Family, I cannot believe August is almost over. Where did the summer go? This is the time of year when I start to feel very conflicted, because I love summer and fall in equal measure. So I’m… sad that summer is ending, but at the same time… happy about the approach of fall. Hang on, let me overthink this. In the past few years I’ve tried to look at the changing seasons from a different angle – less “I can’t believe summer is ending” or “I can’t wait for fall” and more “I’m midway through my favorite half of the year, there’s so much more to come.” Some days it works better than others.

Anyway! That digression aside, it was a good week in reading. I’ve spent time with two audiobooks: Bookworm, which I finished early last week and absolutely adored, and The Book of Delights, which I’ll wrap up today. At bedtime, Nugget and I finished up Winnie-the-Pooh and are now casting about for our next read: I still have not unpacked my books – this week! – and Nugget has been wanting chapter books at bedtime, so we’re stuck with my kindle. We gave Just William a try last night, which I loved and found hilarious when I read it last year, but Nugget didn’t find as funny. Tonight he wants to see how the first chapter of Swallows and Amazons reads. So we’ll see.

Moving on to my own print books, I also finished The Greengage Summer early last week – so, so good. You can tell it’s good when you’re so reluctant to put it down that you read the final few chapters while absentmindedly stirring dinner on the stovetop and end up slopping tomato sauce everywhere. Unusually for this season of life, I have a library stack right now – so that was my next stop. I’d reserved The Maid because I wanted to make sure to get to it before the second book in the series comes out this fall. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t think the author entirely played fair with the ending, which disappointed me. Still a good read, but not destined to become a favorite – for that reason. Finally, another library book – an impulse grab off an endcap while browsing the stacks after picking up The Maid – I embarked on a literary tour with Novel Destinations. Usually a bookish travel book flies by for me, but I’ve been plodding through this one a bit and am only a third of the way through despite starting it at the end of last week. It’s fun though, so I’m chalking the slow reading pace up to being busy with unpacking and house projects over the weekend, and not able to sit and read as much as I ordinarily would. I’ll finish it up this week, and then no idea what comes next: I’ve got two more library books checked out, so maybe one of those, but I also want to get to Brat Ferrar soon.

One of the things keeping me busy this past weekend: a Sunday morning 10k. It was hot and muggy and it took me three miles to get into a groove, so not the best race. But I got it done.

What are you reading this week?