Top Ten Books on My Fall TBR List

Oh, fall.  I am really not ready for it to actually be fall yet.  Mostly because that means that the rest of the year has completely gotten away from me.  How can it almost be October?!  A lot has happened this year.  All in all, it's been a great year.  Dealing with family health issues has been the only true dark spot on the map.  Fall and spring, the two transition seasons, hold a lot of anticipation for me.  Spring is pretty obvious because everything is green and new.  Fall is more contemplative in my opinion.  It's a great time to reassess and make changes.  I am anxiously waiting to see what those changes are.

Anyway, as with the beginning of every season, The Broke and the Bookish is covering Top Ten Books on the Season's TBR List.  I contributed to today's post on the blog, but I wanted to come up with a full list for over here.  (For the record, I DID finish The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert yesterday; review coming)

1.  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy  I started rereading this one after finishing SOAT yesterday.  It became one of my favorites when I first finished it my junior year of college, so I felt it was time for a reread.  I love so much about this book.  The characters overall and the sense of urgency that Tolstoy creates in Anna are two of my favorite things.  For me, it's a cozy yet sweeping read.  I can't wait to see what I discover this time.

2.  Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe  I already wrote a post about wanting to finish this one this fall.  While my overall reading plan for fall has changed, due to a lack of time to read, I still want to read this one.  I think it's the right time to read it.  I feel a real closeness with the characters, particularly the protagonist (which I am sure is why he is the protagonist, duh), whenever I pick this one up, which spurs me to keep going.

3.  The Unwitting by Ellen Feldman  For some reason this Cold War tale jumped very quickly to mind as I was coming up with this list.  I started reading this earlier this year and kind of stalled because it felt kind of slow.  I think I might be able and willing to push through that now.  Plus it's set in literary New York in the 1950s and 1960s and it's always a good time to read books about that!

4.  Secrets of the Flesh:  A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman  I am going to be reading this with an online friend.  It's mentioned in one of my favorite story arcs of Gilmore Girls--where Lorelai decides she just can't get married, so she and Rory go on a roadtrip.  This is the book she wants to take with her.  Why?  What about Colette made her want to take this?  That's what I hope to figure out.  Plus Colette's work has always intrigued me, but I just haven't really read much by her.  Hopefully this gets me to read more.

5.  Dracula by Bram Stoker  Every year for the past few years I've wanted to read a spooky classic in October in honor of Halloween.  I made tremendous progress on this one two or three years ago, but didn't finish.  I really like how it's told through a variety of letters, newspaper articles, diary entries, and other narrative techniques.  For me that made it read a lot more quickly.  We shall see how this works out.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is another possibility.



I'll be honest--I kind of stalled after picking out the first five books.  But I like to complete things, so I grabbed five other books that looked rather appealing when I gave my shelves a closer look, searching for additions to round out my list.  I don't know if I'll actually pick up any of these, but at least at this moment, these five also look good.


6.  Under Magnolia by Frances Mayes  Like I said earlier, fall is a contemplative time for me, so I thought that Mayes's memoir might be a good selection for fall.

7.  Moby-Dick by Herman Melville  Whenever I sit down to read this book, I find myself flying through it.  So I'd say that it's realistic that I could finish it this fall.

8.  Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion  This collection of pieces was on a list I saw last night.  I can't remember what the list was, but this title stuck with me.  I've read a couple of the pieces in here and really enjoyed them.  Maybe it's time for more.

9.  Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen  I saw this on the bargain table the last time I was in Barnes and Noble.  Because I'm really getting into essays, I thought I'd pick this one up.  Why not?

10.  This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett  Finishing this collection of essays would make me very happy.  Initially I bought this one on my Kindle, but I had to buy a hardcopy so that I can underline and annotate (I know I can do that with eBooks, but it's just not the same to me).