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| Books and socks. A good life includes both. |
My October reading included 3 children’s/YA books, mostly as a cure for one of the adult books I read. The non-children’s books included a great deal of bullying and abuse.
Book 1
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. Again. That’s the thing about things. They fall apart, always have, always will, it’s in their nature.
Book 2
Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human. The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don’t think that teenagers are the best humans are adults. Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.
A visual hint to the resident
teenagers, from the parent.
Book 3
Part I: “On the Eve of War” Poland 1939
“Anna!...Anna, wake up!...Wake up!” urged Mrs. Malek, shaking her daughter’s arm. “We must leave at once. Hurry! Get dressed. Take your heavy coat. Nothing else. Hurry!”
Book 4
Mrs. Bantry was dreaming. Her sweet peas had just taken a First at the flower show. The vicar, dressed in cassock and surplice, was giving out the prizes in church.
The geranium room at The Phipps,
July 2016.
Book 5
Part One: The Past
This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself.
I woke up two minutes before my alarm went off, like usual.
Book 6
It was a September morning, hazy with late summer, and now with all the years between. Mother was seeing me off at Dearborn Station in Chicago.
Book 7
At Nutmouse Hall, the day had begun much like any other. Nutmeg had leaped out of bed at dawn and raced downstairs to bustle and bake and clean. And Tumtum had stayed tucked up under the covers until he heard the bell ring for breakfast.
Did Not Finish
Such, Such were the Joys…
Soon after I arrived at Crossgates (not Immediately, but after a week or two, just when I seemed to be settling into the routine of school life) I began wetting my bed. I was now aged eight, so that this was a reversion to a habit which I must have grown out of at least four years earlier.
The titles and authors revealed:
Book 1
Autumn (Seasonal Quartet #1)
By Ali Smith
264 pages • first pub 2016
fiction contemporary literary
The writing is marvelous but is mostly in a stream of consciousness style, which required a bit more concentration than I have at the moment (as I write this, 31 days until Election Day). Or maybe it is magical realism. Or both. I appreciated the characters and the puns. There is almost no plot to keep track of, but there are revelations. This may be the only book I have read that directly mentions Brexit and its consequences. There is an in depth portrait of a real artist of the time.
I will probably try to read the next one in this series, but not in the next 31 days.
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| Autumn, as seen while canvassing. October 29, 2026 |
Book 2
My Friends
By Fredrik Backman with Neil Smith (Translator)
448 pages • first pub 2025
fiction contemporary literary
What if we would strive to set a record for the kindest thing we said to every other person?
The book is a good story, but it is… a long story. You have to put up with the author’s penchant to withhold a major detail of a major character. Because of the humor, the reader is able to gain some emotional distance from the violence described. The purpose of art is a prominent theme.
Content warning: domestic abuse, alcoholism, bullying, and other violence. I read it for both book clubs, in Oct and Dec. While both this book and Book 5 included large amounts of domestic abuse, I enjoyed this one a great deal more than Book 5 (which I also read for book club).
Book 3
The Crèche of Krakow
By Harvey Hirsch and Audrey Hirsch
46 pages • first pub 1988
fiction children’s historical religion
A charming and satisfying if improbable story for children. This is for the Page Turners book club in December. I managed to find a copy on (gasp) Amazon, but I believe the book is out of print.
Book 4
The Body in the Library
By Agatha Christie
BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation
Approx 1 hour.
In book form: 191 pages • first pub 1942
Miss Marple #2
fiction classics crime mystery
Listening to this dramatisation loosely counts as reading an audio book. I listened after watching the recent PBS episode. I was curious if the twist at the end of the PBS episode was in the original book. Would have preferred to read rather than listen, but the audio was the only version my library had available in the moment.
I remember in my youth trying to read Miss Marple mysteries and being bored, well, to death. But these days I’m all in on an elderly British lady sleuth.
Book 5
Yesteryear
By Caro Claire Burke
391 pages • 2026
fiction literary thriller
I will just be honest: I did not enjoy reading this book. Not at all. I read it for book club on Nov 17th, and finished it because I will probably have to lead the discussion.
Book 6
A Year Down Yonder (A Long Way from Chicago #2)
By Richard Peck
160 pages • first pub 2000
fiction historical middle-grade
I needed an antidote to Yesteryear, and fortunately this book was available. I enjoyed it. Grandma is a hoot! Outhouses feature prominently. There is not much depth to the characters but this book was exactly what I needed in the moment. I haven’t read the first one.
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| Outhouse on the Airline Road, Maine, 2015. |
Book 7
Tumtum and Nutmeg: The Great Escape (#2 in the series)
By Emily Bearn
221 pages • 2008
fiction middle-grade
It was okay, not great. This was meant to be another antidote to Book #5. I was annoyed by the fact that the wife mouse did all the labor while the husband mouse mostly sat around. I would have preferred to read the first one in the series (had a slightly better rating on Storygraph) but it was not available immediately.
DNF
A Collection of Essays
George Orwell
336 pages • first pub 1941
nonfiction classics essays politics
In the middle of the first essay, I had to pause reading, because I couldn’t read about the cruel life of a British boarding school. (My father attended a British boarding school in India. He did have tales of headmasters beating students, but none of student-on-student violence.) I resumed and managed to finish the first essay before the library snatched it off my kindle.
Quote:
There never was, I suppose, in the history of the world a time when the sheer vulgar fatness of wealth, without any kind of aristocratic elegance to redeem it, was so obtrusive as in those years before 1914. It was the age when crazy millionaires in curly top hats and lavender waistcoats gave champagne parties in rococo houseboats on the Thames, the age of diabolo and hobble skirts, the age of the “knut” in his grey bowler and cutaway coat, the age of The Merry Widow, Saki’s novels, Peter Pan and Where the Rainbow Ends, the age when people talked about chocs and cigs and ripping and topping and heavenly, when they went for divvy weekends at Brighton and had scrumptious teas and the Troc.
- page 33
Now it’s your turn. What have you been reading lately?
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| Another clear fall day in 2026 |
