September was a strange little month in many ways, but I was happy to see it as it signals the beginning of the possibility of autumn and the greatness that usually comes with that. It’s still stinkin’ hot here in Texas (and probably will stay that way until November or so, perhaps), but it’s not quite the withering temperatures that we have in the summer. Hooray for air conditioning!

So – to the books. Two weeks were busy with my mum who came to visit. Such fun, but the reading time definitely drops when she visits (mainly because we’re having a lot of fun doing other stuff together). So – good problem to have!

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea – Barbara Demick (NF) (2010)

Cocktail Time – P. G. Wodehouse (1958) (F) – no post, but typical Wodehousian stuff. Fun to read without demanding high brain cell usage. 🙂

Wish You were Here – Stewart O’Nan (2002) (F) Post to come, perhaps. This wasn’t quite the stellar read that I was expecting, but it may have been a “wrong book, wrong time” book though. I really enjoyed the sequel to this called Emily, Alone, though…

Total number of books read in September: 3

Total number of pages read: 1035 pages (av. 345 pages)

Fiction/Non-Fiction: 1 F and 2 NF.

Library books vs. books I owned (and thus removed from the home abode): 2 library books and 1 owned books. 0 e-books this month. (Total of 23 books off TBR this year.)

Speaking of the TBR pile, I’ve started a low-key book buying ban. (Obviously, as you can see from the previous post, this was implemented post-book buying spree last weekend. So – starting — now.)

Oh, and I have an ongoing project with the NYT’s Smarter by Sunday book which is fabulously interesting. It’s broken into short sections (good for a weekend reading) about a wider range of esoteric subjects, some of which I am familiar, and a lot I’m not. For example, so far I’ve read about the Iliad and the Odyssey (which I’ve never read), both the two World Wars, and then the origins of American popular music and Tin Pan Alley. Who knows what little nuggets I’ll get to read about this weekend. Whatever it is, I’m looking forward to it. It’s good to be learnin’.

Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes and failures had been wiped clean by summer. ~Wallace Stegner.