September Wrap-Up and October Goals

September reads

 

September Wrap-Up

• Finished: 5
• Continued but not finished: 2
• DNF: 1
• Total pages read: 2,205
• Average rating: 3.666

September was a great reading month! The photo does not show it, though, as three of the five books I read were e-books. There weren’t any five star reads, but September wasn’t a bad month (although I did DNF one book after just one chapter - the writing could have been edited better, and the story didn't interest me enough to keep reading).

I read more books than I had planned and finished two novels. Oh Dear, Maria! by Abigail Ted (4/5 stars) is a humorous Regency pastiche about a self-centered and melodramatic young woman who is forced to marry a man she hates. The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh (4/5 stars) is an young adult fantasy inspired by Korean folklore about a girl who wants to save her country and family by throwing herself into the sea and becoming the Sea God’s bride. Click the links to read longer reviews of the novels.

Non-Fiction Reads

I also finished three non-fiction reads. The Ancestor Syndrome: Transgenerational Psychotherapy and the Hidden Links in the Family Tree by Anne Ancelin Schützenberger (*Amazon affiliate link) is a psychology book about how the trauma that people experience affects their children and grandchildren and how unprocessed traumatic events can manifest themselves in subsequent generations. As a non-fiction book intended for psychotherapists, it’s not the easiest read to a lay person, but I did gather from it some interesting insights that I found helpful as an author. You can find a blog post where I share some of the insights I learned from the book here.

The second non-fiction book I read was How to Write a Thesis by Umberto Eco (*Amazon affiliate link). The book was originally published in Italian in 1977, and the English translation I read is from 2015. The translator chose to keep all the original information, including a chapter on how to typewrite the thesis. So clearly some of the information in the book is outdated in the modern computer era, but that doesn’t mean the book isn’t helpful. Whether you use a computer or index cards like Eco, the basics of doing research and writing a thesis have stayed the same, which makes Eco’s book still valuable for anyone writing a thesis.

The third non-fiction book I read in September was Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me (*Amazon affiliate link). This is a collection of essays about feminism, gendered violence, sexual abuse, and mansplaining (the term inspired by the titular essay, although not coined by Solnit herself). I had wanted to read this book for a long time, and when I saw it in my local library, I knew I had to pick it up. The essays made a thought-provoking read, although Solnit’s optimism in some of her essays seems premature in the current political climate.

 

October Hopefuls

October hopefuls

Besides the five books I finished, I’m currently (still) reading Fyodor Dostyevski’s The Idiot and Perttu Immonen’s Suomalainen historia (a non-fiction book about Finnish history in the 19th and 20th centuries). I’ll finally finish both in early October. Besides the two books I’m in the middle of, my goal is to read five books (although I’m only planning to finish three of them).

October is Victober, which is a month-long challenge for reading Victorian literature. Earlier this year, I had planned to join the challenge, but I have too many books in my physical TBR that I want to read first. Luckily, one of the books in my physical TBR was written in the Victorian era. That’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so that will be the sole book I’m reading for Victober. Maybe some other year I can participate with several books!

I’m planning to read two other novels in October. The Court Dancer is a historical fiction by a Korean author Kyun-sook Shin. I’m also excited to finally read The Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. In addition, I’m reading two non-fiction books, Eusebius’ The Church History and a Finnish handbook for book editors.

The photo also includes The Howl's Moving Castle that I initially intended to read in October, but unfortunately I had to return it to library before I had time to start it. Some other time, then!

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You can hear more about my September reads and October TBR in a recent video I posted on Youtube:

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*As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases