Make a large cup of tea and get comfortable. We are going to talk about fall reading! Since September is considered ‘the other new year’, now is a good time to reassess your reading life and to choose some books with intention and anticipation.

Autumnal books have atmosphere and awaken a feeling of nostalgia, decay, thoughfulness, moodiness or idyllic. Some of these books will take you back to school or bygone friendships, back to churchyards and cemeteries and maybe just a tiny bit of menace. We want books with weather – swaying swaths of golden grass under blue skies and thunderheads, lowering clouds over cobblestone streets, windy moors with the fog rolling in. We want color coating every tree and leaf and dark foggy nights with friendly lamplight. So before we dig in,

Take a moment…

Knowing your reading tendency is a great way to begin. With that information, you can be more specific with choices, and hopefully more likely to love the books you choose to read this season. You want to spend the precious reading time with something that you will especially enjoy.

Before we get into all the delicious, cozy and goose-fleshy recommendations, let’s take a moment to explore exactly what kind of reading you need this season. If you’re the type, get out your journal and make a few notes.

• My autumnal reading should feel ___________. (Choose one word or as many as you like.)
• When will I read this fall? (Consider all obligations, don’t set yourself up for failure by planning to read 20 books and only having time for three.)
• What kind of stories do I need now?

Let your answers guide you while perusing the following titles.

If you’re not much of a reader, choose one book and really enjoy it this fall. Follow any rabbit trails it suggests to you. If you are an average reader, challenge yourself to read one more than you expect, or maybe try your hand at keeping some notes about what you read. If you are an avid reader, limit yourself to just under what seems possible and take time to truly experience the books you choose. Slowing down is one of the great secrets to enjoying reading. Isn’t that the whole point?

Fall Reading for the five tendencies

If you have read a book on this list, you can mentally check it off and get the same dopamine hit as if you’ve checked something off the to do list. And it will also help you know if you might or might not like other books included in the same list.

Some of the books mentioned here may be labeled as gothic. This is my (Eva) favorite style of book in the fall. Gothic is not to be confused with horror. I never read horror books. I’m quite certain they would come back to haunt me at two AM.

Goth or Gothic can get bad rap, with good reason in today’s world. When referring to books, we are not talking about rebellious teenagers who wear black clothes and have fingernails painted black. Not at all. A simple defintion for gothic, in the book sense, is this: “dark, mysterious, old-fashioned”. Nothing rebellious. Or witchy. Think misty moors, crumbling castles or family manor houses with long dark corridors, locked doors and mysterious attics.

The difference between gothic and horror is simple. Gothic makes you want to push the door open because you just have to see what is on the other side. Horror makes you turn and run because you are afraid the door is going to open and you are terrified of what is on the other side. Not all of the books mentioned here will be gothic, but since fall is the perfect time to read stories down this line, I thought it worth a mention.

(* means Liz has read it;   # means Eva has read it; ^ denotes this book is mentioned somewhere else on SoSheReads. The words after the title give just a few more clues about the book. We may not have read every book on these lists, but they come from a reputable source who also recommends books. We can’t be held accountable for those we haven’t actually read.)

Here’s some possible directions your reading could take:

-Old houses, villages, schools, libraries

-Mystery, folklore, historical fiction

-Classics, essays, reflective non-fiction

-Harvest, home, memory, change

-Familiar author, re-read

Immersive Books

These books are atmospheric, contain historical settings and rich story-worlds for readers who like that sort of thing.

• This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti* (mystery, spirits, prayer)
• My Antonia by Willa Cather* #(feel the weather, Nebraska prairie)
• Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (mystery, moors, murder)
• The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig* (revisit the prairie pioneers, Montana)
• The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks*# (mystery, gothic)
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins* (mystery, London, creepy
• Mallory Towers series by Enid Blyton# (YA, Boarding school, friendship, mischief, character growth)
• Castle of Adventure series by Enid Blyton# (middle grades, friendship, mystery)
• The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane by Julia Nobel# (middle grades, gothic, boarding school, mystery)
• The Lake House by Kate Morton# (gothic, mystery, British, missing person)

Curious Books

Here you’ll find oddities, folklore, nature, and the hidden gem.

• The Alliance by Jolina Petersheim* (technology shutdown, Amish heroes)
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin*^ (gothic and funny!)
• The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman*# (sad, complicated, childlessness)
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy* (a classic less than 60 pages)
• The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd# (mystery, suspense)
• Reading People by Anne Bogle#* ( personalities, explanations)
• Joyful by Ingrid Fetel Lee* (sparking joy across time and cultures)

Comfort Books

These are the gentle and cozy books, full of home and tradition with happy endings.

