August and September 2017 Month in Review

October is here! Oh, how I love this month. Autumn seems even better here in Vancouver than in Winnipeg. The air is crisp, the sun is bright, the leaves are changing to all sorts of marvelous colours, and I can see mountains from my house. I can’t wait until my couch finally arrives next week and I can cozy up with a blanket, a mug of hot chocolate, and a good book.

In the post announcing my hiatus, I said “Look for me in October”. I have been giving some thought to whether the hiatus should continue in October, now that I have an idea of how much of my time coursework eats up. I have found the readings and assignments to be very reasonably paced. The catch with October is that I am spending two weekends travelling, so I am losing a lot of time there. I’ve decided to remain on semi-hiatus. What does that mean? I will be checking in more with everyone on Twitter, trying to comment on a few blogs, and posting maybe once a week here. I wrote a couple post in the past few weeks and they reminded me how much I enjoy blogging. I’m eager to get back into it, but will have to be careful not to mix up my priorities… TL;DR: I’ll be active again the book blogging world, but won’t be posting on a schedule or reading your blogs as much as usual. 

Books Finished

• Patina by Jason Reynolds (Track #2)
• The Painting by Charis Cotter
• Elizabeth and Zenobia by Jessica Miller
• Strangers by David A. Robertson (The Reckoner #1)
• The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis

Books Reviewed

• Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hoschschild
• Patina by Jason Reynolds (Track #2)
• The Painting by Charis Cotter

Features

• I gave a photographic tour of my bookcase, before packing it all up for my move.
• My sister and I discussed Sunil Yapa’s Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist for August Family Reads.
• In my fourth Diversity Thursday post, I wrote about The Abyss Surrounds Us, One Half From the East, and Beasts Made of Night.

Happening in October

• 1 Oct – Publication of Ahimsa by Supriya Kelkar (middle grade novel about a young girl and her mother’s involvement in Gandhi’s protests for India independence)
• 3 Oct – Publication of Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (put this one on my TBR after reading the author interview in this month’s Goodreads newsletter) and Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore (ee, I’m sure this will be gorgeous)
• 10 Oct – Publication of Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (do I need to say anything about this one? I’ve been a vlogbrothers fan since 2007 so while I’m not as excited about a new JG novel as I was as a teen, I’m still looking forward to this.) and The Wolf, the Duck and the Mouse by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen (the excellent picture book duo strike again!)
• 13 Oct – Publication of From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty (I had never planned to read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, her book about working in a crematorium, but I did and enjoyed it, so this also book interests.
• 21 Oct – Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon, 10th anniversary! Reader sign-ups open now. Wish I could participate, but I’ll be in Seattle (attending a Depeche Mode concert, so can’t really complain :P)
• 31 Oct  – Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi (the book I mentioned in Diversity Spotlight #4)

I’ve been disconnected from the blogging community for awhile. What books have you been enjoying? What posts have I missed out on? Please leave me a link in the comments!