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, 2020…

The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens – I so enjoyed this comedic interlude!  The Pickwick Papers was Dickens’ first novel-length effort – published in serial form like so many other Victorian novels.  Following along with the adventures of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., and his disciples Augustus Snodgrass, Tracy Tupman and Nathaniel Winkle was good fun; I reviewed it at length here.  My only complaint was that every five to ten chapters, Dickens would pause the narrative to have some side character tell the Pickwickians a lengthy and irrelevant story; the extra stories added nothing but length and broke up the momentum of the main plot – I’d have dispensed with them.  Other than that, loved every word.

Down in the Valley: A Writer’s Landscape, by Laurie Lee – After Pickwick, I needed something MUCH shorter, and I had a new acquisition that fit the bill.  Down in the Valley reads like an oral history of Laurie Lee’s life and it turns out, that’s pretty much what it was – a collection of recollections, delivered (mostly) down at the pub, about Lee’s youth and his recollections of the landscape of his boyhood.  I blew through it in a day and it was a total delight.

One Fine Day, by Mollie Panter-Downes – Another one that had been on my “to-read” list for years, and I loved every word.  One Fine Day is a slim quotidian novel following the movements of a no-longer-young wife as she goes about her day in newly post-war England.  Laura battles overgrowth in the garden, does her marketing, visits neighbors, and muses about her marriage and the changes that have come to England with the end of World War II.  It was ruminative and beautiful.

A Memoir of Jane Austen, by J.E. Austen-Leigh – I’ve long been interested in reading Austen’s nephew’s “memoir” – really a barely-concealed family effort to control Austen’s image.  So much of the “Dear Aunt Jane” trope (that we now understand from historians’ work was pretty inaccurate) comes from Austen-Leigh’s book, so I wanted to read it to see the origination.  I was also interested in a Victorian perspective on the notoriously rowdy Georgians; Austen-Leigh was at great pains to downplay that, too.  Hilariously inaccurate, but really interesting.

We Swim to the Shark: Overcoming Fear One Fish at a Time, by Georgie Codd – I have a longer post coming about this book, but for purposes of this recap – I loved it.  I happened upon the recommendation on BookTube and immediately ordered it.  Once you get past the gorgeous, eye-catching cover, it’s a totally fascinating and absorbing read.  Georgie Codd is severely ichthyophobic – afraid of fish – as is her grandmother, Granny Codd.  Georgie decides that she doesn’t want her fear to control her life, so she learns to scuba dive with the goal of swimming with the biggest fish of all – a whale shark.  There is so much here about overcoming fears, mixed with the history and culture of the dive community, mixed with Georgie’s own personal diving experiences (my favorite parts of the book).  I loved every word and was tempted to go back to the beginning and re-read the book immediately I’d finished it; not something that happens often.

September, by Rosamunde Pilcher – Had to read this one in September, for obvious reasons.  This was only my second Pilcher – I’d read and loved The Shell Seekers – and I really enjoyed it.  I kept thinking of Jane Austen’s words – “three or four families in a country village are the very thing to work upon” or something to that effect – as I read Pilcher’s doorstopper of a novel about the Blair/Balmerino and Aird families and the characters in their orbits.  September included all of the little details that Pilcher is famous for – she is not going to tell you that someone made tea in the kitchen, she is going to tell you what kind of tea it was, and describe the kettle’s exact shade of copper, and describe the kitchen at length down to the net curtains.  And as I said to Steve, sometimes that is exactly what you want.

Mr Tibbets’s Catholic School, by Ysenda Maxtone Graham – This was a quick read, but great fun – a profile of St. Philip’s, a prestigious Catholic school in London, from its founding in the 1930s through to the 1990s.  Graham is currently a mother in the St. Philip’s system (or at least, she was when she decided to write a history of the school; I don’t know if her son has aged out at this point) and she lovingly describes the early days, in which founder and headmaster Tibbets would bump along in his private car to pick up all four pupils and drive them to school, all the way to near-present day.  I loved the concept – sixty-odd years of history through the lens of one little school – and the execution was flawless and completely delightful.  It made me wish I lived in London so I could send Nugget to St. Philip’s.

Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life, by Dr. Laura Markham – Hmmm.  What to say about this one?  I read Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids years ago and thought Dr. Markham might have some good tips for getting through this extended period at home.  For many months now, Peanut and Nugget have been one another’s sole playmates, which is not normal.  They’re heartily sick of each other and I can’t blame them.  So – I listened to this on audio and mostly skipped over the third part, which was about introducing a new baby to the family (I’m past that point now).  Some of the tips were helpful but others were unrealistic (does your kid complain that you work too much? just tell your boss that you’ll be leaving at 4:00 p.m. from now on, that will definitely go well!).  I’ve tried to put a few of the tips into practice with varying levels of success.  And I remembered why I stopped reading parenting books: they always make me feel like a total crap mother.

Brendon Chase, by BB – Another one for my “back to school season” reading: BB’s classic novel of wild boyhood.  Young brothers Robin, John and Harold Hensman, faced with the prospect of returning to boarding school for the Easter term, decide that instead, they will run away to the woods and be “outlaws.”  They pull off a brilliant escape and spend the next several months living rough in the woods, shooting and trapping their own dinners, befriending a local hermit, and learning every inch of their forest habitat by heart.  The chapters about the boys are interspersed, every few chapters or so, with hilarious send-ups of the villagers’ frantic reaction to their flight – especially that of the hapless police officer, Bunting.  Total delight.

Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir, by Penelope Lively – File this in the category of “not what I expected, but still fantastic” – I should have known, since it’s Penelope Lively.  What I was expecting: a relatively linear memoir starting with Lively’s childhood in Egypt and focusing on the war years and mid-century Great Britain.  What I got instead: lovely musings on aging, memory, and books, with a few references to Egypt and world events sprinkled in every so often.  The writing was beautiful, of course, and I enjoyed every word.

Gilead (Gilead #1), by Marilynne Robinson – A re-read to end the month; in anticipation of this past Tuesday’s release of Robinson’s latest novel, Jack, I thought a read-through of the entire Gilead series was in order.  I’ve read Gilead and Lila before, but somehow missed Home, and of course have not yet read Jack.  I think the first time I read Gilead, I was not quite in the right frame of mind for it – I remember liking it very much, and thinking it was an excellent book, but not really being blown away.  Not so this time.  I sunk right into the world of Rev. Ames, Boughton, Glory, and Lila and found myself swept along on the current of Robinson’s beautiful words.

Quite a September in books!  I am still really enjoying reading from my own shelves – as reflected by the fact that I enjoyed pretty much everything I picked up this month.  It would be hard to choose a highlight, but since I must (that’s the rules, which… I made up, whoops) – it’s probably Gilead, because how could Marilynne Robinson not be the high point?  But I also loved One Fine Day and Brendon Chase, and We Swim to the Shark was fabulous.  I couldn’t go wrong in September, apparently.  For October – I’m looking forward to more good reading, naturally.  Starting with the rest of the Gilead books, and then wherever fancy takes me.  I want to read Lolly Willowes in October, so expect to see that on next month’s list, and I’ll probably revisit Poems Bewitched and Haunted and Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party towards the end of the month.  I’m just really anticipating, as you can see.

What did you read in September?