BOOK THOUGHTS
August 2026 Monthly Wrap Up
Do you read a mix of fiction and nonfiction? I usually do but August was a 100% fiction month for me when it comes to books finished. The only nonfiction book I read was interesting but dense biography I started in June! I vow to finish it this month.
As always, the books I read have been on the backlist and my TBR shelf for years. Have you read any of them?
- Good-bye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton. This short classic about a favorite teacher at an English boarding school has been on my shelf a long time. I'm glad I finally read it because it is charming.
- State of the Union by Nick Hornby. This is a one-sitting dose of Hornby humor. It was fun but seemed to be written as a TV comedy, which it quickly became.
- French Exit by Patrick deWitt was a mixed bag for me. The story was clever and funny, but the characters were unlikeable and I didn't care for half of the resolution.
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I put this off because I rarely read fantasy. But when it was one of the options for a church book club this summer, I decided to give it a go and am glad I did. It was very good and our discussion was excellent.
- Ride a Pale Horse by Helen MacInnes. More Cold War espionage from the queen of the genre.
- The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich, an emotionally challenging family story. This is another that has languished on my TBR shelf. It is such a good story. The characters are all rough around the edges but you root for them anyway.
- The Windsor Knot by SJ Bennett, pure fun. Queen Elizabeth solves a murder. I'm not ready to read more of the series, but I'm glad I read this first one.
- The Wonder Worker by Susan Howatch, a Church of England novel. This is the first of a trilogy related to her Starbridge Series, but set in London years after the original books. It was the only book from my TBR 26 in '26 list that I read in August.
- End in Tears by Ruth Rendell is the 20th book in her Inspector Wexford series, which I like very much. This one got a little overly complicated but I still enjoyed it.
- Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues by Iris Murdoch. It is literally two dialogs between Plato and his accolades, one on art, one on religion. I felt like I was back in college, even pretending to be interested when I really wasn't.
- The Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell, the 21st Wexford mystery and a really good one.
- The Green Road by Anne Enright. I wanted to like this more than I did. I loved the idea of an elderly mom gathering her four adult children together for one last Christmas. But the book is structured as lengthy, separate chapters on each of the kids to lay out their life stories, then a final section on them coming together with their mom. But the kids’ stories were too disparate for me -- they had almost no connection with each other as adults. So their individual stories had no connection and then they were thrown together. I suppose that was her point -- to show how siblings go their own way and live completely separate lives, but are still bound by a common mother. But it felt way too chopped up to me.
- Neither Five Nor Three by Helen MacInnes, more Cold War espionage. This one is set in New York, which is unusual for her.
NOT PICTURED
- Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler. I'm working my way though her books, which is an enjoyable project but they start to feel the same. This one is short and didn't feel as developed as some of her longer novels.
