let september find me reading and resting

my autumn desktop

In an effort to consciously eliminate all pressure and stress from my life, I don't give myself lists of books I have to read, nor force myself to participate in any readathons/groups that don't really call to my soul. 

With that in mind, the end of the year is approaching. I don't ever have any set number of books to read for the year, or book goals, or anything like that. Reading is truly a wellness activity for me. It's less about what and how much I read, and more about making the time to read and how I feel when I read, reflect, and write about what I read.

Autumn is the second January.

A time that feels like a fresh start and a new beginning.

Personal curriculums are all the rage right now, and I am a huge fan of them. I do love formal education and spaces to share ideas with others and be strengthened and challenged, but making sure to stay focuse don what you most want to focus on is critical

In our idea consumption culture it's easy find yourself doing things without any reflection time on whether you actually want to do it or not. Do you really want to read the entire Booker Longlist, or does it seem popular and like what literary readers do? Do you really like following Fall readathons, or have you always wanted to read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre in the Fall?

My nudge is only for you to slow down, reflect, and decide what would make you the most satisfied come the end of the year.

i love this cover

For me, it's finding time to re-read Sense and Sensibility seeing as the new screen adaptation is coming out October 16... adding a 1/2 re-reading of Jane Eyre, a re-reading of something by Hardy (yet to decide) poetry by Hardy, reading more of the Letters of Gustave Flaubert, of course Anita Brookner, and so much more.

• Sense and Sensiblity
• Jane Eyre
• A Hardy novel
• Letters of Gustave Flaubert
• Proust

vegan gluten free sweet potato brownies

Of course for me Autumn means even more baking. New recipes that I create or mix-n-match that I find online. The scent of cinnamon in the air signifies extra cups of coffee and lots of slow living.

As I walk through towards the end of the first week of September, I'm taking with me a few things: my continued anti-AI stance, even if means I'm "left behind", a love of re-reading, a desire to work through a few of the unread books on my shelves, a new semester, and a true belief that reading, writing, and learning is the secret magic of a good life.

I hope you'll join me on a slow and easy September. Happy reading ☕️ 

documentary: mary oliver: saved by the beauty of the world (pbs-free)

 

pbs documentary 

Watch the documentary for free at PBS's website by clicking here

It's no secret that I adore Mary Oliver's poetry. I've featured her in multiple poetry pause posts. And, Mary does just that with her poetry- asks us to pause and look at what most of us take for granted- the magic that can be found in the natural world. 

I'm writing this post before watching the documentary, but I will surely write another post giving my review of it. 

I am always so fascinated about the life behind writers, poets, and artists, and I feel I can count on PBS to do a thorough and affecting job.

Here's The Poetry Foundation's page on Mary Oliver. It's lovely.

@The Poetry Foundation website

I truly believe that poetry is "the possibility of language". We can all benefit from slowing down- and then slowing down some more. Poetry demands that of us. 

It calls to the soul to feel into what the poet has used language to convey and to find yourself within the stanzas.

I'm off to watch this on a slow Sunday. Today I'll be staying in my pajamas later than normal, having a second up of organic single origin pour over with oatmilk (living on the edge with the oatmilk- I normally drink it black), and sinking down into Mary's life. 

Wishing you a peace-filled, slow, and easy Sunday. Happy reading ☕️

altered states by anita brookner review + brookner reading oeuvre check in

Anita Brookner's novels really speak to a part of my soul that no other author (barring Baldwin, Petry, and Lispector) quite touch. She died in London in 2016 and her work will live on, though I believe that she is drastically under read.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with The New York Times who said:

Anita Brookner has staked out a distinctive territory...and made it clear that she is one of the finest novelists of her generation.

                 

Every part of my soul is open and alive when I read Brookner. She has this uncanny ability to write into the marrow of life and feeling. You have to read her to know what I mean.

This story deals with love. resignation, adultery, loss, pain, immense regret, heartache and shows what life can be look like from inside of different experiences of the same events. 

