February 2021 First Reads

 This month's choices: 

1. Thriller - Infinite
2. Memoir - Black Boy Out Of Time
3. Contemorary fiction - The Speed of Light
4. Rom-com The WEdding Game
5. Historical Fiction - After Alice Fell 
6. Fantasy - Wings of Fury
7. Mystery - The deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds
8. Picture book - Agnes's Place
9. Memoir - The Psychopath

Library already owns 1, 2, 4, and 6.  Not in the mood for a thriller or the rom-com.  Contmporary and historical fiction don't sound that interesting.   Overall, it comes down to the fantasy or the mystery.  Library owns the fantasy, so I think I'm going with the mystery, although from the reviews already at Amazon, it's fluffy at best.  But that's okay.  Fluffy mysteries are good for a pandemic.

More puzzles

 First, there's a second Sam Savitt rodeo puzzle on eBay right now.  One is priced at $134.99 (eek!).  The second one, bidding starts at $99.99, or the Buy it Now is $169.99.  

Good grief.

As far as ongoing puzzles, I bought two at Upscale Resale last week or the week before.  One is a Springbok, a 500-piece photo of someone fishing. 

The other is a Eurographics 1000-piece collage of seed and fruit catalogs.  I paid $8 for that one (Upscale seems to be upping the prices), but I finished it yesterday and all the pieces are there.  So, the $8 wasn't wasted.  But used puzzles are always a gamble, so I try not to pay too much.

Last weekend, I also finished a Mudpuppy puzzle called Slowpokes.  500 pieces.  These are decent puzzles, the pieces fit together well, but the cardboard seems kind of flimsy.  

And before Slowpokes, I put together one of the new Springboks from the Orscheln sale, a 1000-piece puzzle of retro soda cans.  Springbok still has good random-cut pieces, but the fit isn't as good (mostly because of pieces that don't get cut cleanly), and the cardboard seems thinner than it used to be.