Whatcha Readin'? No time for reading

Autumn is always such chaos: back to school, bucking wood for winter, soccer, Noxon’s Fall Festival, 4-H enrollment, STEAM month (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics), Halloween, and Thanksgiving. It feels like there’s no time for reading despite opportunities to get more books, like the upcoming Thompson Falls Public Library Book Sale on October 26. I find my TBR pile expanding, the books on my side table stacking higher, the monthly Wrap-Up from The StoryGraph looking chintzy.

Despite the chaos, I read twelve books in September, ten of which were four stars or better. Here they are, in no particular order:

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth is a fast-paced fiction that’s touted as suspense which kind of made me dread reading it. I’m so glad it’s our October book club pick, because I really enjoyed it. The story of twin girls, one of whom is on the spectrum, and how they love and protect one another…or don’t. In conjunction with The Sanders County Ledger and Thompson Falls Public Library, Flashlights & Firelight Online Book Club has picked this book for October and we’ll be discussing it on October 16, 2024 at 6pm MT (for the free Zoom link, please visit: http://www.sundaydutro.com/events or the Sanders County online community calendar: http://www.sanderscounty365.com)

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout is a medium-paced contemporary literary fiction book that’s a part of Strout’s Amgash Series. Like all of Strout's books, this one is reflective and hopeful. A book about relationships, friendship, and the many forms of love. If you’re a fan of Olive Kitteridge, you won’t be disappointed as she makes several key appearances.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan is a medium-paced nonfiction that’s funny, informative, and reflective. A hobbyist birder, Tan’s knack for noticing combined with her curiosity create a beautiful and fascinating book about wild birds and our role in their lives.

Breath Taking by Jessica Fein is a fast-paced, emotional, and informational nonfiction book about a family raising a child with a deadly disease. If you love memoir, you may be disappointed as this doesn’t read like a memoir so much as an accounting of a life. Well written and interesting, I do recommend it to nonfiction readers.

The Guardians by Sarah Manguso is a medium-paced collection of emotional and reflective memoirs about suicide. Beautiful and gut-wrenching, the book looks at what it’s like for the people left behind and the stories we live with. Highly recommend.

Know My Name by Chanel Miller is a medium-paced memoir that’s informative, reflective, and inspiring. The accounting of the Brock Turner rape by the victim, it can be difficult to read due to the emotional quality of the writing as well as the fury the entire event elicits in the reader.

Bear Grylls Adventure series by Bear Grylls: The Blizzard Challenge #1, The Desert Challenge #2, The Jungle Challenge #3 – this book series is a medium-to-fast-paced adventure series for children/middle-grade readers. While the actual books are fiction, they contain loads of nonfiction information for survival as well as for personal growth and wellbeing. My eight-year-old and five-year-old love them and I’m enjoying them immensely.

Who Was William Shakespeare? by Celeste Mannis is a book in the Who Was/Is Series. All books are nonfiction biography books about someone famous. My eight-year-old found it dull and slow, and while I agree it is a bit dry, it’s jam-packed full of history, culture, politics, and social education. I wish it was told with a bit more pep and humor so he’d enjoy it more, but I’m hopeful as we continue to read the series and enter more modern times that he’ll get more engaged.

Lastly, I found myself tearing through a book that I didn’t give four or five stars to but which I devoured because it was so clever: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. A medium-paced fantasy that’s lighthearted and sweet. I keep thinking maybe it does deserve four stars but can’t quite bring myself to give them because it’s such a Hallmark-movie type of book. It was exactly what I needed, but unless someone was in that mood, they’d think my four stars were indicative of my general tastes.

I’ve begun re-reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy as well as being in various stages of reading:

-Known Order Girls by Andrew Butters

-The Family Web by Itzel Cummings

-Left Astray by Nathan Ewbank

-Don’t Kill the Drunken Sailor by J.L. Henry

Have you found time for reading? What was your favorite book in September? Be sure to drop me a line and let me know Whatcha Readin’.

Sunday Dutro is an avid reader and eBook convert living in Thompson Falls with her beautiful family and an enormous “to be read” pile. Reach her at [email protected]