M. Suzanne Terry

YAY THE -EMBER MONTHS HAVE BEGUN!

This is my favorite third of the year. Soon, it will be sweater and boot weather. Well, not SOON soon – this is Texas, after all – but relatively so. I wore layers today anyway. I will usher in fall through sheer force of will. I already have half my costume ready for Halloween. I. Am. Ready.

This is also about when I start thinking about goals for the upcoming year. My favorite planner is going to launch this month, and I think I already know what my theme word for next year is going to be (Maybe. There are a few contenders, but one has a sizable lead). But before that happens, I have some goals to finish up this year. I’m posting a series about what I’m learning about living a lush life in October, and I really want to finish most of my reading challenges. So here we go!

Book Clubs

A couple of my book clubs are starting spooky season early, and I approve. Actually, a couple of my book clubs lean toward spooky almost perpetually, so really, this is not a big shift.

• Mrs. March by Virginia Feito
• The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
• I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
• Broken (in the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson
• The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh
• The Decoy Girlfriend by Lillie Vale
• How To Read Now by Elaine Castillo

Reading Challenges

• Modern Mrs. Darcy’s (Summer) Reading Challenge
  • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
  • Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
  • Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan
  • Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow
• The 52 Book Club
  • Book with an alternate title – The Golden Compass (or, as it was originally published in the UK, Northern Lights) by Philip Pullman 
  • Author published in more than one genre – I’ve enjoyed her adult novels (romance? Chick lit? Anyway, steamy stories I really enjoyed), and now I’m going to try her YA sci-fi. When the Sky Fell on Splendor by Emily Henry
  • Book longer than 500 pages – The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
  • A book picked based on its spine – The Saturday Book: 26, edited by John Hadfield. See the book next to the bottom of the stack in the picture above, and if you think the spine is something, you should click on the link and see the cover. This may be the acquisition from Booked Up (RIP?) of which I am the proudest. 
  • Job title in title – Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon
• Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge
  • An award-winning book from the year I was born – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
  • The book that’s been on my TBR list the longest (and still is there….even though I meant to read this back in January…) – The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  • A book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen – Good Omens by Neil Gaiman
  • Winner of the Women’s Prize – The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
• GirlXOXO Keyword Challenge
  • Keyword: Salt – Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
  • Literally any of the ones I haven’t finished yet from previous months.
• POPSUGAR Reading Challenge
  • Social horror book – Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
  • Sapphic book – Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
  • Book title that starts with the last letter of the last book read (a somewhat difficult category when you read several books at the same time – also possible/probable that I’m overthinking it) – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (cross-post from Read Harder – starting after The Final Girl Support Group)
  • #booktoc rec – Happy Hour by Marlow Granados
  • Two books set in twin cities – the Tokyo book complementing my earlier NYC read (The Personal Librarian) –  Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

What are you reading this month?