A few recent acquisitions.

So far this month, I have finished nine books:

■ The Children (Lucy Kirkwood; 2016. Drama.)
■ Vox (Christina Dalcher; 2018. Fiction.)
■ The Water Cure (Sophie Mackintosh; 2018. Fiction.)
■ Dept. H, Vol. 1: Murder Six Miles Deep (Matt Kindt; 2017. Graphic fiction.)
■ The Walking Dead, Volume 30: New World Order (Robert Kirkman; 2018. Graphic fiction.)
■ His Favorites (Kate Walbert; 2018. Fiction.)
■ The Incendiaries (R.O. Kwon; 2018. Fiction.)
■ Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath (Sigrid Undset; 1920. (Trans. Tiina Nunnally; 1997.) Fiction.)
■ The Devoted (Blair Hurley; 2018. Fiction.)

This puts me at 103 for a year-to-date total.

My Banned Books Weeks selection is The Awakening (Kate Chopin), a novel I first read more than three decades ago. I wonder how it will hold up. I am thisclose to finishing The Third Hotel (Laura van den Berg), and Fear (Bob Woodward), among other titles, is on my nightstand.

The following passage from R.O. Kwon’s recent novel, The Incendiaries, is for my commonplace book:

p. 58
No loss occurs in isolation, and a side profit of the faith that I missed at times like this was how easily, while Christ shone in each face, I loved. If hatred cuts both ways, to forgive can be a balm, and I often missed, as I would a friend, the more tranquil person I now had no reason to be.