Told from inside the lens and life of our protagonist, we see how how mother/son bonds are formed and transition, how friendships are used as covering for seeking out one's own life's affairs, and what it look likes to stand at the crossroads of right/wrong and the consequences that bear on our souls when we choose to do what's in our personal interest.

She speaks directly into the very psychological nature of what it means to be alive and experience emotional changes over the course of a lifetime.  What a wonderful companion to read alongside Monsieur Proust by Céleste Albaret as I reflect on memory, the past, and a life to come. 

Here's a quote from the novel:

Perhaps I am well qualified for solitude. My discipline rarely lets me down, except perhaps when I am on holiday, as I am now, and find the days long. Even their numbing calm is acceptable; it corresponds to something settled in my nature.

Perhaps reading Brookner corresponds to something settled in my nature. 

I will continue on with my project of reading all of her novels. 

Here's my current checkin on novels I've read by Brookner so far (10 of 24 completed):

my reading list

My next Brookner read will be Family and Friends. :) 

Happy slow reading ☕️ 

monsieur prouse by céleste albaret book review

 

Céleste Albaret's favorite picture of Proust

This was one of my most anticipated reads for 2026. It took me 7 months to read and finish it. I took my time, went down different rabbit holes, reflected back through the 7 volumes of In Search of Lost Time. 

I re-read Swann's Way at least once every year- in part or in whole. There is something so meditative about Proust's work, and I wanted desperately to hear about his writing life, his mannerisms, his last days, and just his life.

I want to list some quotes here in an encouragement for you to get this biography. If you have been interested in Proust or in The Search, I highly suggest you start with Swann's Way. Here is the free link to Swann's Way on Project Gutenberg. 

I like to always be reading one of the volumes of The Search. It helps me to live with mindfulness on creating memories. That's the power of reading Proust. He helps you see that by witnessing his memories- and the way he remembered- you too can focus on how you lay down your memories. 

 Proust began a life of partial seclusion in which he shut himself up for the sake of his work- and I with him- and which nothing disturbed for the eight years until the end. 

He did sometimes feel a wish or even a need for a holiday, or a desire to see again a certain town, a landscape, a painting, a church- like Cabourg, when he'd talked about showing me the high tides in Brittany. But it was always:

"We'll go when I've finished my book, dear Céleste. Then you'll see how marvelous it is." 

 

so many tabs and much more underlining inside

This is a book that I will flip through every so often and feel the space that Proust created for living a life dedicated for a purpose. 

To finish his book- that was all that mattered now. And from autumn 1914 onward, his whole life was organized around that compulsion more than ever before. 

He severed most communications. Before the end of the year he decided to give up his telephone. He may have told people it was because he was in financial straits, as has been alleged. But that was only an excuse; he indulged in whatever other expense he fancied. In fact, he didn't want to be disturbed against his will any more. He made himself sole master of himself and any visitors and all his connections with other people. 

It was a completely upside-down life, even in the simplest things. For example, I couldn't clean the house or do his room unless he was out, and since when he did go out it was rarely before ten in the evening. I never did housework except at night, never opened the windows of the flat except onto darkness. 

loved these inserts

I loved so many parts of this biography. There are definitely moments when I felt like Céleste Albert's view of Proust (who was really quite particular) was skewed. Proust seemed a little demanding... unrelenting even, and she was moderately oblivious.

We lived by electric light or perpetual darkness.

Now I realize M. Proust's whole object, his whole great sacrifice for his work, was to set himself outside time in order to rediscover it.

When I look back on all these things now and see the clearer than I did at the time, I realie that two things emanated from him as a man and from his life: his taste for quality, for perfection in everything- a perfection that belonged to the past, and which showed his loyalty to shops and restaurants. This attachment to the past in his everyday life is all the more strange when you realize how far, in his books, he saw into the future- when you think of all he wrote about the dissolution of a certain kind of world and society.

 

tiny sample of how I lived and reflected on these pages

No, Céleste, you will live. And when I am dead, you will see. People will read me; yes, the whole world will read me. You will see my work grow in the public's esteem. And remember, Céleste, this article says it took a hundred years for Stendahl to become famous. It will take Marcel Proust less than fifty. 

