Bookish Chatter | A Start on October!

I haven’t yet gushed about the arrival of October. I am thrilled that it’s here and hoping for more seasonal temperatures in the next few weeks. This last week has been much warmer than typical October weather (in the 80s) and I’m ready to say goodbye to summer. But we can definitely see the leaves changing and the days getting shorter, so I know the cooler weather is on its way.

I’m “late” with this post again – I’m running late with almost everything lately! (I’m working hard to adjust my expectations to my current life.) But I’m very excited to share this week’s reading with you. It’s an eccentric list: one buzzy new book, one title published in the 1940s, and three chapter book readalouds. Let the October reading begin!

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I read Brideshead Revisited because it’s believed that The Secret History is the American version of this book. I can see the parallels – a middle class person observing the habits and daily life of the extraordinarily wealthy, but I can say that Donna Tartt took her version to an extreme that this one never reached.

This is book is set mostly in the 1920s and is about Charles Ryder, a young man at Oxford who befriends Sebastian Flyte, a wealthy man who feels stifled by his family. We follow the Flyte family drama through Ryder’s eyes. Despite all of Sebastian’s foibles, he was the most likable character in the whole book and I found Charles to be completely unlikable. Their relationship is ambiguous; I assumed it was sexual but the author never said so directly, which is exactly how it would have been in the 1920s.

This book was enjoyable but I wish there were more scenes at Oxford. I’d love recommendations for books set at Oxford and Cambridge, if you have them!

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The Vaster Wilds is Lauren Groff’s newest effort and it was a strange little book! It’s the story of a young girl who escapes a colonial settlement after enduring a lifetime of abuse. She desperately wants to live and goes through the most excruciating circumstances to do so. While trekking through the forest – to where? – she grapples with her religious beliefs in ways that I could relate.

I struggled with how to rate this book on Goodreads because my feelings contradicted themselves. I found the writing to be comforting and lulling, despite the terror and desperation infused into every sentence. And it felt like Groff squeezed her most closely held confusions onto the page. And still — this journey was excruciating and never really crescendoed for me. Does that make sense? I decided on 4 stars.

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Mary Bowser and the Civil War Spy Ring was so much fun! This little novel was based on a true story: Mary Bowser was a Union spy during the Civil War and infiltrated the Confederate White House. She pretended to be a not-very-smart maid but, thank to her photographic memory, passed along information on almost every document that moved across Jefferson Davis’s desk. This book tells young readers her story and gives them a puzzle to solve. At the end, Mary had to leave her post quickly in order to save her life but she left her precious journal behind. She leaves the reader clues about where to find it. The book includes a spycraft kit to help solve that mystery.

Bryce adored this book. He was entranced by every word and every picture, seeking out clues to the mystery. There are a couple more of these books on his history curriculum and I’m looking forward to getting to them!

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Thanks to our timing, Bronwyn and I finished two Molly books in the last week. Molly’s Surprise was her Christmas book. Her family is trying to get excited about Christmas, but they still haven’t heard from her father who is serving as a doctor in England during WWII. They’re not so interested in getting gifts from him but they desperately want to know that he’s okay. Will they receive word from him in time to be able to enjoy Christmas Day?

And we met a new friend in Happy Birthday, Molly. Emily is an English girl sent to stay with her aunt in the states in order to stay safe during the war. She stays with Molly’s family for a bit while her aunt recovers from pneumonia. Emily is reserved and nervous about being in a new place and frightened about what’s happening to her family back home, so she is slow to warm to Molly and her friends. Molly learned a lot about respecting other people’s feelings and understanding how our trauma in our pasts can affect the way we act. This one might be my favorite Molly book so far.

I have a confession: I wish Molly was Jewish. I think the American Girl series had an opportunity to explore American Jewish life during WWII with Molly!

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I think this is the last post I’ll be able to publish this week! I’m planning to be back on Monday with an update on my October decluttering challenge. Whatever your weekend holds, I hope it’s full of exactly what you need. Take good care!