Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for September, 2019…

Still Life (Chief Inspector Gamache #1), by Louise Penny – My Aunt Maria has been encouraging me to read Louise Penny’s “Three Pines” mysteries for ages now, and I finally picked up the first one.  Wow – I loved it, and can’t believe I let myself wait so long!  (I had thought Louise Penny would be too scary.  Turns out I had her mixed up with Tana French.)  Penny sets her scenes so beautifully, and I loved her writing, the characters, the pacey plot – even if I did guess the identity of the killer.  I can’t wait to read the next one, but since it’s set around Christmas I’m saving it for December.

Garden Poems, ed. John Hollander – I’ve been picking my way through this little anthology of poems about gardens and flowers for months now.  As always with the Pocket Poets series, there are some really beautiful selections.  It was a light and calming read.

Leia, Princess of Alderaan, by Claudia Gray – I have really enjoyed delving back into the Star Wars universe with the new movies and some of the new books.  After reading Bloodline, I was excited to pick up Leia: Princess of Alderaan, by the same author.  Both were wonderful, although I think I liked Bloodline a bit better.  (I did enjoy the Narnia reference in Princess of Alderaan.)  Now we need a Holdo novel!

Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables #3), by L. M. Montgomery – A perennial read for back-to-school season, I pulled out my favorite volume in the eight book Anne series and spent a day happily wrapped up in Anne’s studies at Redmond College and life at Patty’s Place.  There’s not much to say about Anne that hasn’t already been said, but – I just love everything about this book.  I laughed, cried, and hugged the book at the end – gently, because I was reading my treasured first edition.

How to Be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran – Probably wouldn’t have picked this one up if my book club hadn’t been reading it (yes, we’re trying to start up again).  Caitlin Moran is not nearly as well-known here in the Colonies as she is on the other side of the Pond, but I found her funny and relatable.  (Although her childhood was horrifying.)

A Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver – I’ve been on a total poetry kick lately, in case you haven’t noticed, and I really wanted to read some more about the technical aspects of the craft, to better appreciate what I’ve been reading.  I’m not sure how much I really retained, but Oliver’s down-to-earth style broke down and explained the different styles and methods of poetry writing in a really approachable way.

English Country Houses, by Vita Sackville-West – Grabbed off my shelf on a whim, and I enjoyed this book-length essay about the traditional English “country house.”  Sackville-West wrote English Country Houses as a piece of World War II propaganda, and soldiers carried it with them as a reminder of the traditions and charms of the country they were defending.  It’s well to read this with that in mind, because Sackville-West tends to get a bit sniffy about other countries and a bit defensive of Great Britain’s fundamental superiority over every other country – which could be annoying, if you happened to forget that this was wartime propaganda “to keep the spirits up.”

Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen (Six Tudor Queens #1), by Alison Weir – I think I saw the “Six Tudor Queens” series on Instagram and, to be honest, a six-book series of six-hundred page novels about the lives of Henry VIII’s wives is very much my jam.  I really enjoyed the first one, focusing on Katherine of Aragon – although man, was it sad.  My only complaint was that the book was too long.  Weir is a historian by training and a writer of historical biographies, and it shows – both the good (so well-researched) and the less good (probably don’t need details of every tapestry hanging in Katherine’s room in every palace where she ever lived).  I thought the book could have benefitted from an editor’s red pen and would have been perfect if it was about 400 pages.  But I still had a good time over it, and I’ll certainly keep reading.  (Inquiring minds want to know how Weir is going to squeeze 500+ pages out of Anne of Cleves.)

Everything that Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O’Connor – Read for my Classics Club list, and I’ll be reviewing it in full here shortly, so I’ll keep this short and just say: I HATED EVERY WORD.  Perhaps I’m just not smart enough to “get” O’Connor, but I didn’t see the point to this parade of horribles at all.  It was just a long slog of horrible people dying in horrible ways, with the occasional bad stuff happening to kids, just to keep you on your toes.  A miserable reading experience.

Slightly Foxed No. 7: Waist High in Kale, ed. Gail Pirkis – Slightly Foxed always delivers!  I am working my way through back issues slowly, so as to savor them, and issue number 7 was a particular winner.  The essays on George Eliot and Angela Thirkell were my favorites, obviously.  (I am nothing if not predictable!)

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan – This was another one that I saw all over social, and was a little worried about picking up – on account of all the hype.  It was good, but not great.  I really liked the concept – a young slave boy is plucked from his brutal and heartbreaking life and thrust into a life of travel, adventure, art and science.  Parts of the book were really wonderful, but the story wasn’t as smooth or as pacey as I’d expected it to be, with such a fabulous concept.  A good, solid read, but won’t be in my top ten.

 Home Fires, by Julie Summers – Spotted on a blog (I forget which) and well worth the time and effort it took to read – Home Fires (published as Jambusters in the U.K.) told the story of the massive contribution made by local Women’s Institutes during World War II.  It was a book that demanded a surprising amount of attention and close reading, but worth it.

Whew!  Nine TWELVE (edited thanks to the lovely Zandria, and hey – I never claimed to be a mathematician) books in September – a good total, given how busy and overwhelmed I’ve been at work.  Some of the added reading time is attributable to having the Metro back – hurray!  It was a bit of a roller-coaster as far as enjoyment went.  One book I absolutely loathed, a few solid but not amazing reads, and Anne Shirley and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache on the other end of the spectrum.  I have some fun Halloween-ish books in the queue for October, so just hoping I get to them – it’s going to be a particularly crazy month at work, which I am sort of dreading.  I’ll need lots of books to keep me sane.