Secretly I took refuge in the memory of the magic nights.

The picture I have of him in my heart is the most beautiful possible, and the loveliest of memories. He is as magnificent as he always was. A prince among men and a prince of souls.

In summary,

The reading of this biography took 8 months because I allowed myself to truly live within these pages. I thought through Céleste's reflections of Proust's life with the same level of detail that I'd like to apply to my own memories.

In the end that's what it is all about with Proust- remembering and thinking about how we remember. 

Reading this biography has transported me back to my reading of The Search. I have loved revisiting my notes from that time, and I can feel a re-read coming on.

Happy reading ☕️

women in translation month (all year long) + translated women's poetry

I want to do a better job at remembering the bookish year's calendar of events, and this post is a few week's late, but I think we should be reading women in translation all year long.

CLMP- "the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses" did a wonderful job or curating some fantastic work by women in translation. 

Here's a link for clmp's WIT reading list (including so much beautiful poetry) for 2026.

Pen America (The Freedom to Write) 

Keep your eyes on women writers and writers in translation. 

I will be ending August with a read of Elena Knows. It's been on TBR for years now, and I am excited to get to it.

my kindle fire edition

Publisher's Synopsis:

From the ‘Hitchcock of the River Plate’ (Corriere della Sera) comes Piñeiro’s third novel, a unique tale that interweaves crime fiction with intimate tales of morality and search for individual freedom.

After Rita is found dead in the bell tower of the church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.:

Happy reading ☕️ 

poetry pause: the orchard:: mary oliver

 

stock photo 

The Orchard

I have dreamed
of accomplishment.

I have fed

ambition.

I have traded

nights of sleep

for a length of work. 

Lo, and I have discovered

how soft bloom

turns to green fruit

which turns to sweet fruit.

Lo, and I have discovered

all wins blow cold

at last,

and the leaves,

so pretty, so many,

vanish

in the great, black

packet of time,

in the great, black

packet of ambition, 

and the ripeness

of the apple 

is its downfall. 

mary oliver

life in between the pages of books: urging in autumn and taking 6 months to finish one book

 

early morning table

I have been reading Monsieur Proust for about 7 months and I just finished today. I have realized that no matter what I do, so long as I have a great book sort of sitting in the background of my life, I have something to fall back into as the world continues to spin around me. 

I have spent less time watching others' reading lives, but as the autumn inches closer I am ready to watch and possibly create some vlogs that center slowing down and sinking into stories and novels. 

This is the time of year that I re-read the exact same stories and books. It's important that I slow down and spend time with stories that I am familiar with that I love. 

As much as I don't love the lack of daylight that is coming mid-September, I can feel myself needing to slow down and the quiet, dark hours will help me with that. 

My next major read will only be the continuation of Gustave Flaubert's letters that I've been working on for 8 months. I am only about a quarter of a way through, and I am loving them, so I need to just focus on them. 

I'm off to write in my physical book journal which houses my book reviews, as I quietly reflect on this biography. I absolutely love Proust and I have been reflecting on my reading of The Search and the yearn to re-read Book One or Two... It seems to call every Fall. Maybe I'll answer it again.

Happy reading ☕️ 

photo clearly missing the coffee that is present

poetry pause: bloodbirth :: audre lorde

My habit of reading a poem a day has been so emotionally transformative. 

stock photo: autumn leaves + bench

Bloodbirth

That which is inside of me screaming

beating about for exit or entry

names the wind, wanting winds' voice

wanting winds' power

it is not my heart

and I am trying to tell this 

without art or embellishment

with bits of me flying out in all directions

screams memories old pieces of flesh

struck off like dry bark

from a felled tree, bearing 

up or out

holding or bring forth

child or demon

is this birth or exorcism or

the beginning machinery of myself

outlining recalling

my father's business- what I must be

about- my own business

minding.

