This month’s reading report is a little later than I had planned, but to be completely honest, life has been overwhelming me lately. I sat down last week to write this post, but the words just wouldn’t come at all. And let’s not mention the fact that I completely skipped publishing a reading update last month. (Oops!)
Anyway, even though circumstances have not been ideal for reading a lot lately, I have finally finished a few books, and I am only a little bit “behind” where I should be in my reading goals at this point in the year. Let’s chat about what I finished reading since my last reading report:
Finished Books:
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: although I didn’t quite finish this before The Literary Life Podcast episodes were completed, I still did get the whole book read and enjoyed it in spite of the spoilers. I do appreciate Wharton’s writing style, and I will surely try and read more of her work in the future. This was my August read for the Tea and Ink Society Classics Challenge.
N or M? by Agatha Christie: I always enjoy Christie, and her Tommy and Tuppence series books are delightfully different than Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Set in World War II, our hero and heroine find themselves considered “too old” to be helpful in the home war effort, until a connection from their past leads to a secret mission to uncover a key player in the Fifth Column. This was my September title for the Tea and Ink Challenge, and I highly recommend it if you are looking for something a little different from the usual WWII fiction.
The Case is Closed by Patricia Wentworth: this second book in the Miss Silver series is one I started reading clear back in July, and I don’t know quite why it took me so long to finish. I think I lost the library loan and subsequently got distracted by other books that had deadlines. Regardless, when I picked it back up last month, it was easy to fly through to the end because the whole plot was quite suspenseful. Wentworth is a golden age detective novelist worth returning to again!
Much May Be Done with Sparrows by Karen Glass: This was a book club read for both the Charlotte Mason moms groups I have been in over the past year. I enjoyed Karen’s essays and was encouraged and challenged by many thoughts throughout this little book.
Lesley Castle by Jane Austen: This was a very short, quick read because it is one of Austen’s unfinished novels found in collections of her juvenilia, but I needed a quick win for once. But even though it didn’t have a clearly defined plot or a satisfying conclusion, this little epistolary novel was full of Austen’s biting sarcasm and wit. She didn’t hold anything back! This title was my Austen book pick for October’s prompt in the Tea and Ink Society Classics Challenge.
What the Robin Knows by Jon Young: Even though I missed the “deadline” to finish this book club read, I did finally get it done! It was actually a pretty short book, but I just couldn’t seem to motivate myself to read it often. Still, I did learn some interesting things about bird behavior and nature observation techniques that I would like to put into practice.
Currently Reading:
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner: I picked this book up at a free library and decided to grab it when we went on our last camping trip of the season at the end of September. I will admit that this is partly because my paperback copy has a photo of golden aspens and snow-capped mountains on the front, and it just screamed “fall camping trip in the Rockies” to me. So, yes, I judged a book by its cover. I am about 20% of the way into the story so far, and I am mostly liking it. I appreciate Stegner’s writing, and the setting of the story as an invalid man writing his grandmother’s biography is intriguing. Since it is a modern book, there have been a few passages that bristled me a bit, but I want to like this book and finish it. There have been so many modern books I have started and not finished over the years because the content bothered me. I hope this will not be one of them.
When Life Was Young: at the Old Farm in Maine by C. A. Stephens: I picked this book for our evening read aloud together with the kids. It’s not the first of Stephens books about growing up with his cousins on his grandparents’ farm that I have read, but it is the first one I have read to the kids. We always like stories about life in the “olden days,” especially when written from the first person perspective, and this book is no exception.
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift: I am still working my way through this one, but I am just a few chapters from the end by now. I didn’t realize how many make-believe cultures Swift was going to invent for this tale, nor how weird some of this book was going to be. I also do wish I knew more about the social critiques he was making by use of this satirical literary form, but I am a little hesitant to research this because I don’t want to just end up with a bunch of modern Freudian interpretations, which I am sure abound! Anyway, it’s definitely been a wild ride!
Planning to Read:
One of my book clubs is planning to read The Happiest Man of Earth by Eddie Jaku this fall, so I need to get started on that one soon. It’s supposed to be very uplifting and fairly short, so I hope I can get into it and read it quickly.
Another book that keeps calling to me from my shelves is The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I am not usually one to go in for “spooky season,” but for some reason I have been wanting to read something Gothic and dark lately. So I might jump in and read it in spite of the fact that I have very little time and should be pre-reading every chance I get!
Well, that’s really all the time I have to write today, so I will leave you with a few fall photos from our recent camping trip. I hope this update finds you well and with plenty of time for cozy reading with a cup of something hot and yummy as the weather turns cooler. Until next time, happy reading, friends!
Kiel
