September 2024: Tops & Flops

Let’s chat about my tops and flops of September. (And yes, I'm behind with answering comments. Again. SORRY!)
#amreading #bookreviews #booktube

Categories:
Tops
Book I thought about the most
Book that surprised me the most
Best non fiction book

Flops
Two books that just didn’t work or that I disliked

Books mentioned (in alphabetical order):
#shortyseptember #Irishliterature #1001Women #Sandysbookclub

#graphicnovel #memoir #poc #reread

#classic #translatedfiction #1001Women #buddyread
I forgot to mention: this was a buddyread with JoSmith

#historicalfiction

People and channels mentioned:
Sandy @MsReadsAlot
JoSmith

Read along with me!
1. Three classics I want to read in the second half of 2024

2. Sandy’s 1001 Books Bookclub
January – No book
February - The Princess of Cleves by Madame Lafayette (192 pages)
March - The Well Of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (448 pages)
April - Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud (192 pages)
May - The Waves by Virginia Woolf (304 pages)
June – Love’s Work by Gillian Rose (170 pages)
July - The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (383 pages)
September - The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen (320 pages)
October - The Real Charlotte by Edith Somerville and Martin Ross (415 pages)
November - Anagrams by Lorrie Moore (240 Pages)
December - Life and Death of Harriett Frean by May Sinclair (86 pages)

Name of my YouTube channel:

Find me elsewhere:

I also wrote some books:
Fiction:
available in Dutch

also available in Dutch, French, Italian, Greek, Danish, Hebrew and Turkish

Non-fiction (available only in Dutch):

Crime novels under the pen name Britta Bolt (together with writer Rodney Bolt)
The Posthumus Mysteries:
- Lonely Graves (2014)
- Lives Lost (2015)
- Deadly Secrets (June 2016)

and for German readers:
- Das Büro der einsamen Toten (2015)
- Das Haus der verlorenen Seelen (2016)
- Der Tote im fremden Mantel (February 2017)

[myreadinglife]

I love Good Talk! I have not read any Elizabeth Bowen but she does sound like an author I should try. I only heard the drilling noise briefly and it was not bothersome.

[josmith]

Your face when they were drilling 😂 you’re a trooper for carrying on Britta and it was barely noticeable. I’m yet to try Elizabeth Bowen but have heard such good things I think I should. 🤔

[zangelique]

Re: Auster (who died this year) and Hustvedt. I recall Joyce Carol Oates saying years ago that there was a feature about her in a major magazine that referred to her as "a professor's wife, " which she was--but she was a professor too! (I hope Hustvedt writes about Auster if she's up to it; that might help her during this mourning period.) Thanks for the great video!

[awebofstories]

I've read one book by Siri Hustvedt. I can't remember what it was called or what it was about beyond broad strokes, but I do remember really enjoying it. I'm not sure why I haven't picked her up again, but I should definitely add her to my list.

[louisep]

The drilling sounded like your stomach was growling. I'm glad I knew what it was so I didn't "yell" at you to eat.😂
I've wanted/not wanted tonm try George Sand. Now I'm more on not.

[GaggingLit]

I concur with you about Sexing the Cherry. I felt similarly about The Passion as well. Both of her early forays into this very postmodern/magical realism style where she does these weird narrative deviations. I think they are interesting as fictional experiments but I don't think the writing is particularly good in either of them. I adore her first book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and I also like Lighthousekeeping. I have The Stone Gods, so may pick that up sooner now, knowing that you liked it.

[ameliareads]

I really finally have to pick up Memories of the Future. Thanks to you, I own a copy.

[alldbooks]

Interesting re graphic novel. I have always tried to call it graphic memoir, too.

[chiming_]

My upstairs neighbours find renovating their homes are suitable anytime during the day and night.

[MsTerriB]

LOL! It sounded like someone upstairs had an upset stomach! After I posted my October TBR video I realized that it had picked up one of my neighbors running a power tool - noisy neighbors completely unaware that we are FILMING, right?! 😂

[thomasceneri]

Hello! I read The Blazing World recently by Hustvedt, and I didn’t like it at all. However, I did read (I believe) The Enchantment of Lily Dahl when I was much younger, and I remember enjoying it very much. I have The Last September for years! I really red to read it. Bowen was very good friends with Eudora Welty. From my memory (I saw the film) it involves a wealthy Anglo-Irish family (Protestant).

[artie-oi]

I admire your mental toughness. You are a soldier indeed and I hope to read Memories of the Future. You might try Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa a feminist Palestinian author. I think you will like it. Hang in there!

[sandrahollins]

I also read The Last September. It was an interesting perspective having recently read Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing. I will be staying on theme by reading William Trevor's The Story of Lucy Gault soon.

[susprime]

The noise was fine, these things happen, someone is having a house built across the street from our house, so I'll see a porta potty from my study windows for months.😂

[barbaraboethling]

I finally read Sexing the Cherry also. My impression was of utter confusion. The book may have tried to comment on women searching for self against a backdrop of a male dominated history, but it sure took a fuzzy, erratic approach that left me in the dust. I like quirky writing, but this wasn't for me.