The TBR list grows exponentially. As much as I’m reading these days (for example, I finished 15 books in September), I still don’t usually make it all the way through my monthly TBR list. I’m ok with this. I look at these lists more as a “I’m going to start these books this month,” which is a better portrayal of what actually happens. This is how I get 40 books on my “currently reading” list on Goodreads, because I start them and then don’t take them off until I either finish them or decide I’m not interested enough to do so (rare, but it happens).
So here are the things I’m interested in starting this month:
Joy
The joy selections this month are books I meant to start in past months but haven’t quite yet:
Community Reading
This section used to be reserved strictly for book club selections, but I find that the same spirit of camaraderie exists in less structured book discussions. So I’m also including things that I and a few book-loving friends are passing around (and thus gushing about together), things I’m reading for work, etc.
- The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
- Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston
- Noise by Darin Bradley
- Sistersong by Lucy Holland
- The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
- Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond
- You by Caroline Kepnes
- Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram
- Wellbeing by Tom Rath and Jim Harter
Additional Reads
These are books I’m may start/finish because they’re the next up in a series (big fan of series – more on that later in the month) or because someone is waiting for them so I have to take them back to the library soon or simply because it’s spooky season so I’m in the mood for witchy/gothic/horror/suspense themes.
- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
- Feral Creatures by Kira Jane Buxton
- The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman and Sam Kieth
- Autumn by Ali Smith
- The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
- Vengeful by V.E. Schwab
- I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver
- Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
- The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J Ryan Stradal
It’s also likely that I’ll keep bingeing the next Phryne Fisher mystery (Greenwood), Cork O’Connor mystery (Krueger), or the latest Paisley Sutton or Harvey Beckett cozy (Bookens), and I may finally finish Braiding Sweetgrass (so good!) this month.
What are you reading this month? Let’s gush about it together!
I’m talking about books for 31 days (and – let’s be real – the rest of my life).
M. Suzanne Terry 
I just started istening to the audiobook version of Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley. The book is on the Chirp platform. If Chirp is selling a book by an author I like for less than $5.00, whether or not I have read their work, I will gnerally consider buying it. I’ve read one or two books in Mosley’s
Easy Rawlings series and perhaps a movie version and as he is the best known Black writer in the noir detective genre, I snapped this book up right away and didn’t wait long before starting to read it.
Several people have recommended the Easy Rawlins series to me. I’ll have to check it out!