Having binged the final two seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel this was the only possible graphic I could use for my September recap. Plus, it’s been quite chilly and grey here. So many big book releases this month and I didn’t read most of them. I’m embracing the new normal of my reading—whatever keeps me turning the pages. In this case, it was lots of fantasy with a mish-mash of other genres. All told, a great reading month!
Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie, #6) by Kate Atkinson
Published by Doubleday
Publication date: August 17, 2024
Bookshop
Death at the Sign of the Rook is Kate Atkinson’s newest Jackson Brodie mystery. It’s fine as an old-fashioned Agatha Christie-like mystery, replete with characters who are annoying, entitled, wily, and sly. It’s a bit of a kitchen-sink read as everything is thrown in, but while it works as light fast reading I’d hoped for more.
Swift River by Essie Chambers: My review
Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski: Review to follow
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
Published by Riverhead
Publication date: September 3, 2024
Bookshop
An incisive novel about a biracial writer and her Black, artist husband, Colored Television is a scathing set up and takedown on race, the entertainment industry, art, and appropriation. All in less than 300 pages amidst the kind of humor that makes me laugh even as I think I shouldn’t be laughing. There is nothing and no one who is sacred or safe from Senna’s biting wit.
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors: My review
A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang
There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America's Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari
Published by Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: June 4, 2024
Bookshop
There is No Ethan: My only recent nonfiction reading and I’m pretty sure I was not the intended audience for this book about catfishing. The author fell prey to a young man online who captured her heart, but soon became emotionally abusive. She uncovered more women he’d done the same thing to and together they found out his true identity. If you’re Gen Z or a Millennial the experience of these women may resonant. My sympathy for someone who falls for a person who refuses to ever meet them, speak with them, or be seen by them is limited.
What kind of reading worked for you in September? Have your reading habits changed this year?
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*I received a free copy of Death at the Sign of the Rook from Doubleday in exchange for an honest review.*
Hi. Thanks for these reviews. I’m about to start the Danzy Senna book – so hoping it’s good. I can say for my September reading that The God of the Woods didn’t work well for me but The Women did … and the Leif Enger novel was pretty good. Meanwhile I sent in my absentee ballot to Virginia and have had to step away from the TV news channels. Step away is all I can say for your sanity.
The Senna book is something else. I’m still not sure how to describe it except that she, like her husband, knows how to push buttons and force thought.
Doing my best on the sanity front, but not hopeful.