Never was a cloudy day
In which I fully cannot believe it is already September
I’m back! Not that I went anywhere, really. But I took some time off in the last week of August and I return to you not a renewed woman but a woman who at least has slept more than five hours a night in the last two weeks. Unfortunately my time off did not fill me with grand ideas on what to write, so I figured I’d go back to my roots: an old-fashioned reading roundup.
I read ten books in August, some new to me and some not. In order of completion:
The Magus by John Fowles
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
A Very Merry Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams
Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (reread) (obviously) (lol)
Unfortunately Yours by Tessa Bailey
Secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey
Stay True by Hua Hsu
Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal
A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell
A very romance-heavy month for me! The first two on the list I picked up at the newly-open Ripped Bodice bookstore in Brooklyn, which specializes in romance. It’s a fun, welcoming space, with good selection and knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff. If you’re in Brooklyn (or Los Angeles, where their flagship location is located) I highly recommend checking them out! I picked up the two other Tessa Baileys on this list because I’d enjoyed the first one—unfortunately, I think since they were earlier works of hers I didn’t enjoy them as much. One friend pointed out that all of her sex scenes run something along the lines of “He was BIG and she was TINY” and once I noticed it I couldn’t stop noticing it, if you see what I mean. Lyssa Kay Adams’ Bromance Book Club Series is always great fun—the concept is a group of men in Nashville all learning about women from romance novels.
Strong Poison is always going to be a comfort read for me. I love Dorothy L. Sayers an unreasonable amount; Strong Poison, the first novel to feature Harriet Vane, is one of my favorites. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor. I think it’s actually a great entry point to the Peter Wimsey novels—though if you go back to the beginning and start with Whose Body? you’ll still have a pretty good time.
Nine Liars is the latest Stevie Bell book, and though it was great fun in its own way, I think I’m starting to feel the strain on the premise. Stevie Bell is the heroine of Johnson’s previous four mysteries, and she suffers from anxiety and chronically low self-esteem, both of which manifest themselves in frustrating ways in this book. In some ways, Johnson might just be too good at writing teenagers; the teens in this book behaved in such a teen way that I wanted to send them to their rooms to think about what they’d done. It ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger, which means now I’m anxiously watching her instagram for signs of a sixth book in the series, even as I wish we could fast forward five years to meet a Stevie who has gotten away from her horrible parents, gone to therapy, and grown a modicum of self-preservation.
Stay True and The Hare With the Amber Eyes are both memoirs, and both moved me to tears. The friend who lent me Stay True said, in an almost chipper voice, “You’re gonna feel real sad!” and boy was he correct! It’s Hsu’s story of his closest friend from college, who was brutally murdered, and the way time and grief prey on the way you remember people. It’s a short read but beautifully written, and if you wanna feel Real Sad, you can’t do better. The Hare With the Amber Eyes is a fairly well-known book, new-to-me, about a collection of netsuke passed down to the author through generations of his Jewish family, who were once wealthy bankers in nineteenth century Europe. You can guess how that went. It’s at once a lovingly reconstructed family history and a deeply felt consideration of art and objects and the way we attach importance to them. When the netsuke are revealed intact after WWII I burst into tears, I’m sure alarming the people around me. It reminded me of Tom Stoppard’s play Leopoldstadt, which I saw on Broadway last year.
And finally I started reading Anthony Powell’s mammoth twelve-volume Dance to the Music of Time, starting with A Question of Upbringing. These novels span the early twentieth century, and are someting like Roald Dahl’s Boy if less screamingly funny.
All in all, a great book month. I can’t believe it’s already September. New York is in the grips of Fake Fall, and I wore a jacket to work today, if such a thing can be believed. I can’t wait for Real Fall, which is surely just around the corner.
WHAT I’M READING
I picked up the latest book in Katherine Addison’s Cemeteries of Amalo series, The Grief of Stones, and started it yesterday on a beautiful backyard patio in the first nice weather we’ve had in a while. I love the world of these books, shared with her wonderful novel The Goblin Emperor—I’m currently experiencing the side-effect of wanting to reread that book. (Thankfully I haven’t reread it since… last year.)
HOUSEKEEPING
My first novel, Marrying In, is available for purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and is coming soon to iBooks. If you’ve read it, consider leaving a review—that helps me and the book in the long run!
I’m available to hire for freelance editing services on Reedsy. You can find me on social media on Twitter, Instagram, the A Faster No Discord, and now TikTok. If you buy any of the books linked in this newsletter I receive a small commission at no cost to you.