Furby Wranglings

Thank you, Lucidscreamer, for reminding me.....

Um.   Because I tend to spend my evenings knitting instead of reading these days, I don't seem to read as much as I used to.  However, I do get an hour for lunch, and I've gotten into the habit of setting a timer and reading for 20 minutes during my lunch hour (this of course depends on how much time gets eaten up with errands and fixing up something to actually eat). This seems to work best with anthologies and books that I've read before.  In this fashion I've re-read the first four (and in my opinion, the best) of Lillian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who -- " books, several of Charlotte MacLeod's 'Inspector Rhys',  'Peter Shandy' and 'Sarah Kelling' mysteries,  several of Laurie King's 'Mary Russell's,  a number of manga (Food Wars & Natsume's Book of Friends) and  the first three 'Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?' light novels.

Also, a book I borrowed from my Mom -- "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Anne Shaffer and Anne Barrows.  The novel is written in the epistolary style, which made it both easier and harder to put down at the end of 20 minutes.... It deals with the experiences of the Channel Islanders (between England and France) during the German occupation of WW2.  According to Mom, she's tracked some distant cousins from her father's (English) side of the family to the Channel islands, which made the novel feel somewhat personal.
 I will have to see if I can find a copy for my own. 

On  the knitting side, I finally finished a Sideways-knit Ruffled edge Shawl which I mistakenly thought would be a fairly quick knit - HAH!   I am almost finished with the Very Berry triangular shawl, despite running out of the yarn -- I have a partial skein of a heavier double weight in very similar shades which I am carefully de-twisting because I REFUSE to buy another whole skein when all I need  are another five - seven rows worth to finish! 

A sad note: Our local yarn Shop, 'The Naked Sheep Yarn Barn' went out of business last month.  It was only operational for seven months; I'm not certain exactly what happened, but I suspect that Cindy and Kelly tried to do too much too quickly (and Kelly being in the hospital for a month certainly didn't help).  I am now not allowed to buy any more yarn for at least six months (I managed to pick up at LOT of skeins during the GOoB sale) unless I absolutely need it to finish a current project.

Can anyone recommend a good Steampunk novel?  I've tried the series by Pip Ballantine, and didn't care for main characters at all (too stereotypical); also a series set in a Victorian era w/ magic which offered up Sherlock Holmes' long-lost niece from his mother's side of the family, but found the magic system too intrusive...  I guess what I'm looking for is something that reads like a cross between the Robert Downey Jr.. 'Sherlock Holmes' movies and 'King Solomon's Mines'   --- 

This looked interesting:

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Either Roger Zelazny or Ellis Peters

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
err... There's a good dozen that I own two copies of: LMB's 'Vorkosigan' books (paperback/hardback) Zelazny's original 'Amber' series (likewise)... a couple of Ray Bradbury collections that duplicate some the stories....

( books, books, and more books )
This was more difficult than I thought it would be.... I don't really have time for reading other than manga or light mysteries.