What I read in September

penny on October 4, 2018

September was a very good month for reading. During the Jewish holidays I treated myself by beginning my regular reread of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar Series. Here’s a list of the twenty one titles that I completed last month. I’ve also added a few notes about the books I recommend.

September Reading List

  1. Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More Than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper, and Grandmother’s Kitchen by Marilynn Brass, Sheila Brass
  2. Heirloom Cooking With the Brass Sisters: Recipes You Remember and Love by Marilynn Brass, Sheila Brass
  3. Improper Cross-Stitch by Haley Pierson-Cox
  4. A Year of Embroidery: A Month-To-Month Collection of Motifs for Seasonal Stitching by Yumiko Higuchi
  5. Energy: A Human History by Richard Rhodes
  6. Arrows of the Queen (Heralds of Valdemar, #1) by Mercedes Lackey
  7. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
  8. Arrow’s Flight (Heralds of Valdemar, #2) by Mercedes Lackey
  9. Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede (ed)
  10. Arrow’s Fall (Heralds of Valdemar, #3) by Mercedes Lackey
  11. Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success by Shane Snow
  12. Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness
  13. Winds of Fate (Valdemar: Mage Winds #1) by Mercedes Lackey
  14. Winds of Change (Valdemar: Mage Winds, #2) by Mercedes Lackey
  15. Winds of Fury (Valdemar: Mage Winds #3) by Mercedes Lackey
  16. The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club #1) by Theodora Goss
  17. Storm Warning (Valdemar: Mage Storms #1) by Mercedes Lackey
  18. Storm Rising (Valdemar: Mage Storms, #2) by Mercedes Lackey
  19. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
  20. Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Qing Li
  21. Storm Breaking (Valdemar: Mage Storms, #3) by Mercedes Lackey

List of Book Covers for titles read in Sept 2018

Recommendations

Science & Nature
  • Energy: A Human History by Richard Rhodes
    This book came to me by way of Netgalley (the FTC wants you to know). You can find my review at Goodreads.
  • Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Qing Li
    This is another Netgallery read and I need to put together a review. It am excited to see science backing up shinrin-yoku (森林浴). This is a helpful guide for those curious about the practice, how to get started, and why they should.
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
    I’ve had this on my list to read for a while, his newest book is yet another one I need to review. I finally made my way through and there’s lots of food for thought here.
Science Fiction/Fantasy
  • The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club #1) by Theodora Goss
    Jillian recommended this and I couldn’t put it down. She also summed it up better than I could ever hope to: “Penny Dreadful meets Ocean’s 8, great fun!” I’m now on the hold list for the next book, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman.
  • Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
    I’m a known Naomi fangirl, perhaps because I knew her way years before she published His Majesty’s Dragon. Spinning Silver shows her growth as a writer. I’m a fan of retold fairy tales and enjoyed this new take on Rumpelstiltskin.
  • Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede (ed)
    Speaking of retold fairy tales, The Fairy Tale Series, created by Terri Windling is a classic anthology. I picked up a few of the books at a library sale over the summer and it’s been fun reading them.
  • Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness
    If you’re a fan of the All Souls trilogy, you will have fun reading this. However, it felt more like a book written to appease the majority of fans, than one that would tell Marcus’ story. It was delightful and fun, but not at all what I expected when it was first announced.
  • Valdemar Series by Mercedes Lackey
    I still enjoy this series and wish I had read it earlier in my life.

Next reads

I’m in the middle of Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus and need to read 21 Lessons for the 21st Century for Netgalley. Yesterday I started the second book in Julian May’s The Saga of Pliocene Exile (another set of books I picked up at a book sale over the summer) and am curious to see where it leads. Will this be the month I finish my friend Jessica Ziparo’s book, This Grand Experiment: When Women Entered the Federal Workforce in Civil War–Era Washington, D.C.? I hope so!

What have you read that you recommend? Have any of these books caught your eye? Please let me know.