What I’ve read since the summer poll:
I read very little non-fiction this quarter, only two books. The first was The Jane Austen Remedy by Ruth Wilson, which I was really looking forward to but in the event did not resonate with me. I did finish it but confess to some pretty egregious skimming. The next was Benoît Gallot’s mostly charming The Secret Life of a Cemetery: The Wild Nature and Enchanting Lore of Père-Lachaise, which I enjoyed and which is easy to scent given that we just did the community project on death. I’m stealing ockeghem’s choice, Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena.
Fiction reading…I’ve been working on Richard Powers The Overstory, but it remains to be seen whether I will ever finish it. I’ve also started reading Elizabeth Strout, and have finished her first four novels (Amy and Isabelle, Abide With Me, Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys). None of them were cheerful so wear something happy while you read! I also read Deborah Levy’s excellent but creepy Swimming Home.
The bulk of my reading this quarter was on the mystery and spy front. I read Mick Herron’s Clown Town (great fun as always, I do love the Slow Horses series), Ross Thomas The Cold War Swap, 5 more books in Margaret Frazer’s Dame Frevisse series (The Outlaw’s Tale, The Bishop’s Tale, The Boy’s Tale, The Prioress’ Tale and The Reeve’s Tale), plus 4 by Laura Lippman (Baltimore Blues, Another Thing to Fall, The Girl in the Green Raincoat and Hush Hush).