October was a good reading month for me. I finished 14 books and most of them were of a high standard.
Books of the Month
Books Reviewed in October
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe 
The Fat Years – Chan Koonchung
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry 
The Poison Tree – Erin Kelly
Gillespie and I – Jane Harris
The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
How to Forget – Marius Brill
The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides 
Breathing Underwater – Marie Darrieussecq
The Sound of Gravity – Joe Simpson 
Everything You Know – Zoe Heller 
What Else Did I Do?
The beginning of the month was hectic as it was my eldest son’s 6th birthday. For some mad reason we invited his entire class and as such ended up with a room full of 29 children. We hired a magician to entertain them for most of the party, but that still left us supervising them over food and for the last few minutes. I’m sure they all had a good time, but next year I’m having a maximum of eight!
A few days later my youngest son somehow managed to trip over and land on his head – it is amazing how much blood can be produced from one little (but deep) cut. He was glued back together quite quickly, but I hope I don’t have to repeat that experience too many times. Here he is at his school harvest festival, showing off his injury.
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It has been half term this week, so I’ve spent the time entertaining my boys. We’ve been into London, done a Halloween treasure hunt, carved pumpkins, been to a fireworks dispay and spent a lot of time in the woods walking Ayla and collecting sweet chestnuts. Here are a few photos to show what we’ve been up to:
Ayla
Ayla is now 6 months old and weighs 27kg. I think she has all her adult teeth now and she has stopped chewing everything in sight. Last week we finally trusted her to sleep outside her crate and in the morning everything was exactly as we left it, so fingers crossed that chewy puppy stage is over.
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Plans for November
I’m planning to join the German Literature Month organised by Lizzy from Lizzy’s Literary Life and Caroline from Beauty is A Sleeping Cat.
I’ve already finished:
- The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson
- The Sinner by Petra Hammesfahr
- The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
and I got so excited by German literature that I started The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass – a book that has intimidated me for far too long. It is much easier to read than I expected and I hope to finish it before the end of the month.
I also plan to read the following books:
Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue
The Lady’s Slipper by Deborah Swift
I’m also going to do a bit of random reading – picking a few books that have been on my shelf for far too long.
Have a wonderful November!
