Autumn is upon us, and I am delighted. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, fall is my favorite season. And bear with me as I repeat one of my favorite autumn quotes by George Eliot: “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” Everything about this season fills me with happiness: fall colors, the subtle change of light in the sky, cool evenings, crisp mornings, the gorgeous reds of apples ripening in my orchard. Life, the world — it all feels so challenging right now — but the arrival of autumn is a balm to my soul.
I’ve written more than one column celebrating the season of cinnamon, pumpkins and flannel, but this time I decided to do something a little different. This week’s reading list comes from a search for books with “autumn” in the title. Two of the titles pay tribute to the pleasures of autumn food and crafts (a familiar theme from my previous fall-focused columns), but the other books bring together an eclectic mix of reading including titles about Ernest Hemingway, autumn in the Arctic, a novel from an award-winning author, and a glimpse at life in Japan. I’ve also taken the liberty of including publisher annotations for each book. I enjoy providing my own annotations, but sometimes it is fun to share the words of others — in this case, publisher promotions.
Happy fall reading!
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers” — L.M. Montgomery, “Anne of Green Gables”
- “Arctic Autumn: A Journey to Season’s Edge” by Pete Dunne.
“The Arctic doesn’t spring to mind when most people think about autumn. Yet in his continuing effort to invite readers’ curiosity through unpredictability, Pete Dunne chose to pair the transitional season of autumn with this fragile environment in flux.” (Publisher Marketing – Houghton Mifflin)
