autumn reading plans: fresh coffee, early reading nights, travel, book lists

My plans for Autumn are coming together quite organically. 

I recently traveled to the City and had a wonderful time filled with coffee and journaling. I was busy of course, but the pockets of quiet I found really filled my soul with ease and peace.

early cafe mornings

I've loved this year I've had with reading- all while being so immersed in caregiving, graduate school, baking, cooking, redecorating and so much more. I will save my deep reflections for an ever-long post about my yearly reading life and reflections, but for now let me say that the organic, natural, ebb and flow way that I'm approaching my reading life has been restorative and cathartic.

I have full intentions on starting a new Book channel in 2026 and it will reflect that very pace. Easy. Natural. Simple. 

I moved all of my digital reading life away from Goodreads well over a year ago and I tried to use The Storygraph, but I felt pulled away from my reading experience for some reason. 

There was no way not to see things like total books read, other people's opinions, and just all manner of things I wasn't interested in. It felt like a chore. One of those things that other people are doing. 

iced soy milk triple shot

Yes it was cold in the City and no I didn't care. I would rather a hot coffee, but if I can't be guaranteed the foam will be done well, I opt for iced. It's weird, but just the way I am. 

I didn't make my way to a bookstore, but I did spend a night walking and feeling quite literary as the Christmas lights and cool air gave way to nostalgic feelings of lighter times and warm holiday memories. 

There is nothing quite like walking in New York City at dusk during the Autumn season. I'll stake my stack of Penguin Black Spines on that.

organic light roast pour over (added soymilk)

I've always been an early riser, but the dark of this autumn feels more like rising in the dead of night. It lends itself to writing and having coffee in liminal space. It's been extra cold. Extra quiet. Extra slow. 

I've loved it. I have a new practice of reading one of the Letters of Gustave Flaubert. Not sure why I am working so slowly through this collection, because I absolutely love it, but I am not rushing any of my reading. 

I am reading... rereading passages...highlighting...researching... taking notes... pulling quotations out- all of the things that make my reading life immersive and deep.

book stack on one side table

So many stacks of books, so little time. 

Right now I can feel the pull of Swann's Way, which is really the pull of quiet, intense solitude which is home to my nostalgic heart calling me to peace.

I read all of In Search of Lost Time in 2022. All 7 volumes. I wonder if just reading volume one would meet that need? I keep the physical copy there to ponder that very question. I gave away my entire Penguin set to someone as a gift. I feel like I deserve a spot in heaven for that.

I will be blogging a lot more as December comes and a few big projects have wrapped up. My life is really busy and I have more weight on my shoulders than any one woman should have, but reading brings so much solace- so much peace, I feel it will be beneficial to share it here. It will also be healing for me as well. 

Off to relax on this Saturday night and wishing you a peaceful start to this holiday week. 

poetry pause: nothing gold can stay:: robert frost: 1923

stockphoto

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost, 1923

poetry pause: john keats:: to autumn: 1820

stockphoto

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloomthe soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

-John Keats // 1820

library digital books i've downloaded

I love my library. I love the library. I love free books.

This time of year calls for slowing down. 

Candles.

Extra cups of coffee.

Reflection.

I still watch a decent amount of BookTube, but I have always (and continue to struggle) with videos where people spoil books in their reviews. Unless I've already read the book, I have stopped watching reviews unless it's a trusted source who I know to be someone who discusses the themes and not the entire plot- if there is a plot.

I only get a few hoopla credits each month from my library, and of course Libby still reigns supreme; however, the 6 month wait on any worthy novel pushes me into the arms of the kobo.com store. 

I am definitely someone who feels comforted while scrolling through book titles and making lists of potential books to read. 

Autumn Simplicity

As a re-reading expert (self proclaimed of course), this time of year with it's rustling leaves and dark days, just calls me back to my physical and digital bookshelves to re-read my favorites of all time. 

My melancholic INFJ personality calls to the deep experience of a complex read that contains universal themes of human nature that are timeless.

My Autumn simple plans include evening with soy-wax candles, my kobo color, kindle (but don't get new books on this), and a stack of my favorite novels. All these and a physical stack of books.

Some may say this is a bit much, but it doesn't matter. It works for my soul. I have to read what calls to me. 

Recent Library Digital Acquisitions

really enjoying this so far

looking forward to this one next

I got this one as text from hoopla

I have this on audio from libby

literally forgot this was on hold

Tea and Slow Nights

This week I will be cutting off working on the computer, caregiving duties as best I can, and all house chores at an early hour.

There's always something else to be done. With that knowledge I will be sitting in my reading chair with my favorite tea, or decaf coffee, my stock of books and ereaders and tuning out this insane world. 