Shall I split

or be cut down

by a word's complexion or the lack of 

it

and from what direction will the opening be made

to show the true face of me

lying exposed and together 

my children your children their

children

bent on our conjugating business

-Audre Lorde

source: NYTimes

Born: February 18, 1934, Harlem, New York, NY

Died: November 17, 1992 (age 58 years), Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

Intersectional feminist, poet, scholar, professor, civil rights activist

augtober- judge if you must, ready for silence

 

don't mind if i do: early morning coffee + literature

Yes, I said Augtober. I'm exhausted both physically and emotionally.

The heaviness of the world lands on deep souls in a way that leaves a residue that literature helps to alleviate. 

I can admit that I chose books over people and while some call it a pathology, I don't care and I can't hear them between the pages of my novels anyway. 

Lately, I've been writing about what I read in my book journal. I love it. It's a simple set up. Nothing fancy, and nothing truly noteworthy. Just a simple black notebook with a photo of the Mona Lisa on the cover. I downloaded and printed that cover after reading ...

loved this

I still think about this biography from time to do. Anyway, I'm still very slowly making my way through The Letters of Gustave Flaubert. I love this collection, but I am so slowly going through, though I pick it up several times per week. It's something so easy to dip in and out of when I struggle with which of my 10 current reads to pick up.

I actually found autumn creamers in the grocery store yesterday. I was so shocked to see them, but I did buy one- nondairy (of course) maple brown sugar. 

The more cozy the better for me. My soul is desperate for silence and solitude and the older I become, the more I settle into this very natural way of being for me. 

Off to cull my reading list before the true Autumn spirit descends and I start rereading everything I love.

Happy reading ☕️ 

a summer of silence and reading

It's funny how easy it is for reading to take up all of your free time. 

I am always reading 6-10 books/novels/non-fictions at one time, so it's easy to be wrapped in reading without finishing anything. Finishing reading is never my goal.

To be reading the books is the goal for me. To be in the middle of the works is always the point for me.

It's why I read and re-read poetry over and over again. 

This summer's responsibilities have me wanting desperately to slow down. Like, live even slower than I do right now. 

Struggling with how much humanity and the people I know continue to be a constant source of disappointment. Alas, Marcus Aurelius tried to warn me- I work on heeding his advice about the disappointments that await us each day we wake up. I'm sure that seems pessimesstic, and I don't mean it to be, but thank God for literature. 

brookner and coffee 

I am loving Altered States by Anita Brookner. She continues to be one of my favorite novelists. She has a way of writing into the marrow of human psychology in a way that I rarely finds consistently with other authors. 

This book has encouraged me to start writing book reviews here on the site. I can't wait to finish this one to write all about it. I've prolonged finishing it because I am really loving living with this story. It's beautifully true of human nature- but, I'll stop writing here before the review is done!

homemade latte + morning reading

Early morning finds me between the pages of multiple books + doing morning pages + drinking several lattes. Of course I wanted the summer to be filled with finishing off a few novels, getting "things" done, etc, but instead, I rested more- slept more- exhaled deeper.

I have a stack of novels bedside that I'd love to work through this month. I may create a TBR in order to organize this sporadic & chaotic reading. I'd at least help me to curate a finishable list of books.

There are 3 weeks left in August and whether the temperature is 80 or 60 degrees, I consider September 1st as the ramp into Autumn and nothing can change my mind- therefore, I want to have a clean Autumn reading slate.

I'm extremely interested in reading my physical library though I always have multiple ebooks going between my old kindle and my new kobo- but I love seeing my physical TBR shrink a little. I have no intention of a book buying ban, but I am being intentional about every purchase which has made me "wait 72 hours" before purchasing new books which more often than not means I won't purchase it.

non-dairy creamsicle matcha + iced coffee

So as this silent summer starts to wrap up, I am intent on continuing to practice learning the two poems I've committed to learning this year, recreating a TBR to wrangle in my reading, reading in bubble baths, and writing poetry and short prose.

Wishing you a calm end to the summer season (yes I know it's early) and happy reading. ☕️