Fall weather is in the air; we’re just about to leave on a trip to the mountains for a few days, and I hope we won’t be rained or fogged or snowed in! But if we are, I’ll be sure to bring along plenty of reading material.
Here’s what I polished off this month:
What I read in September:
- The Woman Who Borrowed Memories, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal and Silvester Mazzarella
- My Grandmother’s Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen
- A Brief History of Spirituality by Philip Sheldrake
- Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream
- Poor Man’s Feast by Elissa Altman
- News of the World by Paulette Jiles
- Growing Up by Russell Baker
- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Solid reads
I gave a lot of books 3.5 stars this month; that means they were really solid, enjoyable reads for me, and I’d consider reading them again, even if they didn’t have that extra something that makes me rate them 4 stars. (I reserve 5 stars for personal favorites I know I’ll read again and again, even if they’re not perfect.)
This month, I put three memoirs in that category. Growing Up is a classic memoir of, um, growing up during the Depression, which I know I read many years ago. My son was interested in some memoir recommendations, so I checked this out for him via the e-library we share, and then ended up reading it myself! While life may seem too short for rereading, I find that after 40 years or so I’m such a different person that any good book deserves another look from me. I had a very different perspective on this one than when I was a teenager, for sure, less amused by the funny parts and more struck by the tragic, traumatic elements, which, at the time it was published, were not the main focus in memoir land.
Now it’s a different story. After writing Poor Man’s Feast, Elissa Altman got into trouble with her family for outing a secret about her father’s traumatic past that she didn’t know was a secret. That’s looking ahead to the subject of her latest book, Permission, which I’m interested in, but I wanted to read this first for background. It is sad to read this one with hindsight and know many of the people she wrote about so affectionately, chronicling their relationship as it revolved around food, are going to cut her out. However, there is a happier trajectory in her finding true love with the woman she’s now married to.
Then there was Cloistered, about a nun who ends up leaving her convent. Coldstream writes beautifully and poetically about the monastic life, but a bit vaguely about the personal tensions and toxic relationships that led to her exit. It was fascinating to read and sometimes frustrating, but overall valuable as a glimpse into an enclosed world, where very human tendencies proliferate in the midst of mighty spiritual effort. I appreciate that Coldstream doesn’t write off spirituality or monasticism in general, as a result of her painful experiences, but wonders how we can preserve their good aspects in our world today. I wonder that, too.
Currently reading
I’ve just checked out Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, which I plan to take along on vacation. With one more book in my year-long reread of Jane Austen’s novels to go, I’m looking forward to being guided by a rare book dealer through the forgotten women authors who influenced Austen.
On the blog
- In Do you ever write to writers? I described how I try to reach out to authors whose works I enjoy, as writing can be a lonely business.
What’s on your shelf this month?
Linked at The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Book Reviewer, the Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz, and the Monthly Wrap-up Round-up at Feed Your Fiction Addiction
I will tag authors whose books I loved in my tweets etc, making it clear I enjoyed their book. Sometimes they write back – I just had a lovely email from Michael Pedersen thanking me verbosely for my review of his splendid first novel Muckle Flugga – and it turns out he’s in town this month – so I’ll go meet him.