Books of the Moment: September

Hello fellow readers and book devourers!

Welcome to your favorite book reviewing blog. Since everyone is sooo obsessed with "summer reading" I've decided to take a stand. Introducing FALL READING which is the best reading. In the summer, you're sweaty and you drop your book on the subway and it's too hot to enjoy it and you're never home at night because it's too hot and you're at the movies instead because they have air-conditioning and you're wondering why bookstores don't have air-conditioned reading pods that you can hang out in. But the days of suffering are gone! Because what goes better with the crisp pages of a new book than the crisp leaves of fall? Nothing. Shh you weren't supposed to answer. I know tea goes well with books too, thank you for pointing it out. Okay moving on. In order to celebrate Fall Reading than with a good ol' fashioned list of summer reading flops and promising fall books?

Summer Flops:

Eligible

This is a "modern take on Pride and Prejudice" and is also the most disappointing book I have ever read. I don't mean to be an Austen snob, but this is an embarrassment. Liz lost all of her spark and the fight and lovable wit that made us adore her, replaced by a clueless, sad writer at a "women's magazine" who didn't have an ounce of our Liz Bennet in her. I finished it, because I kept hoping it would get better, but I feel like I need to read Pride and Prejudice right now to cleanse myself of this trash. The attempts at "modern" upgrades to the original storyline were in ill taste at best and offensive at worst. I wish I had never wasted my time reading this.

Station Eleven

While I enjoyed the world-building that went on in this book, and the interwoven story lines, I felt like the plot never really went anywhere, but treaded water in the same few square feet of the pool. Another dystopian book, this work had the benefit of a fleshed out back story and influence of theater as well as religion to bolster it. However, the impressively built world left the characters lacking, and characters make the story. I finished this book feeling as though I knew the landscape, but I barely knew any of the characters that I had travelled through it with. And to me, a story without characters isn't a story at all.

Promising Fall Newbies:

A Discovery of Witches

I recently started this book and only a few days later, I'm pages away from finishing the 400+ page heft of it. This book falls in the fantasy, sci-fi category for me, but I love those books sprinkled in to more books of "this world." I feel a little guilty reading this at times because of its similarities to Twilight, a very juvenile book (which I begrudgingly confess I loved in middle school), but this book is eons more mature and complex than its star-crossed-lovers-feat.-vampire counterpart.  There are questions of identity, family, loyalty, academia, origins, and love in this book. In my opinion, it's the perfect book for fall, if you're in the mood to travel to England and France and Upstate New York, while learning about the world of witches and deamons and vampires, underscored by a love story.

Infinite Home

I haven't started this book yet, but have heard good things. It takes place in a brownstone in Brooklyn, and promises quite a cast of characters. 

Today Will be Different

The new work from the author of Where'd Ya Go Bernadette, (highly praised in one of my previous Books of the Moment posts), I cannot wait to start this one. The author's uniquely eclectic writing style intrigued me in her first novel, and I'm interested to see how she builds on that in this work.

Tried and True Fall Favorites:

The Night Circus

This book was very popular a few years ago when it was released, and I remember loving it but don't remember many particulars, other than many magical scenes in cafes and in countless circus tents. There may have even been a sweater or two mentioned. I find myself drawn to magic in the fall for my reading, I'm not sure why. It's actually probably because Halloween is when we all entertain the idea that witches and wizards and other things that go bump in the night might actually exist.

The Harry Potter Series

Come on. Obviously. There's no better time to read about a school in a castle with magic and robes and wands and feasts and candles than in the fall and winter.

Pride and Prejudice

As I said, I need to cleanse myself from Eligible. But this is also a wonderful book for the fall, because of its budding romances, balls, and expansive English countryside.


What do you love to read in the fall?

Happy reading!

September Resolutions

Here comes September. September brings new school years, new pencils, chillier air, and excitement for a  new season.

Fall is my favorite season for many reasons. Mainly the cooler temperatures, sweaters, wardrobes of brown and plum, and the litany of school supplies. Fresh notebooks still thrill me like they did on the first day of English class in the sixth grade. But I think what I like most about fall is the anticipation of settling in. We're saying goodbye to the unexpectedness of summer, with it's warm late nights and last minute plans. Fall brings more stability, more comfort. We get ready to settle in to new grades at school, colder days, and the approaching holiday season. For me, this fall brings more settling in and more new beginnings than ever before. I'm moving into a new apartment, with a new roommate, and starting a new job all in September. I thought I was done with the start of new school year's with their new dorms and assignments, but it seems the days of fall beginnings aren't over for me yet.

Forget New Year's Resolutions, made in the dark of winter under the optimistic fuzz of champagne. Let fall bring with it new ambitions and goals for you. Settle in, get cozy, have long talks under blankets and around fireplaces. Settle into yourself, getting to know yourself more as time slows down and meetups at bars turn into dates in warm coffee shops in the late afternoon. Treat yourself to a fresh notebook and a new pen, and map out some goals for yourself for the last few months of the year. Here are some of mine:

1. Kill it at the new job, mainly by being hyper organized. 
2. Make a home that feels homey. 
3. Cook food that excites me (aka not spaghetti)
4. Go to the gym--it's just plain good for you
5. Write dat novel. 
6. Read before bed. Fall books are the best books. 
7. Look nice. A good hairdo and a put-together outfit makes me feel like I can kick ass. 
8. Take more pictures. This is a time in my life where a lot is changing so fast that I barely know what's going on. I know I'll want to take a minute and reflect on it years down the road. 
9. Call or text a friend everyday. Getting older means getting farther from friends. In this day and age, there's no excuse not to be connected. 
10. Eat breakfast. This is a small one, but it helps me feel ready to tackle the day when I walk out the door. Plus, it's a moment to plan my day and have a moment to myself before heading out into the crazy world. 

Happy fall :)