Everything I Read In October
A month for many movies, and not as many books, it turns out
Hi everyone! Happy first weekend of November + daylight savings. I’ve been up since 5am, our dog thinks it is noon and my husband is yet to wake up due to delayed bedtime and extended excitement of the Dodgers winning the World Series for the second year in a row. Things should normalize soon-ish, I think.
Anyway, after my month of reading men, I was pretty raring to go for October, so I am somewhat underwhelmed to report that I read four books in October and didn’t finish a fifth one. This makes this month a pretty weak effort for a supposedly book-centric substack, but I have decided I am ok with it. New job, lots of travel, many many movies and TV shows and catch-ups, every once in a while, a slower reading month happens.
Plus, I have things to say about all of the books, so, lets dig in?
The Wilderness by Angela Flounroy - First, a confession: I have been moving Flounroy’s “Turner House” from shelf to bedside table to shelf for several years now and the secret shame I feel about never actually getting to it prompted me to not delay “The Wilderness”, which is hands down one of the buzziest literary fiction releases of the Fall. It is a kaleidoscopic novel of friendship and America in the 2000s-2020s, shared from the perspective of a group of five black women during this pivotal time in both their lives and their country’s. It is somehow both slender and ambitious and while I definitely looked forward to certain POVs more than others, this is a gorgeous, timely book that should be top of TBRs everywhere.
Us Fools by Nora Lange - WOW. Ok, so I picked this up on a whim at a bookstore because the cover quotes included both Jane Smiley and Molly Young and I am thrilled to report they were both right. A comic novel that is also incredibly tragic, this story of two very different sisters set during the American Farm Crisis of the 1980s (and its ripple effects long after) is a that rare book where you laugh, you cry, you learn things, you hate everyone, you feel for everyone, you want to save everyone, you can’t wait for it to be over, but you also just want for Lange to keep writing and writing and writing, because she is, quite possibly, the voice of A generation.
Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman - After all that seriousness of topics, it was time for a mini break - and the new Thursday Murder Club installment fit the bill. The mystery was slightly less fun than some of the previous ones, but the story opens on a big (small?) wedding being planned and those first 40-50 pages are genuinely some of my favorite stuff I’ve read this year. Osman is the cure for the common cold, and it is common cold season.
Girl A by Abigail Dean - I have also been moving “Girl A” from shelf to bedside table to shelf for a few years now, and decided it was time to bite that proverbial bullet and go for it. Now, I don’t say things like this lightly but … this is genuinely one of the most harrowing books I’ve read in a long time (and I don’t shy away from harrowing). Set in the aftermath of one of those “ripped-from-the-headlines” House of Horror situations where a group of siblings is rescued from a lifetime of abuse and neglect, the story centers around Alexandra (or Girl A, as she was known by the press) as she learns her Mother has passed away in prison and named her the executioner of her will. As she reconnects with her siblings and grapples with the legacy of their youth, complex dynamics and all sorts of disturbing, hidden truths come to life. I couldn’t look away. This is not for everyone, but it is pretty spectacularly structured and deeply emphatetically written (read the glowing NY Times review here). I have already picked up Dean’s next book, which seems somehow even more sad and timely? She seems, truly, the real deal.
+ the one I didn’t finish:
Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins - this was my neighborhood book club pick for the month and the world-building was just a little too much for me. But if you like horror fantasy and mythologically inspired tragedy (in many ways this has parallels to both “Girl A” and “Geek Love” by Katherine Dunn) - a good amount of our book club loved it.
What did you read in October? Anything I need to prioritize?