October 2024 Wrap-Up and November TBR

Plus our next Booker of the Month pick and an early look at 2025 releases on my radar

Hi, book friends.

My October was really packed, but really great. Both my sister-in-law and a close cousin got married, and I was in both weddings. The latter was all the way in Georgia, which also means we took the baby on a plane for the first time (and she slept in a pack-and-play for the first time, which went surprisingly smoothly!). I went to the famous semiannual Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library used book sale. I went back to work after 16 weeks of maternity leave. I started a return-to-running program and ran along a beautiful lake during peak fall foliage. My family came over for dinner three times. I visited two waterfalls. I played Dungeon & Dragons twice. I got two massages.

I’m feeling loved and tired and grateful heading into November, election anxiety notwithstanding. But I’m still looking forward to hunkering down a bit, cozying up on the couch under a blanket as the weather gets colder and grayer. All seasons are bookworm seasons, but there’s something especially bookish about winter.

Speaking of the coming winter! Gift guide season is upon us, and I’m working on one of my own. It will mostly consist of non-book gifts that bookish people would love, but I do want to make a few actual book recs. If you’re planning to gift someone a book this holiday season, but you’re not sure what to get them, tell me about a different book they liked in the comments (or just tell me about their interests). I’ll pick a few to include in the gift guide later this month!

Alright, let’s get to it.

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What I Read in October

Despite being so busy, it was a good reading month for me — I read nine books! (Only six are pictured above, because the other three were audiobooks that I don’t also own in print.) The quality of the reads was great, too. A highlight: After nearly two years mostly neglecting the genre, I was suddenly in the mood to get back into the nonfiction groove. It really energized my reading, and I hope it continues!

Here’s what I read.

Loved

• The Mighty Red by Lousie Erdrich 📖🎧: Erdrich is like the literary, award-caliber version of Jodi Picoult, and I 100% mean that as a compliment. A+ storytelling, lots of emotional depth, characters that could walk off the page, and a 10/10 big reveal.

• The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden*† 📖🎧: Very sapphic. Very horny, JFYI. Very excellent. Can’t wait to talk about this one with the Booker of the Month crew in a few weeks! (Zoom details below.)

Liked a lot

• The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer* 📖

• Held by Anne Michaels* 📖 (I’m going to wait to officially review this one until I reread it next month for book club — which may bump it into the love category)

• Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham 🎧

Liked

• The Message by Ta-Nahesi Coates† 🎧

• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake† 🎧

Just OK

• A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft*† 📖🎧

Reread

• Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse† 📖🎧

*print copy gifted to me by the publisher
†audiobook gifted to me by the publisher

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November TBR

I was smugly proud of myself for sticking to my own rule of putting no more than 10 books on my monthly TBR, and then I pulled them off the shelf for this photo and realized just now many pages they add up to, LOL. Alas.

I’m starting a couple of exciting new fantasy journeys (looking at you, Robin Hobb and Samantha Shannon), and the nonfiction train keeps chugging (Burkeman and Montei). That said, I’ve got a few other nonfiction audiobooks queued up that aren’t on my TBR but might call to me anyway — we’ll see where my nose leads!

• Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman*: Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks legitimately changed my life. I’m planning to follow along with these exercises over the four weeks of November!

• Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, #1) by Robin Hobb: Let’s start a 16-book adventure!!! Buddy reading these with some IRL friends and I could not be more excited. I’m wayyy overdue to read Hobb!

• Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood: This is my last read from the Booker Prize shortlist, which will be awarded on November 12. How can I not try to finish ahead of time?

• The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman†: If I don’t finally read this book this month, take away my library, LOL.

• The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1) by Samantha Shannon: Another new adventure! The fifth book in this series comes out at the end of February, so if I want to read one a month between now and then, it’s time to start.

• Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst*†: I’ve seen sooooo much love for this one, and Hollinghurst is a former Booker winner. Sounds promising!

• Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang*†: Del Rey sent me a GORGEOUS hardcover with sprayed edges and Bookstagram told me to read it immediately. No need to tell me twice!

• The Voyage Home by Pat Barker*†: Out 12/3. I’m a big Pat Barker fan; The Silence of the Girls is a fave. I’m psyched for this, the third book in that loose trilogy.

• Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control by Amanda Montei: I’ve been suspending this library hold ever since Montei was interviewed in

  Culture Study
  . Now that my nonfiction appetite is back, it’s finally time.

• Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse†: Continuing my reread so I can finally finish this trilogy!! Black Sun was my treadmill book in October and it worked great, so I’ll probably reread this one on the treadmill, too.

*print copy gifted to me by the publisher
†audiobook gifted to me by the publisher

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November Booker of the Month

ICYMI, I run a book club called Booker of the Month, where we read one book from the Booker Prize longlist each month. There are 13, so we double up just once, and by the time next year’s longlist is announced, we’ll have read them all.

Our November selection is The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (which, as I mentioned above, I loved). Join us!!

• Get yourself a print copy or the audiobook

• Find it on The StoryGraph or Goodreads

• Sign up for our Zoom discussion on Monday, November 25 at 8 PM ET.

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Upcoming hot releases

There aren’t many big, buzzy releases scheduled between now and the end of the year because of the election, but I’ve been looking ahead to 2025 — especially to sequels and new books in my favorite fantasy series. Here’s what I’ve already preordered:

• Heavenly Tyrant (Iron Widow, #2) by Xiran Jay Zhao (12/24)

• Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) by Rebecca Yarros (1/21)

• The Dark Mirror (The Bone Season, #5) by Samantha Shannon (2/25)

• Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle, #3) by Tracy Deonn (3/4)

• Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (6/10) — most anticipated

• Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders (8/19)

But there’s plenty more where that came from! ICYMI, I keep a running list of new releases I’m excited for on my Bookshop storefront, plus a list of recent releases I love or expect to love.

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As always, thanks for sharing your corner of the internet with me! It would mean a lot if you were to take a second to like this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, too.

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See you on Instagram!

— Deedi (she/her)