March RandomKIT: Hobby Love

"an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure."

Let's explore hobbies in our reading this month. I've identified a range of ways to satisfy this KIT. Play along with me and don't forget to Update the Wiki

Beginner:
Of course, the easy way to satisfy this challenge is to choose a book about reading or a book about books if you are collector. I assume all of us list reading as one of our hobbies. So that is fine if it suits you.

Advanced Beginner:
Cozy mysteries are a treasure trove of hobby books from sewing to baking and well beyond. Search cozy mystery knitting, etc.

Intermediate:
To expand the topic beyond the obvious, let's look at other hobbies that we currently embrace or aspire to.



Gardening, Painting, Sculpting, Woodworking, Antiquing, Sports, Hiking, Photography, Pottery, Collecting from furniture to fishing flies. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of pursuits. And surely a book has been written featuring each one! I have read many books that feature a hobby of one of the main characters in the plot line. The problem is finding those books because they are not necessarily marketed with that information. Let's crowd source this on RandomKIT. I suspect that some of you will just find a book that fits this category as you read your other books this month. If you have read books in the past with a hobby featured, please share below so others can find it too.

Searching novels about... or best novels about... will bring up suggestions. You might want to read stories about people who work in a business adjacent to your hobby. For instance, if you are into dressmaking, read books set in the world of couture. If you dabble in painting be inspired by reading about a character who is an artist or a musician if you love your saxaphone. In other words, the hobby doesn't need to be a hobby in the book. if it feeds Your hobby interest, it counts!
Memoir can be a great way to satisfy this KIT as well.

Non-fiction is an easy search for any particular hobby you have in mind.

Advanced:
To expand further, read about a hobby that isn't yours and get in closer touch with people in your life who follow different hobbies.

What does your mother, brother, best friend, neighbor do in their leisure time?



Expert:
This is a great month to pick up a "how to" book that's been tickling your readerly itch lately. March is the month to learn!

Ever wonder how to
Refurbish a doll house?
Fix a car?
Develop a website?
Start an herb garden?

I look forward to your selections. Feel free to interpret this topic broadly!

Such a great topic! Since I got a new pressure canner for Christmas, I'm going to read a "how to" book.

Here are a few books from my reading life or recs from friends.
Photography
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Still Life with Bread Crumbs
Antiques
The Goldfinch and Art!
Needlearts
The Gown
The Collection
The Tenth Gift
The Girl Who Wrote in Silk

Baking and Cooking
A City Baker's Guide to Country Living also woodworking
The Late Bloomers Club
Relish Graphic Memoir
Anything by Ruth Reichel
Finding Freedom
Birdwatching
A Redbird Christmas

I'll add more as I think of them.

As I think a lot of you know, the hobby that takes up most of my time is writing. I don't read many craft books, but there's one I'm excited about coming out March 8th that I've already preordered--Refuse to be Done by Matt Bell. This challenge seems like the perfect push to get me to read it sooner than later, and the timing couldn't be better since I'm sending out a book for beta feedback tonight/tomorrow--maybe I'll finish the book just before revising, with any luck!

>1 beebeereads:, Thanks for a great month's topic!

And just off the top of my mind, if art is the hobby anyone wants to pursue for March, Hollow Earth by John Barrowman and Carole Barrowman are fantastic, as are Duma Key and The Swan Thieves, though those last two aren't short.

This one is going to be a great way to read a lot of books in my stash! I've got fiction and non-fiction on the subject.

More Needlearts
The Lace Reader
The Lace Makers of Glen Mara barbieri
Twisted Threads Cozy

More Photography
Impounded

I'm going to wait to decide. But meanwhile -

Art - The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser

Quilting - The Elm Creek series by Jennifer Chiverini
Bee Keeping - Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop

I'm a church bellringer, if anyone would like to read The Nine Tailors, I'll happily explain what on earth the ringing stuff going on is all about. I've read it many times and it is one of the better depictions of the art.

I'm not sure what I'll read. I can't stand cozy mysteries, far too twee!

>8 Helenliz: A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier had bell-ringing in it.

