October Books

Unbeknownst to me, I did buckets reading this month. I didn't realize until I tried to list all books I read and had to appeal to goodreads for a complete list.

My absolute favorite read of the month was A Tangle of Knots. I also thoroughly enjoyed The School for Good and Evil, The Planets, and The Pickwick Papers. Nearly half of the books I read this month were debut novels. Weird.

I began the month by finishing The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. Dickens is an old favorite and I haven't read anything by him I didn't like. I did most of my reading for this book in September, which is very good excuse for why I did so little reading that month.

My book club read for October was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. We wanted to read something seasonally appropriate that would still allow us to go to bed at night checking for ghouls or ghosties. We failed. This book was not spooky, creepy, or Halloween strange in the least. Ah well. I was slightly disturbed when I got to the end and realized there was going to be a sequel. Maybe not a complete fail?

I've been hearing about Edenbrooke (by Julianne Donaldson) for months now. I didn't intend to seek it out but took the opportunity to borrow it when it was offered. It was exactly what I supposed it would be: a lighthearted romance entirely devoid of any substance, the perfect candy book for an evening's reading.

I read two non-fiction books: The Planets by Dava Sobel and Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by Colin T. Campbell. While I found Whole to be interesting, The Planets I loved and I plan to seek out and read other books by Sobel.

I read two YA books: The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen and How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr. Both well-written and in keeping with each author's particular style.

I loaded up on the middle reader books. I read A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff, The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani, The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, and Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi. Each of these books is the beginning of a series excepting A Tangle of Knots. Is series a middle reader thing I just never happened to notice before now? I'm vaguely interested in seeing where Anderson takes her series, and not much interested in where Angleberger and Avi take theirs. I'm sure as a child I would have pursued all three of them avidly. I do intend to read the second and third installments of The School for Good and Evil when they become available.

I've already got a stack of books I hope to get to during November, which may or may not include all seven of the Harry Potter books.

And now it's off to my Saturday. I've got laundry and dishes and cleaning and bags of garden produce to do and all I want to do is curl up with a book and my favorite chocolate chips, taking breaks here and there to crunch through the leaves.