l'astronave: What I'm Reading; Girlette Round-Up

Fiona, IG doll-friend in Berlin, asked me how many Orphan Red Dolls live here.
I wasn't sure.
I photographed all of the ones here, hanging out. (Penny Cooper is staying with Sophie as she recovers from a stroke, and new girlette, Jennifer Baker, is with Marz). With the ones out visiting, there are fifteen--a manageable number.

This is my favorite photo: Girlette Eeva on my bedside table, listening to Rat read aloud, with Girl Mountie & Duckette.
Eeva is Canadian, of Finnish descent, and she says she lost part of her feet on a desperate winter hike carrying wolf-hybrid puppies to safety.

I don't know what Rat is reading--I think maybe fairy tales?

I'm currently reading the two books on top of the pile:
Slowly I've been reading for a while now In Praise of Good Bookstores, by Jeff Deutsch—the director of Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstores.

Gobbling up Somewhere Toward the End (2009), by English book editor Diana Athill in her ninety-first year, written with the intention ‘to understand, to be aware, to touch the truth’ about aging.
I'm thinking a lot about that myself, here at the entrance gate to old-age.

I like Athill; I relate to how she tends to be "interested rather than engaged"––a biscotti, not a cream bun––something she sometimes regretted, but not much.

I've read it before, and I've just reread her first memoir too, Stet: An Editor's Life (2000)--about books and writers she worked with.

I want to but haven't yet read her last memoir, Alive, Alive Oh! And Other Things That Matter (2015).
Athill died in 2019, age 101.