I’ll hope to read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods as I love hiking. Other hiking books I’ve liked include Wild and What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Midlife Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago

>8 Helenliz: Mark Stay's The Crow Folk also featured bellringers - I know the author, and his wife's a bellringer who always harrumphs at the portrayal of bellringing in books, so he made sure he ran all the bellringing parts past her so he knew they were OK!

Much of my spare time (such as it is) is spent either writing (mostly personal essays) or in the garden. So I'm going to read a collection of essays called In the Garden: Essays on Nature and Growing.

Nothing immediately springs to mind, so I will wait and see what I'm reading for other challenges or find something relevant in other reading

This is one of the topics I have on my possible list for August Random CAT! I have others though. Sometimes I see a CAT topic that could be a topic I read a whole year, and this is one of those. I don't know yet what I'll choose but I won't have trouble having something.

I have a couple of books that will fit this theme. Although I am limited to container gardening these days, I am going to read An Ecology of Enchantment about a year in the life of a west coast garden. I am also going to read The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn, as I am also an armchair traveler. This one is about her life in Cornwall and, I believe, a hiking trip to Iceland.

>1 beebeereads: >13 clue: That is so funny because yesterday in the morning I pondered what I would choose if I was to decide on a RandomCAT, and I thought: "Hobbies would be a great prompt!" And later I went onto LT and saw that it was the topic for March! :-)

My hobbies are reading and traveling, so I plan to read one book for each if I have time:

Reading and the Reader by Philip Davies
Mit Fairgnügen reisen by Lisa Kraft and Maximilian Gierlinger

This is a great topic, thank you! I just received some books I ordered about Amish cooking and gardening. Perfect for this topic.
An Amish Garden by Laura Ann Lapp
The Amish Cook at Home and The Amish Cook's Anniversary Book both by Lovina Eicher

>13 clue: >15 MissBrangwen: Great minds think alike!

>14 DeltaQueen50: Thanks to your post (I know you haven't even read the book yet!) I've ended up adding An Ecology of Enchantment, along with two other of his books, to my wishlist. They all look right up my street!

So.. over the years most of my other hobbies got dropped in favour of doing more reading! So, that may be what I read about. Or, I might pick a hobby I used to do!

ETA: I still like to bake, though I never called it a hobby. I do take a lot of photos, but have never tried really hard to learn "proper" photography. Previous hobbies include card-making, cross stitch (and a bit of knitting, but never got good at it), jigsaw puzzles. I do still like board games - is that a hobby?

It just occurred to me that for amateur detectives in series, catching murderers could be classed as a hobby

>18 Jackie_K: I am looking forward to the Des Kennedy book!

>19 LibraryCin: Yes, board games are definitely a hobby in my opinion.

>20 Robertgreaves: Haha! That would definitely be Tommy and Tuppence's hobby.

I've been dabbling in books about safety science over the past few years, so perhaps I should count Foundations of Safety Science for this challenge.

>8 Helenliz: I love The Nine Tailors, it's my favorite Wimsey book.

I’ve been making commonplace/scrapbooks for many years now. So my plans are to read A Certain World: A Commonplace Book by W.H. Auden and The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston.

It's fun to see what everyone is choosing!

IMHO everything counts if its what you choose to fill your leisure time. So fun to hear these selections!

>26 beebeereads: Absolutely!

Ok, I've put this one on hold (photography):
Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species / Joel Sartore

If I have time, I might also read this (knitting):
Back on Blossom Street / Debbie Macomber

Clare in The Time Traveler's Wife is a papermaker.

>29 soelo: Nice one! I had forgotten that.

>10 Jackie_K: I now own this book. I'm intrigued by the description on the back cover of ".. aggressive church bell-ringing". I will report back.

I'm going to take the easy route this month. I love to collect Virago editions--espcially the older green Virago Modern Classics--and I currently own about 55 of them. I plan to read at least 2 or 3 of these this month, including Rumour of Heaven by Beatrix Lehmann. I just love this cover, so I hope the book is just as good.

I've decided on a couple of things, I collect WWI era postcards and there is a new postcard history book that looks interesting, so I'll probably run down a copy. In addition, I hope to read The Dairy of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell, it's been very popular on LT. I love books of course but I also like bookstores and go to every one I can get to when I visit another place, just to see!