• The Lighted Heart by Elizabeth Yates* (memoir, blindness, bittersweet)
• Persuasion by Jane Austin*#^ (lovely heroine, patience pays)
• Shady Hollow by Juneau Black*^ (Thornton W. Burgess for adults, mystery)
• The Haunted Schoolhouse by Kristina Gregory* (middle grade, mystery,)
• How to Stitch an American Dream by Jenny Doan (needlework, biography, inspirational)
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer#* (WWII, fiction, friendship)
• The Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright* (historical, love)

Purposeful Books

Books about homemaking, practical seasonal subjects for the purposeful reader.

• The More of Less by Joshua Becker*#^ (for declutter inspo)
• Breadsong by Kitti Tate*#^ (baking, depression, England)
• The Art of Taking It Easy by Dr. Brian King* (author is psychologist, neuroscientist and stand-up comedian)
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande^# (aging, caretakers, informative)
• Healing Herbal Teas by Sarah Farr*#
• How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler* (goes deep into reading)
• The Self Reliant Kitchen by Michelle Mullennix# (from-scratch, homemade and farm-to-table)
• Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat* (how and why for cooking)
• Love the Home You Have by Melissa Michaels (contentment, practical homekeeping)

Wandering Books

This list includes poetry, short stories, and essays for those with short bits of time or attention, who still want to read. You can also make it an audio to get in reading while driving or folding laundry or walking.

• Poetry: try Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or Edgar A. Guest *#
• Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin* (essays about cooking)
• Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side by L. M. Montgomery (19 short stories)
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce# (walking, adventure, personal journey)
• I’d Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel#* (essays, reading life)
• The Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson* (essays, book recs)
• A Way of Seeing by Lilias Trotter, edited by Stephen Wildman (art, sacrifice, contemplation)
• The Cottage Fairy Companion by Paola Merrill (sections for each season, crafts, poetry)

Devoted Books

This list features series, or authors with a lot of books. There’s also some long books you can devote the whole season to.

• Hannah Coulter* (and the rest of Wendell Berry)
• The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (moody moors, sad endings)
• Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (cover is fallish on my copy!)
• Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler* (elder couple, day trip, funeral)
• The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak*# (Germany, WWII, Jews)
• Villette by Charlotte Bronte (tragic, beautiful ache, I’ve heard)
• Anything by Kate Morton# (mystery)
• School by the Sea Series by Jenny Colgan# (boarding school but from the teachers perspective, cozy mystery)

Remember these are options. Your TBR for fall should feel just right for you. Nobody has time to read all of these and they are simply options to choose from. Take it slow and enjoy your fall reading!

On Our Fall Reading Lists

I (Liz) am continuing my yearly reading challenges this fall. My classic that will take all three months is The Return of the Native. Read-your-bookshelf challenge includes West With Giraffes, Ship Fever, and Betsy in Spite of Herself. My sister-in-law, who has every L. M. Montgomery book, is borrowing me Among the Shadows. I plan to listen to The Woman Who Smashed Codes. All of these are pretty long so I better quit.

The autumn reading atmosphere I hope to cultivate: time spent on Egdon Heath where bonfires light the moors and fictional people seem real; adventure in a truck hauling giraffes from New York to San Diego; go back to school with Betsy Tacy and Tibb; intrigue in the form of secret codes; shadows and cemeteries await in one of them, if the cover says anything.

My (Eva) fall reading list is looking pretty pleasant. I love to write, so this fall I am studying middle grade writing. My learning consists of reading some middle grade fiction. I am reading The Secret of White Stone Gate by Julia Nobel. This is the sequel to The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane mentioned above. Also on my middle grade list: Iceberg by Jennifer A. Nielson and Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. Both of the books by Julia Nobel are gothic as is the one book I am listening to this season: The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware. September’s book club read is also on my list. It is How to Stitch an American Dream by Jenny Doan. Those of you interested in quilting will recognize the Missouri Star Quilt Company. This book is the story of how she started that company and turned the towns economy around in the process. Two books I plan to read in (I’m not committing to finishing these) are I Am a Teacher (and I Love It!) by Deana Swanson and Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose.

My perosnal Autumn reading atmosphere: (Eva)

-Melancholy- misty moors, coffee shops, enigmatic strangers

-Gothic- crumbly castles, cemeteries,

-Academic- new notebooks, The Other New Year

-Mysterious- cryptic letters, inexplicable happenings, secret societies

-Comfort- soups, London Fogs, swearshirts

Thanks for reading this! And for reading books!

–Eva and Liz