September reading
September was another somewhat light reading month for me, though I should pick up the pace in the final quarter of the year between scheduled vacation and holidays.
Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough, Tess Sharpe, Jessica Spotswood, and Caroline Tung Richmond. A Little Women retelling set in 1942, where in the aftermath of Beth's death Meg, Jo, and Amy have quarreled and gone their separate ways--Jo to build fighter planes in a factory, Amy to London as a Red Cross volunteer, and Meg to work as a teacher while keeping the home fires burning with Marmee. It works surprisingly well, really. The Laurie/Amy romance makes more sense here--he's in the Army Air Corps, and they run into each other unexpectedly when he turns up at her donut cart--and instead of a frumpy middle-aged professor Jo gets paired off with an ambitious young woman reporter.
The Marquis Who Mustn't by Courtney Milan. Historical romance set in the 1890s in a small rural town in England that just happens to be about half Asian, full of the charm and emotional resonance I expect from Courtney Milan's work.
The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso. A thoroughly enjoyable YA fantasy with a setting inspired by Renaissance Venice.
The Heathen School by John Demos. An account of a short-lived boarding school in a Connecticut town in the early years of the 19th century that undertook to educate the titular "heathens"--boys and young men who were mostly both nonwhite and non-Christian (though there were a few stray southern European Catholics)--so they could go be missionaries among their own peoples. It didn't last, partly because it didn't really work and partly because of the scandal when two of the pupils, future Cherokee leaders John Ridge and Elias Boudinot, courted and married local girls.
Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It by Greg Marshall. The often amusing and more than occasionally raunchy memoir of a young man whose parents never told him he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a baby--he only found out about it when he had to request his childhood medical records to sign up for health insurance as an adult.
Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple. I'd hoped to read this book for the SPL Book Bingo Diaspora category this year, but unfortunately I didn't make it to the top of the hold list in time. I'm glad I stuck with the book, though. It's a history of the Bund, a Jewish socialist labor movement/political party that flourished in Eastern Europe during the early 20th century and stood in opposition to the Zionist vision. It's harrowing, given the time, place, and people involved, but it's also inspiring in its universalist vision of brotherhood against all odds.
The Library of Amorlin by Kaylyn Josephson. First in what will be at least a duology, the tale of a con artist blackmailed into infiltrating a magical library and, naturally, finds it hard to keep up the con.
The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland. Leland has a congenital condition causing him to very gradually lose his sight--he first noticed issues as a teen but dismissed them at first, was diagnosed in college, and in his 40s as he writes this book, he's down to a narrow remnant of his visual field. An interesting combination of personal experience and overview of the culture and politics of the blind community.
Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. A sequel/companion volumes to the author's Jesus and John Wayne, examining how women's place in American evangelical Christianity has ebbed and flowed since the late 19th century.
Don't Call It Art by Austin Kleon. A quick little book on unlocking your creativity through leaning into the curiosity, whimsy, and unselfconsciousness of your inner child, largely by letting go of perfectionism and over-planning.