October Reads

This month was insane, and my reading was as to be expected. I was away at a work training for a few days, my grading has been insane, we've had things planned on the weekend, and now the holidays are creeping in. I have time off in both November and December, though, so I think I'll probably make my reading goals. This month! Let's take a look.

I read Ann Patchett's newest book, The Dutch House, for a blogging conversation I had with Julie, which you can read more about here. I really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend it to others (although it wasn't her best). 

I reread Michael Ondaatje's memoir Running in the Family for the fourth time, to teach at work. I have developed a very deep appreciation for the text, which is a collection of different styles of writing that take us along on his journey back home to Sri Lanka. I really would like to do a full post on this soon, since it's been what I've been living and breathing for the past few weeks at work, and is a book that not many people read.

For book club I read Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women, which I really liked. Berlin's stories center around female characters, many of which are the same or are overlapping, that struggle so hard with relationships, making ends meet, addiction, and motherhood. They aren't uplifting, but there's a dark humor that runs through the core of her writing that makes things slightly more palatable.

The final book this month was my first real experience with Annie Dillard, with her The Writing Life. I loved her prose so much- her syntax is a masterpiece. I tabbed so many pages to use for passage analysis with my students. It's super short, but it packs quite the literary punch.