fear being booted from her Interweave Socks-A-Long, so maybe this would be a good time to suck up about what a great blog she has. You should read it, religiously. Great, great blog. Great, great gal. Smart as a whip. A gentlewoman and a scholar.
But I digress…I replied to a bookmeme, which she picked up from Pymette, who incidentally knitted the cutest coffeepot cozy ever for her French Press. But again, I digress.
The overwhelming reaction to the bookmeme from my readers has been to ask me, “Why haven’t you read Vanity Fair?” This is a good question and I have no good answer, so next up on my reading list: Vanity Fair.
While I’m reading Vanity Fair, you should go visit JenInMaine, who’s posted pictures of her newly spun yarns. They look yummy. When she gets her etsy shop reopened you can even buy those lovely yarns – she’s in the process of moving mainegirl.etsy.com to earthybirthymama.etsy.com. Just because she had a baby she thinks we’ll cut her some slack. The nerve of some people…
If you knit, you no doubt read Franklin’s blog, Panopticon, and, of course, the Yarn Harlot. The Yarn Harlot has been kind enough to take a brief break from knitblogging to explain Whatthe hell is going on in Canadian Politics these days, which was very helpful because I was very confused. (There are 649 comments on that post, so I clearly wasn’t the only one).
The theme of this roundup was supposed to be bookblogs. Or maybe it was knitting blogs. Often they’re the same. Honestly, I’ve forgotten what the theme was supposed to be because I’m not feeling well and the phone has been ringing off the hook and I have 83 emails messages since I went to bed and I’m about to declare defeat and go back to bed. Or, maybe I’ll tune out all the noise and check in with Crazy Aunt Pearl, that will make me feel better. Her blog description is, “The true-life diary of a thirty-something, newly divorced, displaced Southern obsessive-compulsive knitter who has four cats. (Because nothing is sexier than a divorced woman with four cats.)” See what I mean? Don’t you feel better already just reading that? Imagine how much better you, and by “you” I mean “I”, will feel after spending a few minutes at her actual site.
A few years ago when they made a movie out of Vanity Fair, I read an article about how Thackeray had drawn illustrations for the book, and how interesting it was to see how the author himself envisioned the characters. I thought that sounded like fun, so I got on some used book sites and found a copy of the book with illustrations. I don’t know if it measurably added to my reading experience, but I still have the book if you want to borrow it (it is hardback, however).