september reads

1) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. i found myself instantly immersed in this story of a journalist who meets with an aging Hollywood starlet to write her biography. an easy read that made me think about the role media plays in our culture and how that has changed (for better and for worse) over the decades. 5/5.

2) Beartown, by Fredrik Backman. oh... my... goodness. this has immediately catapulted itself onto my Top Ten list of books. Backman has populated the fictional place of Beartown with characters who feel absolutely real. a compassionate but laser-focused examination of culture in a small town obsessed with hockey. i still feel as if i could walk past any one of his characters on the street and recognize them instantly. 10/5. 

Difficult questions, simple answers. What is a community?

It is the sum total of our choices.

3) The Gunners, by Rebecca Kauffman. a story about six friends who met in childhood and how their relationships with each other and themselves evolve over the years.  i was a bit ambivalent about this book for the first half of it, and then it picked up steam. by the end of the book i was actually weeping for one of the main characters, which bumped it up to 4 stars from the 3 i originally was going to bestow. 4/5.

4) The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. the foreword to this book comes right out and says that the writing style is a bit off-putting to the modern ear -- flowery, saccharine, and melodramatic. but there is no denying the power of St. Thérèse's words as she recounts her life, from her first spiritual awakenings as a child to her life in the Carmelite convent of Lisieux, where she died of tuberculosis at the age 24. 4/5.

For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.

5) An Immovable Feast: How I Gave Up Spirituality For A Life of Religious Abundance, by Tyler Blanski. as a fellow Protestant-turned-Catholic, i greatly enjoyed Tyler's story of his journey from his nondenominational evangelical parish to an Anglican seminary and finally to the Catholic church, with the same shocked inevitability that characterized my own conversion. i'm not sure his story would be that accessible to someone without a church background, but i found it inspiring. 5/5.

6) The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene. i listened to this on audiobook, and i think i might have enjoyed it better in the written form. set in 1930s Mexico during a time when it was illegal to practice organized religion, the story follows a "whiskey" priest on the run from the police. as he frequently remarks about himself, he is a bad priest -- an alcoholic who has fathered an illegitimate child, who frequently denies requests for the sacraments out of fear of being caught, who eventually agrees to baptize the children in a particular village but only upon payment of a small fee for each child. a story of judgment and mercy, redemption and self-sabotage. 4/5.

7) Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch. this book had so many twists and turns and kept me guessing until the very last page. well, to be honest, i'm still guessing ... which is the mark of a great book, in my opinion. i didn't know that there was such a thing as a quantum physics psychological thriller, but that's most definitely what it is. 5/5.

on the October bookshelf:

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, by Dani Shapiro
The Weight of Ink, by Rachel Kadish
Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines, by Nic Sheff
My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent

and in preparation for our trip to Venice next month:

The Golden Egg, by Donna Leon
In the Company of the Courtesan, by Sarah Dunant
Vivaldi's Virgins, by Barbara Quick