{"id":5253,"date":"2026-09-30T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/?p=5253"},"modified":"2026-11-07T20:41:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T01:41:30","slug":"september-2026-books-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/2026\/09\/september-2026-books-read\/","title":{"rendered":"September 2026 books read"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>The English Understand Wool<\/em> &#8211; Helen DeWitt, 2022. A very short, weird book. Knowing DeWitt&#8217;s troubles with publishers explains a lot of the plot, such as it is.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Wee Gillis<\/em> &#8211; Munro Leaf, 1938 (illustrated by Robert Lawson). A friend loved it so much as a child that she wanted to be called &#8220;Wee Gillis,&#8221; and I was surprised I didn&#8217;t remember ever reading it. Enjoyable but didn&#8217;t prompt me to change my name&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something&#8212;Anything&#8212;Like Your Life Depends On It<\/em> &#8211; Tabitha Carvan, 2022. Very acute description of how women&#8217;s interests are often dismissed, combined with an analysis of fandom, wrapped in a memoir of becoming obsessed with Cumberbatch. I read it in bits over several weeks but always came back to it, which I don&#8217;t often do.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man\u2019s Love Affair With Nature<\/em> &#8211; J. Drew Lanham, 2016. Nature Enviro selection, quotes TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Alchemist<\/em> &#8211; Paulo Coelho, 1988. I was going to make this my selection for the Mass Center for the Book challenge, but I hated it too much. My stepmom had said it was terrible but I wanted to read it anyway because I&#8217;m interested in any book that sells that well for that long. The first few one-star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/18144590\">reviews at Goodreads<\/a> said everything I was thinking but better.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Convenience Store Woman<\/em> &#8211; Sayaka Murata, 2018 &#8211; Amherst Book Club selections, quotes TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Sympathizer<\/em> &#8211; Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2015 &#8211; Second Monday selection, quotes TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>American Fantasy<\/em> &#8211; Emma Straub, 2026.This was my second choice for the Massachusetts Center for the Book September challenge, &#8220;A book about a journey.&#8221; My stepmother recommended it, and since she warned me about <em>The Alchemist<\/em>, it felt like a great fit &#8211; it&#8217;s set on a cruise featuring a reunited boy band. I wrote &#8220;An enjoyable and satisfying comedy\/romance, without being cloying, that also has interesting insights about fame and fandom.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Moonstone<\/em> &#8211; Wilkie Collins, 1868. Great Books selection, re-read. Quotes TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?<\/em> &#8211; Alan Moore, 1986. Read because I love <em>Watchmen<\/em> and stumbled across a mention of this being one of the best Supes story ever. Hmm&#8230; I did like the description of Moore insisting he needed to be the one to write this elegy to the Silver Age (before DC rebooted\/simplified the timeslines), but ehh&#8230; It&#8217;s actually a collection of 3 Moore Superman stories, one of them being an encounter with Swamp Thing, who&#8230; is&#8230; quite&#8230; interesting&#8230; but&#8230; a bit&#8230; tiresome&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Nuclear War: A Scenario<\/em> &#8211; Annie Jacobson, 2024. TERRIFYING but the scenario is wildly implausible and there&#8217;s a strong disaster porn element. I&#8217;m still going to read her biological warfare one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5253"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5316,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5253\/revisions\/5316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}