Hi, reading friends! Are you enjoying all things fallish where you are? I am always resistant to the dying of summer, but the sweetness of a new season is breaking through. My children are pumped about Trick or Treating and pumpkins on the front porch, and that is the cozy and fun kind of stuff I can delight in. Anything spookier than It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! and I’m out! =) Chillier weather and darker evenings mean we’re getting into the best time of the year for reading and reading and reading. You know I’m okay with that! In my fall reading wrap up I have one new mystery that I can highly recommend to anyone who likes to keep things on the light side when it comes to eeriness (or really, anyone, these books are hugely popular!), along with a couple more new releases that somehow tempted me out of my “old books only!” pursuit, but then I eagerly returned to the vintage books that have my heart. Those reviews are at the end of this post.
New Releases
The Bullet That Missed ~ First up, the light mystery I promised! This is the third installment of the Thursday Murder Club series, my current number one recommendation for light mysteries. I love all the characters and wrestle between speeding through the books to find out what happens and savoring my time with Joyce, Ron, Ibrahaim, and Elizabeth (my favorite character). This third book doesn’t quite hit the mark that the first two did, largely because it focuses on a few side characters that aren’t as enjoyable and the setting is less in the retirement village that is so quaint and inviting (are you getting worried that I am looking forward to senior citizenship in my thirties? Never fear, if you read the books, you’ll understand the appeal of this particular setting). Still, a top notch fun series with another book to come next fall. (Note – PG-13 content rating)
The Librarian Spy – Though quite different from Martin’s The Last Bookshop in London, which was just the kind of book I love – totally absorbing, set in one place, focused on one character, and a WWII home front story – many historical fiction fans will love The Librarian Spy. Set half in occupied WWII France and half in Lisbon, it falls into the wrenching “for fans of The Nightingale” category. The Lisbon half was gorgeous, and though I generally dislike split/alternating storylines, I can see the contrast of the two settings as critical to the story. The main characters took a while to care for, and I confess I had a hard time separating the main character in this book with the one in The Last Bookshop in London, but the second half of the novel was riveting. Violent elements in this wartime story would make it rated R on a movie rating scale, but the language and other adult content are on the PG level. Martin’s end notes about her research were one of my favorite parts of the whole book.
A Sky Painted Gold – When an author manages to write a book that lives up to the back cover claim of “I Capture the Castle meets Gatsby,” she is on the new favorite author list immediately! Laura Wood’s 2018 novel gets five stars from me. I was pleasantly surprised with the symbolism woven throughout the book, and almost every bit of this novel was a lighthearted joy. I’m now on a quest to track down all her subsequent novels. (Side note – I love, love the book I Capture the Castle but if you are only familiar with the 2003 movie, please try to erase that from your mind and read the book instead!).
Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life From Scratch – The Maine setting and writing style of this memoir was surprisingly gripping, keeping me, a person who does not love cooking, rapidly turning pages. Finding Freedom, was an inspiring read in an American Dream, pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of way, but felt a little empty by the end. Content warning for lots of language.
The Wedding Dress Circle – This newest release from Jennifer Ryan follows the trend of The Kitchen Front as a nice, light British home front story in WWII, though a tiny bit on the too sweet, predictable side. I still like The Spies of Shilling Lane best of all her novels.
Vintage Reads
Parnassus on Wheels – This sweet and snappy book published in 1917 about a farm woman who one day abruptly decides to leave her writer/farmer brother on a whim and go on a journey for a change was just lovely. The illustrations were so perfect, I highly recommend a paper copy over Kindle if you decide to read this. Also, definitely read the introduction in order to understand some of the dated pop culture references. I probably would’ve never heard of this book if it hadn’t been mentioned a few times in Sarah Clarkson’s Book Girl, which I highly recommend.
The Foolish Gentlewoman – Margery Sharp 1940s books are a dose of peppery British aristocratic fun with a margin of social criticism that is present but doesn’t overwhelm the story. Her characters are always slightly unexpected, likable though flawed. Sharp’s tendency to leave the situations in her novels not quite to the reader’s satisfaction keep her books from falling into the romance category and more in the comedy category. I can’t quite pin her genre down, but I always enjoy it. =)
The Half Crown House – Don’t you just love a book that happens entirely in one day? I can get into that kind of slow unroll of characters and settings, because by midway through the novel, you can’t help but feel you’re right there in that day with the characters. A one-day-book proves the truth that our lives our made of minutes and our minutes are all connected so deeply to and built upon all the other minutes that have happened to us and our ancestors over years and years. Helen Ashton is an artist I’ve never read, and I loved her detailed writing style about the history of a British estate and its family, and her ability to weave a story of a whole family together in an old house in the course of one of its days. Fans of The Remains of the Day or One Find Day should check out this book.
Winona’s Pony Cart and Carney’s House Party – I love all Maud Hart Lovelace’s books and these did not disappoint. I have officially read everything she has written at least once now! Somehow, I didn’t discover Betsy-Tacy and the rest of Lovelace’s series until I had little girls of my own, but even as an adult I totally enjoy everything she wrote. My oldest daughter (13) finished all the Betsy books this summer and also highly recommends them. If you’re a fan of the Anne of Green Gables series, dive into Lovelace as soon as you can.
Jayber Crow – This 2000 novel really doesn’t count as vintage, but it is old world and firmly in the classic category, so I’m putting it here. I didn’t love Jayber Crow as a character as much as I adored Hannah Coulter, but who can read Berry’s insightful work without being changed somehow? I will never go down an interstate without mulling over how its arrival split neighbor from neighbor again, and that was just a side note to the story that contained so many thoughts on the changes in a post WWII Kentucky community during Jayber’s lifetime spent in a small town. Berry’s work always makes me ache inside at the rush and steam rolling modern age we live in now, and wish for untouched woods and fields and a paradise lost.
And a confession: I re-read Anne of Avonlea, for maybe the tenth time, maybe the 20th, who’s counting. There’s nothing like a good friendly book for end-of-the-day recovery from the stressful pace of modern life.
And that’s it for this reading round up! Next week, I’ll post the read-alouds we’ve done so far this school year. Until then, happy reading!
I adored this novel about a naive and endearing young orphan girl in England in the 1940s. Cluny Brown is just barely an adult who is perfectly happy in her own skin but is driving her class aware family crazy. They decide she should “go into service,” by becoming a housemaid in an old family in the country. Her optimism and ability to make friends with anyone causes the whole plan to backfire a bit. It’s a lighthearted novel with a rather unexpected ending. I would have ended it differently, but I still give this one 4 stars. (Side note: I discovered this book because I was looking into the book The Rescuers, which was also written by Margery Sharp and then made into the 1977 Disney move. Can’t believe I’ve never heard of this writer before last month!) I just ordered 
well, showing them love in exquisite ways that somehow pointed them in the right direction without condemning them. Three stories especially stood out to me, about times when her almost-adult children were making unwise decisions. Each child is brought around not by lectures, but by undying support and devotion. I can’t recommend this book enough for moms! It’s a delightful read for anyone, really. Forbes’ family is from Norway, and after immigrating to San Francisco, her mother was fiercely loyal to the city. I haven’t ever read an account of European immigrants settling on the West Coast. Maybe because of the location or the bright outlook of the writer, but I felt this immigrant story didn’t have the gloom that many of the ones set in NYC or Chicago portray.