October Reading

I recall one particular Halloween spent in a pizza parlor.  The lights were low, and we ate our pizza and went home after the trick-or-treating was finished. Another year, I walked in the costume parade through our school in jeans and an oversized t-shirt that had a simple face on it and the words "scary guy." Yet another year my mother picked me up from school just as the beautiful Halloween treats were being taken out. Suffice it to say we didn't celebrate Halloween in my family.  I didn't suffer too much by this, though my child's heart envied the beautiful costumes, the free candy, and the playful treats at school parties.

As an adult, I fully understand why my mom chose for us not to participate, and I appreciate the Christian traditions of All Saints Day and Reformation Sunday at the end of October/beginning of November.  In the Czech Republic, All Souls' Day is celebrated on November 2. People pilgrimage to their family grave plots and light candles. My in-laws do this quite thoroughly, traveling to three different towns to visit the family grave sites, pray, leave flowers, and light candles. My husband and I visit the grave in our town, but we also carve pumpkins at the end of October as well.  (My husband grows them in his orchard, and it is a nice autumnal activity to invite friends to.)

All the above is just preface to talk about October books. Though Halloween is even more remote now than it was for me as a child, I still appreciate the atmosphere of October, as autumn comes on in earnest and melancholy can't help but make itself known. More and more, I appreciate marking the changes in the year through different rhythms. Summer progresses from strawberries to cherries to blueberries to plums to chestnuts and autumn. Chestnuts fall, leaves turn, and candles are lit in the cemetery.  Days get shorter, snow comes, and Advent gets us ready for Christmas. A new year is rung in and sleds are pulled about or skis strapped on. Just when you can't bear it any more, the first snowdrops appear, snow melts, and spring flowers make their appearances one by one. I am noticing these changes and also trying to honor and celebrate them through what I cook, what activities we do as a family, and what I read.

I love a well-timed read: books about gardening in the spring, school campuses in the autumn, snowy wilderness in the winter, and Christian books at Lent. This October, I'm indulging melancholy and mystery through my reading, and I'm happy to reveal some of those books here:

My first read going into October was Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. It was a spontaneous choice in my Libby app, but the book was available and I had time to spare. For those unfamiliar, the book begins with the line, "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." What unfolds is not what I would call a mystery, though Lydia's parents and siblings are all trying to figure out what happened to Lydia.  Gently easing between the perspectives of the family members and their own private histories, we see the significance of those things "never told" and eventually learn, of course, what has happened to Lydia.

Whereas the above is actually quite gentle and quiet in its overall narrative, my second October read had more of a spooky element. I picked up Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go also on impulse through the Libby app.  Anne Bogel had featured it in an episode of her One Great Book podcast, and I instantly recalled the film trailer (though I hadn't seen the film) and I was intrigued. As you begin reading the recollections of a young woman in the 1990's in England, you see that something about her boarding school childhood is odd.  It compelled me to read on and figure out what this boarding school was and what it was preparing its students for. Ishiguro skillfully writes in a way that gets you thinking about society and the implications of possible courses of action without succumbing to shock-factor disturbing description.  His use of voice is quite skillful, and it's definitely a book I will continue thinking about.

Today I finished Agatha Christie's They Do It With Mirrors (again on Libby). I've been enjoying returning to her books, trying to parcel them out in between other books so as not to get tired of her. Miss Marple is conveniently invited to stay at Carrie Louise's home after a mutual friend, Ruth, has alerted Miss Marple to her own feeling that something isn't quite right. A murder occurs, and the reader together with Inspector Curry and Miss Marple puzzles out how the murder could have occurred and who would have wished to do it. In time, it won't likely stand out as the best of Christie's books, but it was still an entertaining read.  The Hallowe'en Party still stands on my shelf waiting to be read this month.

A nice follow-up to Agatha Christie is Strong Poison from Dorothy Sayers. I've just read a few pages of this 1930 mystery, but I'm sure it won't disappoint.  On deck is Daphne de Maurier's Rebecca (1938); I first heard of it only a couple of years ago and since have seen posters for dramatic versions of it and heard frequent references to the novel.  It has elevated itself to a book I know I'll love--but that requires actually reading it.  I read only the first few pages, and the atmosphere of this Gothic novel just screams "October read."

Among my other reading that isn't so "Octobery" is a short biography of J.R.R. Tolkein, a couple of parenting books, and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The last of these has proved to be such a fascinating book that it has me traveling to a local farm to buy milk and using it to make my own cream cheese and yogurt at home (mozzarella coming soon). It combines the fascination of plant-life with the eerie facts of large-scale meat and vegetable production. Moreover, there are a smattering of recipes, which can also be found on animalvegetablemiracle.com .

 Cheers to you this autumn, whether you're collecting leaves or reading mysteries. Let me know what great books you pick up this month.