Books Read in August, part 1

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The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 2

By Beth Brower, published 2019

In talking with my mother about this series and why it works for some people but doesn’t for others, we think it is because it sits at the intersection of historical fiction and fantasy: it is set in a real place and time (London, 1883), but the setting is not quite real (a fictional neighborhood with quirky characters, a neighborhood ghost, the protagonist’s close friendship with three single men, copious cozy stops for tea, etc.). It appeals to readers who like books and who don’t mind flights of fancy. But readers who prefer serious grounded storytelling may bounce off this series. 

I thought the second installment was a bit stronger than the first: Emma has established herself in the neighborhood and we have met many of the main players, and her adventures have begun. If you don’t care for the series at this stage, there’s no point in going further. 

Emma gets to know her tenant, the photographer Mr. Pierce, a bit better and they jointly temporarily adopt a cat, Tybalt, to catch the mice in their house; Emma accidentally reads the private journal of a neighboring duke (who happens to be young, handsome, and who verbally spars with Emma); she adores the poetic sermons of the neighborhood vicar, Hawkes; and she joins a confidence man on an adventure to recover a beloved copy of Jane Eyre.

Light, delightful, good bedtime reading. Excellent as summer reading when it’s a zillion degrees outside. I recommend the audio books. 

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 3

By Beth Brower, published 2020

We march on…Emma continues her scrapes and adventures and enjoys a neighborhood scavenger hunt for tickets to see Julius Caesar (resulting in a horrible accident for her loathsome cousin Archibald); rents studio space to her tenant, increasing their contact; discusses Ralph Waldo Emerson with said tenant; and becomes a mascot for a group of young men who call themselves The Reprobates Ten. She is also conscripted by her imperious Aunt Eugenia to assist in attracting a suitably rich and titled husband for her daughter (Emma’s cousin), the golden Arabella.

This book was 200-something pages, so it is a bit longer, but still fun and charming. I read these in such quick succession (due to a complicated library holds situation/ game) that it’s hard to review them individually. 

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 4

By Beth Brower, published 2021

We finally learn more about Emma’s first love, Maxwell, as she attends his burial (he died in war in Afghanistan three years before the story begins, but his body has just now been brought back). Emma finally really grieves his loss, and I found that portion of the book a little more grounded and touching than other sections of the book. 

Emma also has various shenanigans (including pretending to be a dancing girl at a nightclub and tea with a woman who has decided she no longer wishes to speak), and firmly cements her place in the bffs-four: Lion, Islington, Pierce, and Hawkes. 

At just over 200 pages, this felt like a perfect length for the two months described (each Volume covers two months of Emma’s life), and is maybe my favorite installment so far. I hope that novellas and short stories will make a comeback in general, as I appreciate the compact format.

Books Read in July, part 2

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The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1

By Beth Brower, published 2019

It is March 1883 and Emma has just moved back to her childhood home (Lapis Lazuli House) in London as an orphan who has finished school and a three year companionship to a curmudgeonly older relative, and who is a few months away from inheriting the house and property. She will take over from an older male relative who has been living in the house and benefiting from the income since her father’s death seven years before. Her coming of age will boot him out of his handling of the house and money. I’m sure this will be a smooth transition…. 

The novella’s format is diary entries, and details Emma’s observations, thoughts, and feelings. It is a charming little book, and Emma is a witty and entertaining narrator. 

I like that the book is a novella and in a diary/journal format, so we don’t get too in-the-weeds about the events of the story, and it doesn’t go on for too long before we are at the end. It was a perfect little snack of a book.

Brower has released eight volumes thus far, with each volume covering two months of time, so her proposed timeline will cover ~twenty-ish volumes if she continues her current plan (https://www.bethbrower.com/about-3). That is quite a commitment and I wish her the best! 

Howl’s Moving Castle 

By Diana Wynne Jones, published 1986

I re-read this children’s fantasy novel because we have been watching the films of Hayao Miyazaki with a friend and after watching the animated version I couldn’t remember what aspects were part of the book and what aspects Miyazaki inserted/ adapted. 

The story follows Sophie, a young woman who works at her stepmother’s hat shop and is the dutiful oldest daughter (who seems magical despite assuring us that she is super boring and lame) while her younger two sisters go off to work at a bakery and apprenticeship with a witch. 

