September Reading Wrap-Up: The Second Half

 I'm not quite sure where September went, but here we are in October. One thing that never changes as time flies by is my voracious appetite for books. Here are the books that accompanied me through the second half of September.

Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (a book I own)

I was glad to read at least one book from my own TBR* pile(s) this month, and I've been wanting to read this for a while. This was the next book in my Woolf project--reading all of her novels in publication order. The last book of hers I read was The Waves, which I wasn't in love with.  I enjoyed this one far more. Like The Voyage Out, her first published novel, there isn't much plot here. We're following a group of people whose lives intersect in various ways at various times. These people come from different classes and backgrounds and one of the threads running through the novel is how the class system and gender roles of the time was changing and how that impacted people's lives and relationships. There's a lot of internal dialogue here, with people thinking one thing and saying/doing another. This is what I liked about it because it provided a window into the thinking that goes on below the surface, how outward appearances often don't match, and how people struggle with and chafe against societal expectations that don't fit their internal reality--and finally, how this changes them.

Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion by Agnes Arnold -Forster (borrowed from the library)

This is a fascinating book. In it, the author traces the history of the idea of nostalgia from its first known usage to the present day and the implications of this evolving idea on people and societies. When nostalgia first became a thing, it was considered an illness and Arnold-Forster gives examples of people in history who were incapacitated by it. Later, there was concern that there was too much nostalgia around and that it was emasculating, thus dangerous. Today (and in the recent past) we see how nostalgia is used to manipulate and oppress people in all sorts of ways as right wing groups use it to construct an imaginary past. However, the author points out that left-wing people tend to do this as well. I was pleased that she included this, because it's something I've noticed as well. There does seem to be a yearning for a past that seems like it was simpler and less distressing than the present, but of course, this past that some people long for wasn't actually real at a societal level. As I was reading, I kept thinking about a horrible town we lived in some years ago in which people were always going on about 'the way it used to be.' I'm interested in people's stories about their lives, but this was a fantasy past that never existed--and one they were desperate to return to. I saw much in this book to remind me of that place. Excellent book.

The Essential Fromm by Erich Fromm (borrowed from the library)

In one of the books I read earlier in the month, some of Fromm's ideas were discussed. I was intrigued, so I requested a couple of his books from the library. I started with this slim volume and by the time I was done, didn't feel like reading the other book. It's not that this was a bad book, but I didn't care for the style and some of it seemed dated. It was also slightly repetitive. The book is a collection of short excerpts from some of Fromm's writing and interviews. His ideas are interesting and I agreed with most of it, but as a reading experience, it was a bit dry. I did get a chuckle from the markings and notes someone had written in the book. At one point, 'WRONG' was written in the margin next to a paragraph about gender. In this instance, Fromm wasn't wrong and I have some thoughts about the person who wrote that. 😄

The Big Four by Agatha Christie (read on the Serial Reader app)

I've been re-reading some Christie on Serial Reader, in small chunks each day. I remembered this book as kind of silly and I still feel that way, but this time what jumped out at me was the prominent role of the friendship between Poirot and Hastings. I don't recall it ever being at the forefront of the novels in which Hastings appears before. Hastings isn't in many of the Poirot novels as he goes off to a ranch in Argentina. In this one, he's back in England on business and ready to surprise Poirot, only to get a surprise himself when Poirot is packed and catching a boat to South America at the behest of a wealthy US American. Poirot realizes in time that something is fishy and he's being got out of the way. A multinational gang--the Big Four--are intent upon world dominance. He and Hastings proceed to investigate. As I say, t's a silly book and a caricature in many ways, but it's kind of funny because of it. And the friendship aspect of it was actually quite lovely. Definitely not one of Christie's best, but not terrible, either.

Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks (borrowed from library for the library book group)

Meh. That's what I and the rest of the group thought of this book. Everyone felt it was mediocre, although some people found the informational aspect of it interesting. It's a historical fiction novel set in WWII. The title character is a young Scottish woman going to London to work as a receptionist in a GP office. On the train, she shares a compartment with two guys who find out she speaks French and think she could be useful to them as they assist the resistance in occupied France. Various things ensue, she ends up working for the British government in France under an assumed name. She has a specific task to do, but she knows before she leaves that she's going to stay in France to try to find the guy she instantly fell madly in love with when she got to London. He was a pilot and went missing. One of the storylines involves the French Nazi sympathizers and their activities. It was all too familiar and we see the same kinds of things going on today in various places. I found the book tedious, the characters superficial, and the story rather fluffy considering the subject matter. It's perfectly fine with the group if people don't finish a book and I could have DNFed* it, but I read it through. I'd never read anything by this author before and I wouldn't be quick to pick up another book by him, although others in the group said he has some excellent ones. Have any of you read his work and what did you think of it if you have?

I listened to a couple of audiobooks in September.

Country Christie by Agatha Christie (a BorrowBox audiobook)

I saw this in the 'new to library' section of BorrowBox one day. It was available so I downloaded it. It's a collection of Christie short stories read by various people. All the stories take place in Devon and the last one was an episode from The Big Four. This was an enjoyable collection even though I've read almost all the stories before. There was one that was new to me though and that was especially fun.

Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself, and China by Jung Chang

I read the author's memoir, Wild Swans several years ago now and loved it. I went on to read more of this author's work, including Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister and Empress Dowager Cixi, both non-fiction books about women in China. All of these books were excellent and this one was no exception. It's a follow-up to Wild Swans, but you don't have to have read that to enjoy this book. Chang writes about her relationships with various people throughout her life as well as her relationship with the Chinese government, which has often been difficult, terrifying, and traumatic. When she and her husband wrote a biography of Mao, a new layer was added. I'd happily read whatever book Jung Chang writes next and I can heartily recommend this one.

Soon-to-be-published books I read in September were:

The Body at the Christmas Book Fair by Helen Cox (via NetGalley to be published on November 6, 2025)

Private investigator and part-time librarian Kitt Hartley is really looking forward to meeting her best friend, Evie, at the Christmas book fair. There are all the books of course, but they also have tickets to see the dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol, which is a highlight of the book fair. However, just as Marley's ghost is saying, "My time is nearly gone..." the actor's time is up. It's not a pretty sight and why is cinnamon such a factor in the whole mystery?

I'm a big fan of cozy Christmas mysteries and I found this to be an enjoyable book. It was pretty clear to me early on whodunnit, so it was more an "Am I right?" experience. Nonetheless, I happily read on. I enjoyed the Christmas/winter setting. I especially liked the appearances of the spirits of a few classic mystery authors. The characters were appropriately quirky and sometimes made me laugh. All in all, a fun read.

Lambs in Winter by Alexis Lathem (via NetGalley to be published on November 4, 2025 by University of Massachusetts Press)

I'll just cut to the chase--I loved this book. I was sorry to see it end, but there is no much to think about within these pages that I know it will stay with me for a long time. The book is a series of essays, each focused on a certain subject, but taken together they create a much larger whole. The essays form layers, much like the way the author describes the layout of the homestead she shares with her husband and their animals and the permaculture ideas that inspired it. This book is many things--memoir, nature writing, journalism, anthropology, and more. In each essay, Lathem situates herself within a certain time and place, exploring her own experiences and what they mean in the context of the community within which she finds herself. The book is structured in such a way that we see the evolution of her thought process, with three sections--early years, middle years, and later years. We also see how her community, which is near Burlington, Vermont, changes long with the weather, the climate, and the natural world surrounding her homestead. Lathem is clearly extremely well-read and has educated herself on the subjects she's writing about. There are extensive notes at the back of the book. She's refreshingly honest about her place in the larger scheme of things as well as her own privilege. In the introduction, she reflects on why she and her husband choose to live as and where they do, stating, "We do this on a very small scale as an exercise in freedom and personal sovereignty, and as a form of inquiry into what it will take for human and nonhuman life to endure." (p xiii)

I read this book from cover to cover, but it could also be read and enjoyed by opening it at random and reading whatever essay happens to be there. It's also a book that can be read and re-read with fresh insights appearing on each reading. This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

Woman in the Pillory by Brigitte Reimann, translated from German by Lucy Jones (to be published on November 13, 2025 by Penguin Modern Classics)

This is a powerful novella. It's short but contains so much--love and fear, hope and despair, cruelty and kindness, idealism and reality, denial and self discovery. The story is told primarily from the point of view of Katrin, although occasionally readers get a glimpse into the minds of other characters. Katrin is a young woman who has been married for 5 year to Heinrich, who is away from his farm fighting against Russians in the German army. Theirs is not a happy marriage and Katrin is not unhappy that he's gone. Heinrich's sister, Frieda, also lives at the farm and she and Katrin try to do everything, which proves to be too much. Home for a few days on leave, Heinrich says he'll have a prisoner of war sent to work on the farm. Before long, Alexei arrives. He's from Ukraine where his village has been wiped out and his family disappeared. He has high hopes for the kind of society that Russia will create after the war is over, but largely keeps his thoughts to himself and does what he's told. Frieda treats him like a sub-human creature. Katrin sees through the common stereotypes about 'the enemy' and she and Alexei gradually become closer and closer. Village tongues start to wag and eventually, serious repercussions result.

This is an excellent book. The writing is beautiful and not a word is wasted. Reimann's descriptions of the farm at night or the thoughts of the characters grabbed me from the start. The book was originally published in 1956 and Reimann lived in East Germany, although she died quite young. So it was a decade after the war ended--enough time to see that the dreams Alexei described, which I'm sure were those of many real people, did not come to fruition. And although the book is short, Katrin's evolution and growth of self awareness were aspects of the book that I quite liked. This is a book that can be read and re-read with new insights appearing each time. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publishers, and the authors for digital review copies of the soon-to-be-published books above.

There were a couple of books that I didn't finish. One was Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. read the first 60 pages, didn't care about anyone or what was going on, and set it aside. The other was a book about the history of human emotions that I started listening to on audio. It's read by the author and that kind of thing isn't his strong suit. I couldn't keep listening because he was so annoying. I did request the physical book from the library and brought it home, but by then I had other things I wanted to read, so I returned it unread. It seems like an interesting book that I might revisit sometime.

So that was a long ramble through my reading list for the second half of September. I hope October is an excellent reading month for all of us!

*TBR is 'to be read'

DNF is 'did not finish'

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