September 2018 Reading List
My September 2018 reading list, including Pachinko, Summer Hours at the Robbers Library, Wonder, Away, On Such a Full Sea, and And the Mountains Echoed.
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It seems a couple of lighter reads were just what I needed in August, because I’m ready to dive back into some heavier reads. My September 2018 reading list includes a couple of library holds I’ve been putting off, as well as a bunch of books from my own shelf.
I’m already thinking ahead to my reading plans for next year, so I want to finish strong with my initial 2018 goal to read my shelf. I wasn’t completely successful in not adding new books to the shelf this year, but I am proud to say that the number has remained in the single digits so far. Talk about restraint! I’m practically a monk.
As always, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stick to this list or get through all of these books, but I’m definitely going to try!
I’m linking up with Literary Quicksand, Rachel at Never Enough Novels, and Allison at My Novel Life for the TBR Mix ‘n Mingle. On the first Wednesday of each month we share the books we’re planning to read.
September 2018 Reading List
Summer Hours at the Robbers Library
In a little library that has become the heart of a small town, Kit, Sunny, and Rusty are drawn to each other, and to a cast of other offbeat regulars. As they come to terms with how their lives have unraveled, they also discover how they might knit them together again and finally reclaim their stories.
A library? Offbeat characters? I’m in.
On Such a Full Sea
In a future, long-declining America, society is strictly stratified by class. Long-abandoned urban neighborhoods have been repurposed as highwalled, self-contained labor colonies. In this world lives Fan, a female fish-tank diver, who leaves her home in the B-Mor settlement (once known as Baltimore), when the man she loves mysteriously disappears. Fan’s journey to find him takes her out of the safety of B-Mor, through the anarchic Open Counties, where crime is rampant with scant governmental oversight, and to a faraway charter village, in a quest that will soon become legend to those she left behind.
I haven’t read too many dystopias this year, but I have a couple on my shelf and I thought I’d give this a try. Anyone read it?
Wonder
August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Wonder begins from Auggie’s point of view but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. These perspectives converge in a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance.
One of my recommended middle grade books, I thought I’d read this and see if my second grader is ready for it this year.
Away
Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York’s Lower East Side, to Seattle’s Jazz District, and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia.
I’ve enjoyed Amy Bloom in the past and this has been on my shelf for a while.
And the Mountains Echoed
Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and stepmother in poverty in the small village of Shadbagh. One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father. Pari and Abdullah have no sense of the fate that awaits them there, for the event which unfolds will tear their lives apart. Crossing generations and continents, moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos, with profound wisdom, depth, insight, and compassion, Khaled Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways in which we help our loved ones in need, how the choices we make resonate through history and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us.
Both of the Khaled Hosseini books I’ve read were excellent, but I find I need to gear myself up for them–which is why this one made my reading bucket list. September feels like the right time to dive in.
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It’s safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her stargazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father’s thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.
I’ve heard wonderful things about this book and have been wanting to read it for a while. I always enjoy an unexpected friendship.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.
Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.
This is a new release that I’ve had on reserve at the library for a while. I know WWII novels are wearing thin for some readers, but I continue to be amazed by the number of stories there are to tell.
Related
- The 10 Best Books of 2018 (So Far)
- Mini-Reviews of Recent Reads: September 2018 – Reviews of The Summer Wives, Prairie Fires, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Great Alone, First Frost, and All the Ugly and Wonderful Things.
- 2018 Read My Shelf Challenge
- Books on my August 2018 Reading List
What will you be reading in September?