Sophie is cursed by the Wicked Witch of the Waste to be an old woman and also not to be able to tell anyone she has been cursed. She leaves her day job and discovers the vain Wizard Howl and his titular castle (which does indeed move, and is also connected magically to multiple locations). 

It’s a story about family, knowing yourself, courage, and also magic, obviously. It is also a very 1980’s book. There were aspects I enjoyed and some things which I had a lot of questions about and wanted to know more about. I enjoyed it, but I probably don’t need to revisit it again. 

The movie is also a delight: beautiful, weird, though it leaves some plot threads dangling at the end, though to be fair, the book also ends rather abruptly. I did love the movie’s depiction of the castle as a Baba Yaga’s Hut style building, and Howl’s vanity and general angst is also a highlight.  What I didn’t love was Billy Crystal as the English dub voice of Calcifer, the fire demon. I just didn’t imagine Billy Crystal when I imagined the fire demon, and it was impossible to hear him as anything but Billy Crystal. Small complaint and it might not bother you!

Books Read in July, part 1

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The Silver Chair

By C.S. Lewis, published 1953

We return to Narnia with Eustace and a schoolmate of his, Jill. They arrive in Aslan’s Country and are sent on a quest to find the lost prince of Narnia, Rilian. 

Jill and Eustace almost immediately behave poorly and don’t follow instructions well, so the quest becomes a bit more complicated right away (unfortunately relatable). To their credit, however, they don’t give up. 

This is the last of the direct sequel Narnia books, and a fun adventure story. This one also feels like it could be well adapted into a movie. I know the early 2000’s Narnia movies got mixed reviews (Dawn Treader was legitimately a mess), but it’s too bad we didn’t get this one because I think it would have been fun and as a more straightforward story lends itself well to the screen. 

Puddleglum the marshwiggle is a delightful addition to Narnia as the Eeyore of the story, who nevertheless proves to be worth his weight in gold. Perseverance and keeping sense of your core identity are important lessons of this book, and ones I still need to hear as an adult!

Most memorable quote: “Many sink down and few return to the sunlit lands.”

Country People

By Daniel Mason, published 2026

“‘I think,’ he said, ‘Vermont is a little different.’

“‘Okay, said Kate. ‘But you know what I am saying. Rural people. Farming people. Country people. It does seem hard to write about the topic when you haven’t lived in the country yourself.’”

The Krzelewski-Petrosian family moves from California to rural Vermont when Kate takes a one-year teaching job at a college, and Miles plans to continue work on a long-protracted dissertation on Russian peasant (country) life.

The family settles in to their new rural life and meets a colorful cast of characters, a completely different landscape, and Miles tries to work on his dissertation. But the writing seems less urgent than exploring their new home. Kate slips easily into academic life, Wesley and Olive make friends at school and seem to be adjusting well, and Miles tries to find his place. 

Having recently read North Woods by the same author, I expected a slightly quirky, offbeat story, and Mason delivered. I preferred this more straightforward story, and there is still room for the occasional diversion via characters telling stories (reminiscent in some ways to The Pickwick Papers). This was a funny, meandering look into a family’s life for a year, and an enjoyable romp through the countryside and a collection of offbeat characters in a small town whose quirkiness is treated with affection rather than scorn.

This feels like it straddles the line of reality and unreality, and that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found it fun and an easy read, and funnier than I expected. Miles seems like he would be a fun hang.

Books Read in June 2026, Part 2

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Don’t Call It Art

By Austin Kleon, published 2026

“To waste time in the modern world is considered the greatest of sins, and idleness is looked upon with suspicion. To be thought of as productive, one needs to look busy. But you will not always look busy when you’re being creative. In fact, if you check in on creative people at different moments in the day, it will look like they are doing absolutely nothing, or doing the kinds of things kids get yelled at for in the classroom….” 

Austin Kleon’s little books are encouraging and fun. They are meant to help you continue in creative practices with a combination of advice, humor, quotes, and stories from Kleon’s own creative life. They are also best experienced by reading the books themselves to see the drawings and illustrations. 

This installment has a lot of reflections about art and his children, drawn from being an “art assistant” to them and remembering what it was like to create with the artistic freedom of a child whose inner critic has not yet developed into crippling insecurity. 

“The artist ventures into the unknown, making and doing things that no one has ever seen before.” Love it. Let’s go make some stuff! …But you don’t have to call it art. Just mess around and make something (a good word for a recovering perfectionist like me).

