September 2026 Monthly Wrap Up -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

September 2026 Monthly Wrap Up

I'm trying to stay on top of posting monthly wrap ups, but I'm still behind. Maybe that means I'm reading more!

Here's the list of books I read in September, in the order I read them:

• Rivals by Jilly Cooper, the second in her Rutshire Chronicles and just as good as Riders. Now I want to read the rest. I love a shaggy soap opera of a story.

• Not in the Flesh by Ruth Rendell, the 21st book in her Inspector Wexford mysteries, which I really enjoy. This one involves missing children, a local group of religious fanatics, and, of course, dead bodies that may or may not be connected. 

• First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston, my book club pick and one we all enjoyed despite its moral ambiguity.

• A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, a Golden Age mystery I read for Spinster September because Tey never married. The mystery was a bit overly complicated and the character's casual antisemitism was off-putting (if accurate for the time), but I still liked it quite a bit. 

• North from Rome by Helen MacInnes, another solid Cold War thriller, but not my favorite.

• A Calling for Charlie Barnes by Joshua Ferris. I didn't care for this one. I had a hard time sympathizing with Charlie, an underachieving man who followed harebrained schemes and refused to take responsibility for his life or the problems he caused. 

• The Cocktail Party by T. S. Eliot. I don't often read plays, but this classic about marriage and adultery was a good one. 

• The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene. I read this with a Going Greene group on Instagram. It's a classic Greene tragedy set in Argentina, with flawed characters, macabre humor, and a series of bad decisions and mistakes that lead to the dramatic finale. 

• Bloodhounds by Peter Lovesey, the fourth book in his Peter Diamond series and a very good locked room mystery involving a dead body found on a canal barge.

• Overdrive: A Personal Documentary by William F. Buckley, Jr., one of my TBR 26 in '26 books. It's a memoir structured as "one week in the life of" Bill Buckley, but digressions inspired by the week's events means it covers a lot of ground over a longer time period than one week. Interesting for Buckley fans or anyone interested in 1980s culture.

• The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen, about the fading of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy during the Irish War of Independence. It's a quiet, slow moving story that sticks with you.

• Conviction by Denise Mina, a twisty mystery featuring podcasts — predating Only Murders in the Building.

• The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. I finally read this and it was excellent. Not what I expected from the movie description, which was basically, an Allied soldier drying of his wounds at an abandoned military hospital in Italy tells his nurse about watching his girlfriend die in a cave in Africa after her plane crashed. Yes, that's the gist, but the book is so much more than that. 

• We Are All Guilty by Kingsley Amis. Amis said he felt compelled to write about this character, a young man who commits a crime but never gets the punishment he feels he deserved. 

• The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell. Wexford confronts a serial killer he failed to convict years ago in this entertaining but implausible 22nd book in the series. 

• A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters by Penelope Rowlands is the fascinating biography of the long-term editor of Harper’s Bazaar. It is just as much about the birth of the magazine and fashion industries in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Dense, but excellent. Also one of my TBR 26 in '26 picks.

• The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey is one of the very best Golden Age mysteries I've read. Her protagonist, Inspector Grant, barely makes a cameo while a village lawyer solves a baffling kidnapping case. 

February 2026 Monthly Wrap Up -- BOOK THOUGHTS

 

BOOK THOUGHTS

February 2026 Monthly Wrap Up

Oh, the short month of February, when there are not enough days to read all the books! I managed to finish 13 in my birthday month, but there were several left behind.

I am normally a planner when It comes to my reading. I love to pick books ahead of time, either for the year, like with my TBR 26 in '26 books, or by the month when I pick a stack for my nightstand that I want to get through that month. Because my birthday was in February, I decided to "treat" myself to reading more by whim. I had a couple of book club books I had to finish, but otherwise, I thought I'd pick them as I went. It turned out to not be as fun as I hoped. I think I like the anticipation and planning as much as I like reading the books. 

• The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell, number 14 in her Inspector Wexford series, my new focus. I love Wexford's droll demeanor and the way he's always quoting literature.

• Riders by Jilly Cooper. I loved every 912 page of this rollicking, raunchy chunkster. It’s book 1 of her Rutland Chronicles and I can’t wait to read the others. This was a real birthday treat.

• Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood, a Hogarth Shakespeare retelling of The Tempest. I picked this for book club and am so glad I did. Excellent!

• The Affair by C. P. Snow was a slog, but I’m determined to finish his Strangers & Brothers series. I love mid-century campus novels so want to love this series. But it is dry as dust.

• Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of WASP Splendor by Tad Friend, a fascinating memoir and social commentary about growing up in an extended East Coast, WASP family in the later 20th Century. It reminded me a lot of my first husband's family, which fortunately was humorous to me at this point. One of my TBR 26 in '26 books.

• The Paris Directive by Gerald Jay. A dud for me. Good premise, but I was yelling at the book for the unbelievability of every detail of the murders. Supposedly the best assassin the the world botches the first murder, tries to frame the local handyman, hangs around the tiny French village, and decides to murder the investigating cop and the daughter of one of the victims because they might solve the crime. Seriously? Why doesn't he just leave? Another TBR 26 in '26 book and one I'm glad to have off my shelf. 

• When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter. An entertaining memoir about the magazine business in its heyday, but the name dropping got to be too much. Specifically, he would introduce someone by full name -- which is good, knowing the people he rubbed elbows with is why you read a book like this -- but then all subsequent references were to first names. I couldn't keep up. There was no way I could remember that Henry Smigglesworth at the Oscar party was "Henry" at Paris Fashion Week 200 pages later. 

• The English Country Town by Russell Chamberlin. I thought this was a fluffy coffee table book and discovered it is a readable but serious history of English towns back to pre-Roman days. A surprise highlight of my month. I was fascinated.

NOT PICTURED

• The Appeal by Janice Hallett, a fun, popular mystery told through email and text messages. I read the sequel, The Christmas Appeal, in December and wanted to go back to the original. I actually thought the sequel was better because it was a novella and packed a lot into the shorter format. The original novel felt too long in comparison. 

• Prelude to Terror by Helen MacInnes is one of her later Cold War thrillers and very good. It is the first of three books she wrote featuring CIA spy Robert Renwick. Apparently this was a reread for me, but I remembered none of it, so it felt brand new. 

• Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just by Timothy Keller, a recommendation from our pastor and definitely worth reading.

• St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton. I read this classic as a group read on Instagram. Chesterton's commentary was as interesting as the details of the saint's life. 

• White Noise by Don DeLillo has been on my list forever but just confirmed I am not a fan. It won the 1985 National Book Award and I'm working my way through the winners. I don't plan on picking up any other DeLillo books. 

Did any of your February books stand out?