I invite you to join me. 

acquisiton: on a woman's madness:: Astrid Roemer

 

Summary:

On a Woman’s Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her own choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America’s tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by romance and new freedoms, but also forever haunted by her past and society’s expectations.

Strikingly translated by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer’s classic queer novel is a tentpole of European and post-colonial literature. And amid tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers, it is also a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey. Roemer, the first Surinamese winner of the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, carves out postcolonial Suriname in barbed, resonant fragments. Who is Noenka? Roemer asks us. “I’m Noenka,” she responds resolutely, “which means Never Again.”

Excerpt

The echo that’s been resounding in my stomach for days makes my mood unstable. I can neither sleep nor wake up completely. I can’t concentrate. As if my hormones were at war with each other, my body burns in its most vulnerable strongholds: breast, navel, neck. Everything else is out of whack. I get dressed to go for a walk. When I get outside, I realize I’d rather wash my hair. For fun, I snip an old lock of hair off, burst into tears when I see it there on the bed and decide never again to straighten my hair, never again to wax my armpits, to let my mustache grow.

The author: Astrid Roemer

I can't help but be intrigued by this novel and this author. I am really looking forward to this one.

Happy reading ☕️ 

6 am coffee:: writing and reading

the way I start each morning

It almost feels like the dead of night when I wake up before 6 am to make my coffee and clear my brain for the day ahead. 

Nothin quite feels like that liminal space. 

I've taken to reading one of Gustave Flaubert's Letters with my coffee each morning and it is honestly such a great ritual. At this rate, I will finish the letters for another year! That's okay, it's a wonder feeling to have the company first thing in the morning.

my beloved copy of his letters

Is there an author you don't mind spending a few minutes with as you wake each day?

I really want to challenge the notion that we have to start and immediately work through any written work. We can create a dance with literature that ebbs and flows based off of our reading tastes and emotions.

Anyone come to mind?

Happy reading ☕️ 

october reading plans: re-reads, cozy literature, copious coffee cups, and used books

 

October stockphoto

It's that time of year again where reareading calls to my soul. There is nothing like returning to the comfort of a story that touched your heart or made you think of the human condition in a new or different way.

 I can see the appeal of checking books off of your TBR, but haven't you ever been summoned by a previous read? This need to complete so many books has many deadened the draw to old works. I have no strong opinions about people who read 500 vs 5 books per year or anything like that, but I do feel like an evangelist trying to convert non-rereaders to my cause :)

Because I don't use Goodreads or Storygraph anymore (may return to Storygraph one day), I have no idea how many time I have reread certain books, but like weather patterns, they start to enter my consciousness at certain times of the year.

The Autumn with its whispering winds, and calls for piping hot cinnamon coffee are accompanied by the faint murmurs of Austen's most ignored work Northanger Abbey and Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece Jane Eyre.

These calls stand in union with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights- a novel that so frustrates me I will spend a lifetime rereading it just to make sense of why it bothers me so much! 

This October... (The Reread Edition)

1. Jane Eyre
2. Wuthering Heights
3. Northanger Abbey
4. Lolita
5. Crime and Punishment* (if there is time and my mental health allows it)

This October...(The New Read Edition)

1. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
2. Altered States by Anita Brookner (returning to this project)
3. Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector
4. Ghost Mountain by Rónán Hession
5. Creep by Emma van Straaten 

a stack of my books

My advice for this Autumn 

Ignore that bookish social media urge to rush through novels to increase your total books read. Ignore the feelings of FOMO (if you have them) that everyone is reading this or that.

Slow down.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea, a journal, and a deep breath.

Plan what novels you believe will speak to your heart or ones that really really call out to you.

Reading doesn't have to be a religious experience for you like it is for me, but perhaps if you have had the inkling to reread something but fear you could be reading something new and it will be a waste to reread, quiet that voice down with the opening paragraph from your most beloved novel.

Let this crazy time in the world be soothed by the comfort of a story that you love. 

I know that's what my Fall reading is all about.

Join me. ☕️ 

poetry pause: monotony:: langston hughes

 

stockphoto: coffee, books, pears on a plate

Monotony

Today like yesterday

Tomorrow like today;

The drip, drip, drip,

  Of monotony

Is wearing my life away;

Today like yesterday,

Tomorrow like today.

poetry pause: the new moon:: langston hughes

 

stockphoto: autumn street with benches

The New Moon

There's a new, young moon riding the hill tonight;

There's a sprightly, young moon exploring the clouds;

There's a half-shy, young moon veiling her face like a virgin, 
   Waiting for her lover. 

-Langston Hughes