Wrapping Up August | A Clean Desk; Substack Launch; Weekly Reading Summary

“Autumn is my season, dear; it is, after all, the season of the soul.” – Virginia Woolf

I saw this quote somewhere on social media and fell in love. And okay, Autumn isn’t here yet but my imagination is already buried deep in a library, surrounded by books and notebooks. We’ve been settling into our school routine and I’m working on ways to renew my own independent learning and writing practices, which I’ll be sharing as the weeks progress.

The opening picture in this post is a library at Mansfield College, a school at Oxford University. It’s not exactly what my study space looks like but I’m sharing my desk below. It’s not any sort of an aesthetic but it’s practical and meets its demands. I’m thrilled to have a desk of my own because there are some days that feel as though I have no control over anything. But for now, this is mine:

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Last week I gave myself a goal to clean up this space. This is as far as I got and still – I’m pretty happy with it. There’s room for my notebooks, stationery supplies, and drinks. The cords will be dealt with another day (with a little bit of luck) but they’re not really in my way when I’m journaling or typing, so I’m going to call this a major win. Even better: my desk has stayed in this condition for almost a week. Win #2!

It’s still a bit cluttered in some places and there are random balls of yarn and unfinished knitting projects floating around but friends: this is about as good as it gets around here. I can still pretend I’m at a table at some picturesque library at Oxford, researching and writing about some obscure fact I found buried in a book of letters that hasn’t been read in hundreds of years. (And yes. That’s where I’d like to be,)

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Thank you to everyone who signed up for my email list over on Substack. I’m excited about all of the possibilities I’ve been dreaming up and am hoping to make it a place where I share my love of notebooking as well as more thoughtful essays on some of the prize reading I’ve been doing. And if you’re not signed up and are interested, it’s never too late and it’s free. I’d love to see you there!

I got the name, A Dark Sustenance of Ink, from one of my favorite books: A Ghost in the Throat. There are so many themes within this book that speak to me, but one of my favorite scenes is when the main character finally pries her baby away from breast feeding and is able to steal a few moments for her own research and reading, which she calls consuming “my own dark sustenance of ink.” I love that! It’s stayed with me and I’m thrilled to use it as a title for my Substack. I am certain that some of the themes from A Ghost in the Throat will be prominent in these essays.

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And speaking of consuming a dark sustenance of ink, here’s my updated reading calendar from StoryGraph. Logging my reading each evening continues to be so much fun. I’m sure at some point I’ll get over it, but the last three weeks of this calendar are a pretty accurate representation of how I’ve spent my reading time:

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Finished this week:

I was delighted to squeeze in The Summer Book before the end of August for a multitude of reasons; the two biggest are: 1) August is Women in Translation month and I wanted to honor that; and 2) this book is set in the summer and ends with the family closing up their cottage on the island in August. Perfect timing!

This is a collection of short stories about a young girl, Sophia, and her grandmother who summer on an island in the Gulf of Finland.* A lot went over my head, I know, and I mostly enjoyed this for the setting. It’s pretty short and a lovely read on a late summer day.

Despite enjoying the atmospherics of The Summer Book, the highlight of the week was finishing A Day of Fallen Night. I’ve been making steady progress over the last several weeks and became more invested in the characters with every page finished. This is the second book in the Roots of Chaos series – the first was The Priory of the Orange Tree, which was my first foray into epic fantasy.** I am gobsmacked by the complex world Samantha Shannon has built — and at such a young age. Y’all — this series is a commitment but completely worth the time and effort it takes to read. I was delighted to learn that the author has sold a third book in the series and what a relief – I don’t want to leave this world!

It’s difficult to describe, but there are dragons, witches, epic legends, magical trees, hidden swords, and tender romantic couplings. It’s East meets West meets South meets North and requires everyone to give each other the benefit of the doubt and work together in order to save the world. It’s perfection. I hope you give it a try!

Currently Reading:

After finishing A Day of Fallen Night, I felt myself floundering. I started My Brilliant Friend, Bone Season #2, and The Briar Club – and abandoned them all. But now I’m settling into two novels that feel like a good fit right now:

Orbital by Samantha Harvey: on the Booker Prize Longlist. This is a slim novel and I’m on page 50. It’s about a group of astronauts on a space station. The astronauts are from all around the world and we see Earth and space through their eyes. I’m still trying to uncover what the author is trying to say, but the biggest theme that keeps bubbling up for me is the ability to see a situation from a higher point of view; how we can watch a gathering storm slowly build energy, watch it move through its trajectory, and then leave it behind. Very Pema Chödrön, but I also have to believe it’s something about climate change. I have no idea if I’ll still be thinking of that by the end of the book, but it’s at the front of my mind now.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin – This is my first book by this author, whom I’ve seen described as a master of world building. I am so excited to have started it and to be loving it because this author has another series that’s on my radar. In this one, a young woman is summoned by her grandfather after her mother mysteriously dies. She’s told that she is now competing to be his sole heir as ruler of the kingdom. This is not a role that Yeine has trained for nor wants, but she has no choice. The halls of the palace of full of captured gods and backstabbing family and Yeine doesn’t know who to trust.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten, but it’s intriguing and I’m hoping to read more this weekend.

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This weekend will be similar to last: working at the library, cooking & cleaning, keeping three children alive. If I’m lucky, there will be some quiet early mornings at my desk and snippets of time available for reading. My fingers are crossed. I hope your weekend is full of exactly what you need. Take care!

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* Bookish serendipity: Held (which you know I adored) also had a vignette set in The Gulf of Finland.

** This is not meant to be shade thrown at the Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros books that I read earlier this year. I enjoyed those romantasy books tremendously. And while there are some romantic storylines in The Roots of Chaos, I wouldn’t classify these books as romantasy. So I believe that this series is my first sincere foray into this genre as an adult (other than the Tolkien books I read as a teenager).