Friday, October 1, 2021

What We Read in September

Happy October! Last month, I crossed the threshold of reading 100 books - a number I previously wouldn't have thought possible! I've always been a reader, but up until the last couple of years, my books/year total hovered around 80 - which is still A LOT of books! But the last couple of years have been banner years for me - maybe because off the pandemic and having even fewer social plans that usual? Who knows. We'll see if this pace continues into 2022! 

Mom's reads:

I read 10 books in September and split the out into 3 groups: excellent, great, not for me. 

Excellent reads:



I loved all 4 of these books and would fairly broadly recommend them. Count the Ways was a very thoughtful novel about divorce and how it can impact a family. The author gives a disclaimer up front that while certain aspects mirror her real life, it is not autobiographical. Deacon King Kong lived up to its rave reviews. It's about a community of people living in Brooklyn in the 1960s. There is a big cast of characters to keep track of so I'd recommend making notes for yourself or reading it on a kindle - I recently discovered that if you highlight a name on a kindle book, it will show you past references to the character so that feature helped me keep people straight. While We Were Dating is the latest installment in Jasmine Guillory's series which is just delightful! Ground Zero is a middle-grade book about 9/11 that was a very sad and impactful read.

Great Reads:

You can't go wrong with any of these 4 books!

Not for me:

The Other Black Girl was a bit of a slog for me but I kept reading because I knew there was a twist in the first 10% of the book and I wanted to see what happened. I don't know that it was worth sticking with it, though. I am the outlier in not enjoying this book, though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. One Last Stop was enjoyable but at least 100 pages longer than it should have been which made the book drag on and on for me!

The Boys' Reads:

I didn't take any pictures of the boys reading this month! Paul has been enjoying fall/Halloween books. I started to take them out at the beginning of September. I probably should have waited until we were further into the month! I requested a bunch of Halloween and fall-themed books from the library so will pick those up next week to supplement our collection. Room on the Broom and Pumpkin Soup are 2 favorites in our house! Will is starting to enjoy Lift-the-Flap books, like Dear Zoo. But Baby Faces and Good Morning Baby, which have pictures of other babies, remain his favorites and elicit the biggest smiles!

We also did a book swap with our neighbors so it's been fun to read some different books! We exchanged about 15-20 books!

Did you read anything good in September?

3 comments:

Grateful Kae said...

Sounds like some great reads! I really only read 2 books this month. I read the memoir The Glass Castle (which I had started on audio over the summer and abandoned, but then picked up the hard copy and really liked it!) and a non-fiction called Introvert Power.

I read pretty much every day this month, but oftentimes I only carve out enough time to sit and read 10-20 pages of my non-fiction book...so I guess if you do the math, it makes sense as to why I'm not reading 10+ books! :) 268 pages (for example, in Introvert Power) divided by 15 pages a day = approx. 18 days to finish the book. I have some fiction here waiting to start though, which I do tend to read much more quickly, so maybe October will be a little heavier? Probably not though. We are in the midst of several home projects (redoing, painting, organizing, getting concrete coating done, etc in our garage, then all new carpet in bedrooms, painting, etc.) Add that on to work and kids' activities and a swim team volunteer job I just got sucked back into, and sadly, not tons of time left to read! But I'm so happy to at least be consistently reading everyday, even if it's only a little bit. Progress over perfection! I think the consistent habit is most important for me. And, little by little, those pages do add up over the course of a week/month/year.

Those first two on your Excellent Reads list sound really good!

Jeanie said...

I was a slacker reader last month, which I realized as I was getting ready to do my post on it! Only four books -- three mysteries and one novel. I'll post soon!

Stephany said...

I am so glad to see Deacon King Kong in the excellent list! I really, really loved that book, which was surprising for me since it's a bit more literary than I normally go for. But it was just so excellent.

Definitely agree about One Last Stop. No romance needs to be that long! There were so many unnecessary sections that could have been cut out.