>33 clue: Took a BB for the Bythell book. I look forward to your review!

I've been thinking about this since the thread was posted, and I found something that fits my interest in nature photography:


Wildlife Cameraman by Jim Kjelgaard

It's been on my Kindle for a number of years, it's time to read it.

Since I just finished up my February reads, I thought I would begin my March reads early. The book I chose for this CAT was Homestead Kitchen. When I chose this book I did not realize the setting was Alaska, so I was a bit disappointed. However, I did get a few good recipes, if I can find romanesco! This book contains a lot of beginner or to me, common-sense information on canning and preparing foods. I was hoping for something "more."

I'm planning Booked to Die by John Dunning that fits my lifelong hobby of reading mysteries. It was a recommendation from a friend and it's been on the shelf for far too long.

Great theme! One of my favorite hobbies, outside of reading, is playing Dungeons & Dragons. So this will be a perfect time to pick up The World of Critical Role by Liz Marsham. Critical Role is one of the most popular and successful actual play D&D groups out there, so it will be interesting to learn about how it all came about.

>37 VivienneR: I love that series, I think you'll like it.

>37 VivienneR: - I wish he'd written more books in that series. It's one of my favorite.

I am so enjoying everyone's choices. My first chosen book is "in transit" through my library. I hope to have it next week. A Woven World speaks to my lifelong love of textiles. I hope it meets my expectations.

I read The Pros of Cons, a fun YA novel about three girls who meet while attending three separate conventions related to their hobbies and interests in the same hotel.

>39 clue: and >40 dudes22: I had made a note that there were lots of Dunning's titles at the library but now I see they are all gone!! Weeded, I suppose.

I have completed my read about west coast gardening with An Ecology of Enchantment, a book I thoroughly enjoyed.

After struggling to decide what hobbies I have besides reading, I remembered this book my husband bought because the title reminded him of me. So for my hobbies of reading, trivia, movies, and pop culture, I will be reading Geek Girls Unite by Leslie Simon

>43 VivienneR: Oh No! I think I'd better run to the library and get them all so they have been checked out this year. All librarians will cringe when they read this: our old system allowed anyone to see when a book had last been checked out. If I ran across one that I thought should stay on the shelves but hadn't been checked out that year I would actually check it out to save it from weeding. The newer system doesn't allow me that freedom!

I was lucky with Dunning. I found the whole series, hardbacks and like new, at the library book sale a few years ago. I still haven't read them all and need to go back to that series soon.

>38 staci426: Awesome! My husband is a huge Critical Role fan. I don't really watch it, but I catch a few things from time to time and it seems that they are a great bunch of people. I am quite sure that my husband owns this book, too.

Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species / Joel Sartore
4 stars

This is a National Geographic book. The photographer arranged to have photos taken of several endangered species. There are a few plants, but mostly animals. Almost all of these are species deemed endangered by the Endangered Species Act in the U.S.

There are some beautiful photos; the photographer made sure they each had a completely black or completely white background for the photos. In addition to the photos, each species also has a paragraph with information about it including where to find it, the habitat, why it’s endangered, etc. Some of them also have an additional note by the photographer on how the photo was taken. Some of the photos are close-up, so are very detailed.

I finished In the Garden: Essays on Nature and Growing and loved it. Highly recommended.

Quilting is not a big part of the story in Knot My Sister's Keeper, but one part of the mystery does rely the paper templates used in a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. This is #6 in a series and I enjoy it, except for the recurring insults the main character gets for dressing so casually. It's just as annoying as the constant diet talk in these cozy mysteries.

>46 clue: Sorry, but the Dunning book was a definite DNF for me. As a matter of fact it was the quickest DNF ever. A murdered dog was shocking, but then later the character made comments in support of execution and I realized we were never going to get along. His books get such good reviews that I'm sure they are excellent. The lovely, gentle woman who recommended them to me thought so.

I moved to my other love, theatre, and read Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light.

