These reading wrap ups are really showing me how quickly the months are flying by. I kept wanting to type “The Books I Read in September” for the title of this post, but that was last month, this is October’s reading wrap up.

I’ve been filming a few book videos lately. I had my fall book haul and I made a November TBR list and have considered doing a reading wrap up video at some point down the road, we’ll see.

Anywho, October was another really good reading month. I feel like I’ve finally figured out the type of books I like to read, I think learning to stop quitting books has been a big factor in this and so has watching BookTube videos. I don’t really understand it, but listening/watching others talk about books has made me more excited to read and helped me narrow down my reading interests.

 

 

Here’s what I read this month:

NON-FICTION

 

Girl, Wash Your Face

I reviewed this book already. I have so many thoughts on it but in short: it’s a funny, entertaining book but should not be taken as any sort of Christian living advice.

 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

This was a book club read at my local library. We don’t normally read non-fiction (I think they pick about one a year), I was so excited to read this one because I love reading about introverts and personalities and I was so incredibly disappointed. This book read like a textbook, and one you wouldn’t actually want to read. I was the only one out of our book club to read the entire book. I’m sad that it took such a fascinating topic and sucked the life out of it. This may be a good read if you have a case of insomnia, otherwise, skip over it.

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

 

Unschooling: The Honest Truth

I saw on Instagram that Marla Taviano had released a new book and I was so excited. I re-read her other homeschool book; Unschooling: A Manifesto, multiple times a year and am so encouraged by it. But I am sad to say that I was very disappointed by this book.

After writing an ebook about her idealistic hopes and dreams for her family’s unschooling adventure, a mom watches those dreams crash and burn. What do you do when life and unschooling don’t turn out like you’d hoped? This ebook tells the story.

 

Seasons of a Mother’s Heart

This was a re-read for me, I am so encouraged when I read this book. I’m not as big of a fan of Sally Clarkson’s newer books but I glean different stuff from this one every time I read it.

A mother’s life is a whirlwind of seasons, changing from one to another without much warning, and then to another the next day. If your heart is prepared, you can adjust to whatever season comes upon you, weathering the changes with grace; if it is not, you will find yourself reeling and twisting in the winds of life, grasping for something or someone to hold onto. But that is the secret to weathering the seasons of life. You need something God s word, and someone Jesus Christ, to hold onto. They are what give you the grace to weather the seasons. Nothing else can…Only the revealed truth of God made alive in your heart through the Holy Spirit can.

 

 

FICTION

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes & The Hound of the Baskervilles

I was “participating” (silently) in Sherlocktober this month. It was a YouTube reading challenge where each week there was a different Sherlock book to read-ish. 3/4 of the books were short stories and they chose only 6 (about half) of the stories from each of the books and then the last week was a full story. I decided to read the entire books instead of just half of the short stories since I was wanting to read through my huge volume of Sherlock books that I have anyway. I love the Sherlock stories, these were all re-reads for me and I enjoyed them just as much the second time around.

 

 

Wuthering Heights

This is a book I was so incredibly surprised to find that I enjoyed. And now I’ve read Emily Bronte’s one and only novel so that’s mildly depressing. I am going to try to read more of the Bronte sisters this winter though, the only other Bronte book I’ve read is Jane Eyre.

Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before. What unfolds is the tale of the intense love between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff’s bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.

 

 

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Someone on Instagram recommended this to me as something Sherlock Holmes-esq. I would say I enjoyed the book but the writing style wasn’t my favorite, I felt like the author was really pushing with the descriptive language, like it was a book that would have made a great short story but he felt the need to add pages of description in to make it a novel.

t is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.

For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

 

Curious about what I am hoping to read in November? Here’s the video, and if you want to subscribe via YouTube you can do that too, I plan on having more book & homeschooling videos up in the future.

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