Happy fall! It’s officially my other favorite season – tied with summer, of course – so I am leaning into it and doing all the fall things, starting with apple picking this morning, which is why this post is late. That and my general flakiness of late, which is down to unpacking burnout and being busy, busy, busy, as ever.

Anyway, this past week was jam-packed with work and life obligations, as usual. Less baseball, because we were rained out of games all weekend. But I filled the time with extra errand running and chores around the house (got the foyer cleared of boxes, finally, and organized the hall and linen closets) – not as fun as baseball, but had to happen. What didn’t happen was much reading, although I held my own especially during the weeknight evenings and commutes. And the result was two books finished over the last week – The Wheel Spins and Brat Ferrar, two classic suspense novels from the late golden age of crime (both shortly after WWII), both really well done page-turners. As scattered as my brain has been lately, those really gripping plots are just what the doctor ordered.

As for current reads, I have another page turner – The Theft of the Iron Dogs, the latest reprint from British Library Crime Classics, by E.C.R. Lorac, whom I love. (I did have to look up what an iron dog was. I was picturing a dog made out of iron. Wrong. My grandmother would be so disappointed.) I just started it last night, right before bed, so I’m only about 35 pages in but it’s great fun and I can already tell I’m going to really enjoy it. And on audio, the opposite of a page-turner: The Fortnight in September, R.C. Sherriff’s quiet, contemplative story of a middle-class family’s annual September holiday at the seashore. Nothing happens, and in that nothing, everything happens. It’s a gorgeous book, and I think I like it even better on audio than in print; Jilly Bond’s narration is absolutely pitch-perfect. I’ve been savoring it over my commutes and errands; I’ll finish it this week and I’m already sad to say goodbye to the characters.

Before the wind and rain came, we snuck in an outdoor movie night! (This is an annual fundraiser at the kids’ school.) Neither Steve nor Peanut wanted to attend, so Nugget and I had a date night to “The Super Mario Brothers Movie.” We ate pizza and popcorn, Nugget ran around and threw a football with his friends, and the screen collapsed not once but TWICE and everyone screamed. It was an epic night.

What are you reading this week?