New books.
It is the sort of dark, rainy morning that makes me want to ditch my routines and curl beneath a warm blanket with a mystery novel or true crime selection and a bowl of pretzels. I will, instead, finish my workout and practice my music.
And then curl beneath a warm blanket with a book.
To be shelved.
Image captured on Saturday’s walk at a conservation district.
The juncos have returned, and when my husband and I depart each weekday morning, only streetlights illuminate the sidewalks for the first mile of our walk. Autumn has arrived — as has rain, which, so sorely needed all summer, has greened the lawn for dormancy and duped the dying begonias into rebirth, even as the oaks bury everything in yellow and brown leaves.
Punctuated by long nights and scented by benign smoke and wet leaves, the period between first frost and December is my favorite part of the year. The furnace is pressed into service by 5 a.m., and I, now be-sweatered and -socked from rising until bedtime, begin yawning before 6:45 p.m., but the rest is a sort of everyday magic, from the perfect circles bored into the pumpkins by what I imagine to be a stout but agreeable-enough nocturnal animal to the prehistoric trumpeting of the sandhill cranes as they gather in ever-widening circles over our home before beginning their journey away from the prairie; from the slant of the afternoon sun on the living room floor to the color of the sky when I collect the mail; from best-of booklists to seasonal menus… I adore autumn.
What is your favorite season? Why?
No filter needed.
We rose early to be on the trail before sunrise. Our reward was the chorus of many, many birds preparing to migrate.
The “buy two, get a third free” sale had me at “Hello.” In other reading news, I am halfway through Inferno with 100 Days of Dante (it’s not too late to join), and Tolstoy Together has reached Day 32.
It began at 8:15 a.m. with a bit of shifting to make room for the books pictured above. The project then grew to include additional reorganizing, followed by dusting and vacuuming every shelf. I finally finished the project about thirty minutes ago. Now it’s time to catch up on some reading.
Earlier this month, we finished a geocache challenge we began [insert abashed head-shaking] 4.5 years ago. One morning, three sites, more than five miles of walking (1.2 of that on rugged terrain), and done. Finally. You bet we have proudly displayed our coin.
A few more to shelve.
It will be a bit before I get to these. As I mentioned, I’m happily rereading War and Peace with Tolstoy Together 2021, an effort slated to conclude December 8. The tutorial / book group program through which I read The Brothers Karamazov and reread Middlemarch is tackling Goethe’s Faust. Eight works stand between me and my goal to reread all of Shakespeare’s plays this year.
And so on.
I will get to the new books. Sooner or later.
Always the Skyway. Even if the GPS says otherwise.
Louise Penny’s How the Light Gets In (2013) accompanied us on an unplanned but thoroughly delightful road trip to Michigan last weekend. Other books I’ve read since my last post:
■ The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe (Josh Mitchell; 2021. Non-fiction.)
Related articles here and here.
■ Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare; 1607. Drama.)
I understand and appreciate this play better with each rereading.
■ The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros; 1984. Fiction.)
To celebrate Banned Books Week.
■ Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City (Carl Smith; 2020. Non-fiction.)
In advance of attending a Gilder Lehrman Book Breaks event.
■ The Undocumented Americans (Karla Cornejo Villavicencio; 2020. Non-fiction.)
In advance of attending a Chicago Humanities Festival event.
Nerdishly 