Summer, do your worst! / Light your tinsel moon, and call on / Your performing stars to fall on / Headlong through your paper sky. ~ Dorothy Parker



This just arrived in the mail yesterday, and I can’t wait to get started. I loved Duel with the Devil, also by Paul Collins.

from the publisher: On November 23rd of 1849, in the heart of Boston, one of the city’s richest men simply vanished. Dr. George Parkman, a Brahmin who owned much of Boston’s West End, was last seen that afternoon visiting his alma mater, Harvard Medical School.  But one Harvard janitor held a much darker suspicion: that their ruthless benefactor had never left the Medical School building alive.

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (July 17, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393245160


I’ve also just received Red Thread: On Mazes and Labyrinths. I heard about it as the author is appearing at the Edinburgh festival and I am stalking it from afar. I’m simply fascinated by the ideas in this one.

from the publisher: Charlotte Higgins tracks the origins of the story of the labyrinth in the poems of Homer, Catullus, Virgil and Ovid, and with them builds an ingenious edifice of her own. She follows the idea of the labyrinth through the Cretan excavations, the mysterious turf labyrinths of northern Europe, and the hedge mazes of Renaissance gardens.

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Jonathan Cape (September 25, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1910702390


The Mystery of Three Quarters is the third Poirot novel written by Sophia Hannah, with the blessing of the Christie estate. I enjoyed The Monogram Murders but this one wasn’t up-to-snuff for me.

The puzzle was highly convoluted (even more so than is usual for a Christie mystery) and the character of Poirot gets somewhat lost in the shuffle. I’ve liked everything I’ve ever read by Hannah, but I’d suggest skip this one, or read with several grains of salt.

Series: Hercule Poirot Mysteries
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (August 28, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0062792342



My grandmother used to read the “Little House” books to me. I’m loving this biography.

from the publisher: Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls–the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser–the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series–masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography.

Paperback: 656 pages
Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (August 7, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250182484


What are you reading this August?


2 thoughts on “Books for August”

  1. Prairie Fires sounds really interesting! I was never as big a fan of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as my mom or my older sister, but I do think I’d like to learn more about how those books were created.

  2. Some good choices, Meaghan. The Red Thread sounds especially interesting, but I couldn’t find pre-order information. Perhaps US release will follow soon. My August TBR pile includes: The Girl With The Red Balloon (YA) by Katherine Locke; How To Change Your Mind (NF) by Michael Pollan, The Vanishing Year (Thriller) by Kare Moretti and Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice (NF) by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew. Already started/enjoying Pollan’s book. Saving the others for a writing retreat at a lake…

Comments are closed.