2026, books, Mysteries, pets, Technology

Rookie Mistake

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I made a completely rookie mistake this week.

As you know, I have a highly curated library account.   My Holds list includes books that are on order still, that I am on the waitlist for and quite a few books that I have “paused”.  Every couple of weeks I go through all the paused holds, resume a few of them and then reset the pause date to some time in the future – usually three to four weeks out.  This has been my pattern for a couple of decades.

The past month my attention span has been fairly limited to the new dog.  Paperwork, initial vet intake, spay, the cone of shame, then the sleeve of shame (she got razor burn from where they inserted her IV and she just could not leave it alone).  Now we’re through all that and have started working on preliminary training and walkies every day.  Add the early morning potty breaks and the last in the evening journey outside as well and I feel consumed.  In a good way.

So it was shocking when I opened up my library account Monday night and saw that I have THIRTY books in transit.  THIRTY!  I completely forgot to check my Holds, so everything that had been set to July 27 is now on its way to me.  How could I do something this dumb?

I called my buddy who’s the manager of my library and he said there is really no way to circumvent this process short of calling the origin library for each book and asking if they can catch it.  I’m not doing that.  In addition to being a serious pain in the patoot for me, it would be an even bigger pain for the libraries and as my buddy said, probably wouldn’t work anyway.  Sigh.

So I guess I’ll have to seriously step up my reading for August.  For fun, here are some of the titles that are on the way to me right now!

  • And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game (one of the long-titled books I found earlier in the month)
  • The Chinese Parrot (a Charlie Chan novel)
  • The Concord Quartet (Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne & Thoreau)
  • Crock of Gold (people, gods, Irish fairies…)
  • Cursed Cocktails (blood mage tries to retire)
  • Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (“biography”)
  • Elizabeth I, CEO (what you think)
  • Ex-Wife (1925 woman finds herself after divorce)
  • Illuminations in the Flatwoods (wild turkeys?)
  • In Seven Stages (Elizabeth Bisland side of the Around the World story)
  • Kipling Sahib (Rudyard Kipling bio)
  • The Last Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes knock-off)
  • Lost Believers (novel inspired by true story… we’ll see….)
  • Margaret Fuller: A New American Life (2013 Pulitzer Prize)
  • Marie of Romania (queen consort of Ferdinand, King of Romania)
  • Murder and the First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt solves the murder)
  • No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again (another long and intriguing title)
  • A Short Bright Flash (lighthouses!)
  • Enuf is Enough (a book about English spelling – yeah, I know I lead an exciting life!)

What’s a rookie mistake you’ve made?  Any good books on your nightstand?

35 thoughts on “Rookie Mistake”

  1. I’m recently picked up a Tana French mystery, Faithful Place, which is 3rd in a mystery series, so I want to read the first one…
    I have two books currently on hold:
    – by Tana French: In the Woods (first of a series – I haven’t read her yet).
    – Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission

    Back with other question later…

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    2. FYI. French’s first two novels (In the Woods & The Likeness) were made into an eight part series called Dublin Murders which, I believe, is currently streaming on Britbox.

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  2. I can’t help commenting on your list of books. Some of your choices echo previous conversations and recommendations and some are titles I have in my library and have read.
    I take it from your interest in Doc Savage, His Apocalyptic Life that you must have enjoyed Farmer’s book about Tarzan in which Farmer mentioned Doc Savage.
    I think you read 80 Daysabout both Bisland’s and Bly’s circumnavigations. Bisland was also a biographer of Lafcadio Hearn.

    I have both The Concord Quartet and Megan Marshall’s Margaret Fuller in my library. Both are worthy reads. Not every book on the subject is. Earlier this year I picked up Finding Margaret Fuller by (Alison?) Pataki and quit it after 100 pages. Too much unwarranted speculation. It reminded me of another book on the subject, An American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever which in my opinion went entirely off the rails in its speculation about the relationships of the Concord bunch. Pataki in her introduction credited Cheever as an inspiration for her book.
    Enuf is Enough is an interesting and fairly short read. The chapter about the mangled spelling (cacography I think is the term) of certain nineteenth century humorists particularly caught my attention. I was unaware of the Simplified Spelling Movement they were parodying. It explains a lot.

    There are a lot of Sherlock Holmes knock-offs, as you term them, out there and I’ve been reading my way through many of them. Anthony Horowitz has some (House of Silk and Moriarity, for example) and those are excellent. I’ve been picking up some of Larry Millett’s stories that bring Sherlock Holmes to Minnesota. Millett is (or was) a writer for the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune and the author of several books of local architectural history of the “Lost Twin Cities” variety. He’s a good fiction writer as well and does a good job with the Holmesian style.

    Right now I’m reading a memoir by Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums. I’ve read (and own) several of her books, both fiction and non-. She’s an engaging writer.

    I recently read The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Patrick DeWitt. Put that on your list. I think you’d enjoy it.

