Murchie Plus Books: August 31st to September 6th

The premise: I love my dog. I love books. I bring the two together by photographing my dog in front of every book I read, barring my Marvel Unlimited consumption. (Last week, that was the tail end of Marvel Cosmic's 2007-2011 run. I'm now in withdrawal, and also mourning.)

The photos: go live on Instagram as I take them and appear here in digest form every Sunday.

After days and days and days of trying to read Alexis Hall's PROSPERITY, I decided I needed a break. I'd just picked Rainbow Rowell's LANDLINE up from the library, so I put Murchie to bed, cuddled up beside him, and read it until I passed out.

It proved to be exactly what I needed. I didn't love it the way I've loved Rowell's other books, but I enjoyed it very much and got ridiculously emotional over the couple Georgie meets on her journey. Murchie was pleased with the extra snuggle time, too; it's been in shorter supply during this fallow reading period. Win!

As an added bonus, the break gave me the mental energy I needed to finish PROSPERITY. I loved it, and should have a full review for you on its release date in late October.

I finished Shiri Eisner's BI: NOTES FOR A BISEXUAL REVOLUTION last weekend, leaving me free to start a new piece of nonfiction. I chose RUNAWAY by Evelyn Lau, a book I've been meaning to read for more than half my life. The moment I encountered an excerpt in a grade ten English unit on autobiography, I knew it was a book I had to read in its entirety.

That explains why it took me sixteen years to follow through.

It's very much my in-between book, so it'll take me a while to get through it, but I love what I've read so far. Lau's writing is raw, elegant, and powerful; her story, often painful. I look forward to my dips into her prose.

I also began a new audiobook: DREAMS OF GODS & MONSTERS by Laini Taylor.

It was so good I was almost glad an impending due date and an inability to renew it forced me to ramp up my reading pace. I eagerly searched for reasons to keep my earbuds in.

Then my iPod died.

One moment I had Laini Taylor's words tripping through my eardrums; the next, silence. La iPod refused to take a charge, effectively barring me from further listening.

I tried putting it on my phone, but Overdrive for Android doesn't allow you to adjust your playback speed and I'm physically incapable of listening to audiobooks at regular time. (They're sooooooo slllllooooooooowwwww.) I tried putting it on my computer, but Overdrive for Windows 8 refused to actually download it. And once I'd replaced my iPod¹, my library's website insisted I had already downloaded it three times and so could not put it on another device.

I have to go back in the library queue. I'm bummed.

Murchie, pessimist that he is, is unsurprised. This is exactly what he expected when he shied away from my iPod in the above picture.

Or maybe he was just worried about his impending dental surgery.

My poor boy has terrible problems with his teeth, and a whopping seven of them had to come out on Friday. He's spent the time since then snuggling up to anyone who'll have him. He also keeps making this alarming half hiccup, half cough sound, but the vet says that's normal for a little dog who's recently had a breathing tube in.

Despite his woes, he let me take his picture beside THE FIRES OF HEAVEN by Robert Jordan. As was the case with the previous books in the Wheel of Time, I'm reading it on my Kobo and using the 2.5" thick paper copy to track my progress. (It's difficult to gauge these things when you're reading from a 14-book omnibus edition.)

Next week: I'm still reading at a snail's pace, but I hope Murchie and I will have at least one prose book to show you. You'll definitely see my replacement audiobook.

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1. My iPod had been having trouble holding a charge for upwards of a month, and when it refused to recharge I thought that was the end of the end. It was no longer under warranty, and I didn't see how Apple could replace the battery since it's built right into the device.

   I figure it's always worth asking, though, so I toddled off to the Apple store on Friday afternoon and made an appointment to talk to a specialist.

   They scheduled me in for two hours hence--they're crazy busy in there--but I used the time to wander the streets and buy yarn, so no biggie. And when I finally got to talk to someone, everything was remarkably simple. The friendly staff ran some diagnostics and determined my iPod had suffered a catastrophic battery failure. Then they gave me a replacement for the cost of the battery ($89, tax included).

   I'm impressed, and also relieved I don't have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new iPod. $89 is much less of a financial burden.

   Maybe I'll use the money I saved to get a yearly subscription to Marvel Unlimited...

   (Okay, you got me. I just want an excuse to keep Marvel Unlimited for an entire year. It's cheaper that way! And I could write about it! Do a "My Year With Marvel" series or something... Y'all are deeply interested in my travels through the Marvel Universe, right? I mean, who wouldn't be?)