North Woods

By Daniel Mason, published 2023

This is a story about a particular yellow house in the—you guessed it—north woods of Massachusetts. The house is built by a young couple fleeing their town, and each section is a vignette of someone who lives in the house. 

The stories, though separate, start to converge in strange ways, the past affecting the present. The house is the only through line; though whispers of past inhabitants continue, sometimes through their decisions, sometimes as ghosts, and the house itself is unsettling to some. 

This was an interesting and weird book, as a result of the structure (following the house, not the characters). Some of the stories felt a little too much, and I think it would have been a stronger book if it was a little bit shorter. While I enjoyed it, I was ready to be done before the author was ready to be done, though I know not everyone had that reaction. Mason was clearly having a great time writing the vignettes and deciding where to go next though, and that came across to me reading it. I appreciated the ambition of following a place, not a person, even if I did not find it completely successful in paying off its promise. 

DNF (Did Not Finish) Pile

Yesteryear 

By Caro Claire Burke published 2026

This is an extremely polarizing book. While I loved the premise, I found the characters unconvincing and decided I’d rather just have conversations with people about tradwife influencers and Mom-culture than read the rest of this book. I think the execution didn’t line up with my expectations, and that was part of the problem (I expected an unlikeable narrator, but I found her a little…boring).

Since I didn’t finish the book it’s a bit of a cheat to write something about it, but I decided the book wasn’t for me even though I appreciated what Burke was trying to do and I find the discourse around it fascinating. I also wonder about the staying power of this book. It is everywhere this summer, but I’m curious if this is the type of book that is for this specific moment and then will fade, or if it will have a longer shelf-life.

Books Read in June 2026, Part 1

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The Everlasting

by Alix E. Harrow, published 2025

Owen Mallory is an academic who lives in a kingdom called Dominion, eking out an existence after fighting in one of Dominion’s many wars, and is a nobody in a university history department. 

He is obsessed with the legend of Sir Una Everlasting, the mythical(?) female knight who helped the first Queen of Dominion establish the country. One day he receives a book with the oldest version of the legend yet, and is tasked with translating it. 

He then finds himself traveling back through the book in time, to meet Una and write her story. He discovers the person behind the myth, falls in love, watches her die, works on his translation, and travels back again and again and again. 

While this is not exactly an Arthurian legend book, it also is sort of a gender-swapped Arthur (ahem, our protagonist’s name is Mallory, wink). The time travel and repeating history aspect is interesting, and I was rooting for Owen and Una. I enjoyed the way the time travel allowed the book to play with both real people living their lives and also historical record and the way that mythology (and sometimes also history) sands off the rough edges and those writing the history can tweak the story to fit a narrative that serves them. 

I left the book thinking about history and legend and national stories. America is a country that is less of an ethnic identity (no matter what some politicians will tell you), and more of an idea, a creed, a set of beliefs (see the Declaration of Independence and Frederick Douglass’s 4th of July speech for examples). The story we tell about ourselves and our national identity is important, and yet it is easy to only tell part of the truth about anything, to collapse the complicated truth to something simpler. 

Anyway, this is all to say that I enjoyed this book. 

Content: violence (because Sir Una is essentially a medieval knight), sex, language, death

Make Believe 

By Marc Barnett, published 2026

“Maybe more like 94.7% of kids’ books are crud. And that’s because kids’ books, unlike most writing, are made by people (adults) who are not members of their intended audience (kids). And children are in so many ways different from adults, though often not in the ways adults expect.” 

This small book was engaging, funny, and had a very definite point of view on children’s literature. My bookshop colleague led a discussion on it, which was a delight. 

Barnett thinks the best children’s book authors either have a lot of empathy with children, have a direct line back to their own childhood, or both. 

I will be thinking for a while about the ways the many children’s books are trying to Teach A Lesson and how this is often prioritized over just telling good stories that children would enjoy. Someone in the discussion said that many authors (of novels for grown-ups) are so busy working out their own stuff that they do not seem to care about their audience. This led to talking about authors whom we trust to handle material in a way that cares for their audience. Are there authors in whose hands you feel safe? Bad things may happen to the characters in their books, but they still have care for them and for you? 

I want this reading experience for both children and adults, and I agree with Barnett that we ought to take much more care in putting out books for children that try to tell good stories and take children seriously as humans.