    Another recent read, Finding Arthur by Adam Ardrey makes a convincing case that the historical Arthur and Camelot were Scottish, not in southern England and provides exhaustive evidence, some of it employing linguistic arguments I just had to take his word for.

    Some of the books on my nightstand are a bit “deep in the weeds”, like Agnes Repplier’s Fireside Sphinx, a book about cats. I’m taking that a chapter at a time.

    I also have Horowitz’s Moriarity in the stack and an Erin Hart bog mystery, The Book of Killowen, which I’ve probably read before but it was so long ago I won’t remember any of it.

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    1. The only Library of Lost Dollhouses I can find is by Emily Hooper. And I can only get it through in our Library loan…. Do you have the DeWitt?

      And in response to your comment about past conversations, my list should give you an indication of how long things can stay on my hold and paused list and where much of my book inspiration comes from. I’m sure Concord Quartet and Enuf is Enough were probably your ideas in the first place. After I got over the initial disappointment that the biography of Tarzan wasn’t exactly what I was expecting it to be, I did enjoy it. So that’s why I thought I’d give the Doc Savage a try. I’ve never actually read any Doc Savage books or even seen any of the movies but I can imagine. And the Bisland title I’m reading because I felt like the book that we read for Blevins was a little dismissive of Bisland so I thought I’d like to read her version of how things went!

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      1. Sorry, I confused authors (rookie mistake). DeWitt was the author of The Librarianist, which I read about the same time. The Lost Dollhouses author is Elise Hooper.

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  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I did not get our May book group selection read–Where Rivers Part. I bought it and have been reading that one in the afternoons when I want a break in the day. I like to savor the prose because that author is so skilled, so I am reading that very slowly. My request on Libby for “Land” by Maggie O’Farrell came up so I am listening to that one, as well. I had a long drive on Monday, so I started that during the drive. It is delicious.

    Rookie mistakes: I made some garden errors that are rookie. I planted my beets in the same bed I used last year. I knew better. It is too shallow and the soil should have been rotated.

    Not an error, just a problem: My zucchini contracted a fungal infection and is on the way out.

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  4. I’m reading through John Sandford’s books. Just finished Davenport #18. Got through all the Flowers books a few months ago (not counting his cameos in later Davenports). Read one Letty Davenport (excellent!) and will read those when the Lucases are done. Whew! Sandford seemingly cranks them out faster than I can read them. Maybe by year’s end.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. I’ve never found an author who writes faster than I want to read them. John Patterson is the only one I think could give me a run for my money (since there are so many people actually writing under his name) but nothing that I’ve seen of his entices me.

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    4. I read quite a few of his books (Davenport and Flowers) when they first came out, then took a break. A couple months ago I decided to catch up on what I’d missed. I think I’m up to date now – though there might be a Letty Davenport I haven’t read yet. and you are right about his cranking out books faster that you can read them.

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  5. My Erie insurance driving app pays off $7.50 every two weeks for my good driving habits. It requires 50 miles and goes back 10 monitored trips. I don’t take many long trips so yesterday the 10th one of 90 miles was dropped so my accumulated miles has dropped to 30 miles. So I now have to drive 20 miles by Saturday to claim my $7.50! I should walk more.

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  6. Currently reading a very thought provoking book by Princeton biblical scholar/historian Elaine Pagels “Miracles and Wonders: The Historical Mystery of Jesus”.

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      2. Challenging. Interesting facts, such as the Virgin Mary’s village was a full of Roman soldiers who were raping any woman they could find. Entirely possible this is how Jesus could have been conceived.

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  7. I suppose a rookie mistake I made was agreeing to teach a kindergarten classroom where there were 40 (forty) five-year-olds…

    Another book on my nightstand is Tom Hanks’ Uncommon Type – Some Stories. I’ve only read the first, so the jury is still out, but that one was unique.

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  9. i dont turn many pages the last fistful of years. audiobooks r us. im hiding out in a vacation unit at breezy point for the week. i grabbed hardcopies on my way out the door. all based on their proximity to my bag on my way out the door, 3 david sadaris books. like popcorn for me. great stuff. robert fulghum who is sadaris clone in short blips, the graduate by naomi novik, under milk wood, a mishroom id book calvin trillen novel blood in thr tracks on dylans recording with peter ostroushko and the gang , writing down the bones on writing and i put stephen kings writing book on hold and a shakespear to round it off, my audiobook list is full of half read stuff im interested in but not compelled by bill brysons shakespeare paul simon by malcomb gladwell which has turned into my go to relaxation source. melinda gates new one messy the positive side of disorder elizabeth gilbert love her stuff, mel robbins her podcasts are good, one called opting out im looking forward to but now id the time for me to get my next path clarified. i never get to looking after what i should be doing next. i think its time

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  12. OT – Glen Hansard, a much beloved Irish singer/songwriter and all around great guy, was killed when he crashed his motorcycle last night. Truly as sad, sad loss.

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