Happy November! In honor of the new month, I will share with you the books that I read in September. If you are looking for some book recommendations, and you happen to like the same sort of books that I do, then you are in luck, because I read some great ones this month!
This was my favorite book of the month. I couldn't put it down. It's set in Ireland in the 1800's, and it is all about a nurse who is hired to watch a girl that is supposedly living without eating.
I couldn't put this one down either! It's the story of this lady, Lillian, told from the perspective of her 85-year-old-self on the last day of 1984. It flashes back and forth between the present and her younger days. Another page-turner for me.
I read Heidi to the boys this month. So very sweet. I am really enjoying re-reading so many of the books I loved as a kid.
Our library had a little contest going to read books from around the world this month. I read this book from their little around-the-world display, it's set in Australia, and I was entered into a contest to win an Outback Steakhouse gift card - and I won! So this book was definitely worth the read, if only for the bloomin' onion. It was pretty entertaining, but I would say not to read the back cover first, because it spoils the most interesting twist in the whole book. This was good, but couldn't quite measure up to the first two I read in September.
My sisters and I used to listen to 'The Sugar Creek Gang' on Moody Radio regularly as kids. Actually, I happened to leave school at the right time to listen to these stories when I taught 5th grade in Knoxville. With all that history, I thought I would love reading this to the boys, but to be honest, it didn't do much for me.
Ooh, this book was wonderful, too! I think this month that I found a list of great historical fiction recommendations on Pinterest and then checked them out from the library digitally to read on my phone. I need to find that list again! This story flashes back and forth between the present and the past and is all tied together by an elaborately embroidered silk sleeve. I really enjoyed reading this book. My only problem with this book is sort of hard to describe. But if you read historical fiction, you know how afterwards, you sometimes look up the historical parts of the book to see if the events described really happened? Well, I love it when the craziest, hard-to-believe parts turn out to be real. This book was the opposite of that. The part of history that it described never even happened (at least not anywhere close to that scale), and it could have been just as compelling of a story if they had used what actually happened, instead of re-writing history, in my humble opinion. (Ha.)
I listened to Anne's House of Dreams on cd in the car. L.M. Montgomery is always a favorite, for sure, but this series that my library has, uses a different narrator for each book, and (also, in my humblest of opinions) they all stink. Not really, but they read them much differently than I've always read them in my head. Also, I don't read so slowly in my head, so it's fun to hear the details at a slower pace than I'm used to.
I read this book because it popped up in my library app and we used to go to church with the author.
I read an abridged version of 'Treasure Island' to the boys (perhaps to balance out all the Heidi and Anne - ha!). We enjoyed it - I think my previous experience with this story was limited to 'Muppet Treasure Island.'
I think the boys and I listened to this one being read aloud on my phone, and it's a good thing, because some of these old kids' books sure do have a lot of words! I guess the main thing I can say about this book is that the kids in it are very conscientious - think it will rub off on my boys?
I feel like I had heard that this book was great. I felt that it was fine.
Nevertheless, September was a wonderful month of reading around here!