Said to be a fictionalized biography loosely based on John Millington Synge, best known as one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and his fiancée at the time of his death. While fictionalized biographies are not my preferred genre because they leave me wondering just what is fiction, what is not, this is a poetic and moving story. Although based on fact, it is undoubtedly fiction, telling the story of an unseemly relationship between Molly Allgood, an ambitious teenager from a poor family, and Synge, the passionate son of a prosperous landowning family, and the struggle to accept their differences. Told by Molly in 1952 in her alcohol-soaked declining days, she is an unreliable narrator. O'Connor's afterword admitted that most events in the book never happened. It's a well-written beautiful story but I'm still not a fan of fictionalized biography.

>51 VivienneR: if they kill a dog or other animal then it's a strike against the book for me.

>51 VivienneR: Yes, I get that. Sometimes I can glide over those things and sometimes not.

>52 fuzzi: I agree, that is usually a strike out for me. Just like horror novels or movies, it all becomes too real and keeps me up at night.

I'm going to count Dead Man's Bones by Susan Wittig Albert as my book for this. The main character does herb gardening and runs and herb shop.

I am reading Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker, which is about a journalist who decides to become a sommelier. I started and stopped this novel some months back, so trying it again. Also reading An Amish Garden which is a beautifully illustrated coffee table sized book about an Amish family's gardens through the year.

April's thread is up. https://www.librarything.com/topic/340269

I read The Sugarcreek Surprise by Wanda Brunstetter, which was an Amish Christian fiction novel. The storyline was okay, but there was a lot of extraneous material and detail that I skimmed. The story involved an antique shop, so that fits for hobbies.

I read The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston. Loved it.

Just finished So Much Blood by Simon Brett set at the Edinburgh Festival where Charles Paris has a lunchtime spot at the Fringe. This is the second of the series and Charles has not yet become the jaded jobbing actor he became. I always enjoy a Charles Paris story.

I've finished The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell and The Birth and Development of American Postcards by Dr. Dan Friedman.

>61 clue: I like Bythell's dry memoirs of life running a bookshop in Scotland. I always start dreaming about doing the same thing when I retire!

I have finished my read of The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn and while this book did eventually describe a hike through a very scenic part of Iceland, it did not recapture the magic of the first book and I was rather disappointed with it.

< 62 I know, but the intake some days was so small it made me wonder how he kept it going. I checked his website, and it seems to still be hanging in.

Found one, about photography!


Journey by Patricia MacLachlan

I read several books in Nathan Dylan Goodwin's genealogy mystery series, The Forensic Genealogist, starting with Hiding the Past.

The book I am using for hobby reflects my love and tendency to collect lists, The List of Books A library of over 3000 works by Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish.

You all have shared such interesting reads for this prompt! I'll be back in a few days with a roundup.

I finished reading three books published by Virago Press, which I collect:



Crossriggs (1908) written by two sisters, was an enjoyable book about a struggling family.
The Perpetual Curate (1864) was my next installment in Oliphant's Carlingford series, and was much better than I expected.
Rumour of Heaven (1934) was a disappointment, and did not live up to the beautiful cover.

A Woven World

I chose this book for my love of fashion and fabrics. But it was different than I expected. 4* read though!
Find my thoughts here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/338552#7799426

I am also listening to House of Gucci but will not finish until sometime in April.

My hobby is photography and I appreciate looking at the work of famous photographers I admire. I love how Pete Souza can take a candid photo and make it art so I read Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents for this month's theme.

I finished A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier. I'm claiming it for two hobbies, in that it features Embroidery and bellringing. I don't do needlepoint, but I do cross stitch.

Thank you all for participating in this KIT. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the new-to-me titles and will definitely explore some of them to add to my TBR.

Since I read about fabric, fashion, dressmaking, sewing all year long, this category will stay with me for a long time. More books that I find on these topics will be at Beebeereads Steps Up in 2022
https://www.librarything.com/topic/338552#7713847

I read two that qualify:
1) The Bake Shop by Amy Clipston - I enjoy baking.
2) Crossed by Death by A. C. F. Bookens - I enjoy both cross stitch and genealogy--both of which the main character does!

I ended up putting off my planned read till I have more focus, but tonight finished Buffalo Yoga, just using the title for connection. My husband has started yoga, and I do want to learn more about it and maybe start myself, but this was not the book for that lol. I did rather enjoy it, though.