The Books That Carried Me Through September 2025
I had told my wife and kids that this September was going to be the month where I’d read all of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, Comedies, Histories, and Romances, or at least the ones I owned, starting with “The Tempest” which I’ve read a few times before. It started out slow, as I reacquainted myself with the “thous,” “wonders” and “wherefores,” but after a few pages I was back in the swing of things. Since this specific book is pretty thin and maybe a good choice to whet my appetite, I immediately consider reading “Hamlet” next, but my wife convinced me that I should read “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell instead because she had read it before and wanted to know my opinion—she didn’t like it much; I gave it 5 stars—so I did.
Right before I could go back to my Shakespearean journey, a book I had reserved from the public library a while ago became available, and that is how I bumped Shakespeare for “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim, because at some point I remember reading about it and wondering what it would feel like to spent an entire month living in a castle in Italy during the month of April? I took my time reading it as I also read “Hamnet” and I found myself laughing at the small, silly confusions that take place during that month, much like a Shakespearean comedy?
By then, I was craving a bit of SciFi and I finally moved my physical and much dusty copy of “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller Jr. from my bookshelves and read it pretty much every night right before going to sleep. This was another book that made me laugh much, one character in particular reminding me of Ignatius Reilly from “A Confederacy of Dunces.” Sure, the underlying story is pretty grim but it was hard not to laugh out loud with the many misadventures of that particular character.
By the end of the month, I wanted something more serious (though I did sneak in a manga adaptation of three stories by H.P. Lovecraft called “H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories” by Gou Tanabe), and after watching a recent The Daily Show episode with John Stewart where he interviewed Maria Ressa, I picked up her book “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future.” It was an interesting read and the (many) similarities she described between what happened in the Philippines and what is currently happening around the world and, most importantly, here in the United States, make me wonder if the ending will be as similar as of that story she tells in her book.
This October I plan to read some scary books as well as focus more on SciFi and maybe a bit less nonfiction if only because I feel I need to disconnect from the real world after work. The real world is looking kind of scary (see the previous paragraph) and I need some old fashion kind of scary, maybe some Poe and more Gou Tanabe adaptations?
So my final tally for this September is:
“The Tempest” by William Shakespeare
“Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell
“The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim
“A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller Jr.
“H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories” by Gou Tanabe
“How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future” by Maria Ressa
Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash