BW43: October by Robert Frost

 

Happy Sunday!  I can't believe October is almost over and daylight savings time is ending.  The year is moving way too fast.  I've been deep cleaning my house and am exhausted so will leave you with a poem from one of my favorite poets,  Robert Frost. 

October

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild, 

Should waste them all. 

The crows above the forest call;

To-morrow they may form and go. 

O hushed October morning mild, 

Begin the hours of this day slow,

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know; 

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf; 

One from our trees, one far away;

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst. 

Slow, slow! 

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, 

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

BW42: Blind Date with a Book

 

Happy Sunday! 42 is the answer, except we don't know the question. Which leads us to our next letter which in our A to Z and Back Again which is  K and our next bingo quest which is a Blind Date with a Book! 

Let's go on an adventure.  Whether it is the library, the book store, google or your own shelves, pick a random book to read this week.  Preferably one you know nothing about.  

For the library or bookstore, choose a genre, choose a section of shelves, picked a shelf, and then pick a number between one and thirty and read whatever book you discover.   Or pick out a random book, don't read the synopsis (yes, I know how hard that is not too) and read it. 

For your own shelves, fill out slips of paper with one through fifty or more if you have a large TBR pile, put them in a jar, and let one of your family members pick a number.  

Or let one of your family members randomly or not so randomly pick a book for you to read.  James not so randomly picked out a One Piece novelization for me to read which fortunately is 148 pages.  I also randomly picked up Wreck by Catherine Newman (A Good Morning America book club book) at the airport which is also a short read.  

K fits for this week as I am still reading Dean Koontz The Friend of the Family which is not so scary but mysterious. 

We'll see which one keeps my attention. LOL! 

Have fun! 

BW41: Little bit of this and that

 

Happy Sunday!  

Book Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are Revolting.  I hope they revolt and win against the use of AI in editing and polishing new releases.  I have come across a few books by series authors  primarily published in 2024 and later which were horribly written and dumbed down. None of them sounded like the author's voice.  And if you happen to notice sentences in which - is used instead of commas, that is an AI thing.  I played with Microsoft Word's AI editor and discovered it uses dashes instead of commas, in some instances. Which is when I began to notice the same thing in books published from 2024 onward.  

The 2026 Nobel Prize winner for Literature is poet Anne Carson for “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature”.  Essentially she likes to reimagine ancient Greek literature and philosophy. 

Let's not forget it's is banned book week month and it looks like Sarah J Maas, author of the Romantasy Court of Thorn and Roses as well and Throne of Glass series are on the hot seat this year!   No, neither series interests me.  

Check out Modern Mrs. Darcy's 20 Banned Books I find Myself Recommending all the Time or the Best Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books on Goodreads and read a banned book this month.  The list incredibly includes the Harry Potter series, Fahrenheit 451, and Frankenstein of all things.  

Check out the Marginalian's latest Timeless Advice on Writing: The Collected Wisdom of Great Writers which will provide some great reads to peruse, plus keep you occupied for quite a while.  

Happy Reading! 

BW40: October Spooktacular

 

Welcome to October and our spooktacular reading month. Spooky to me doesn't equal horror. I detest blood and guts horror books or movies. Give me emotion, give me pee in your pants scary moments.  Give me tense moments that make you laugh or cry. Give me mind bending stories with devious and conniving characters and lots of twists and turns.  Give me stories that make me think and go whoa, I didn't see that coming.  Entertain me, thrill me, shock me. 

If you haven't read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Bram Stoker's Dracula, now would be the perfect time.  Put away all your preconceived notions as the books are very different from the movies and will shock and amaze you.  If you have read it, dip your toes into retellings of the story as well as the reimagining's of  Bram Stoker's Dracula. 

There are a number of ways to go with psychological thrillers, gothic, science fiction, supernatural, apocalyptic and dystopian as well as reads full of bad guys, vampires, werewolves and monsters of the deep. 

Unmissable new thriller books of 2026, vouched for by the experts

20 Must-Read Mysteries & Thrillers Heating Up This Winter

Audible's Psychological Science Fiction

The 10 Most Captivating Apocalypse Novels

The Most Anticipated Gothic and Dark Academia Novels of Fall 2026

12 Scary-Good Supernatural Thrillers

Currently on my TBR shelves for October is Dean Koontz's The Friend of The Family about a girl liberated from a carnival sideshow who discovers her mysterious purpose.  

Also Mervyn Peake's Ghormengast trilogy starting with Titus Groan in which "a grand miasma of doom and foreboding weaves over the sterile rituals of the castle. Villainous Steerpike seeks to exploit the gaps between the formal rituals and the emotional needs of the ruling family for his own profit."   

I'm contemplating a reread of Elizabeth Kostakova's The Historian since she is returning to a story about Dracula with the soon to be released  Mystery Play in which "the youngest son in a family of historians who has been hunted by dark forces associated with Dracula finds himself in peril at the hands of a new threat."

Have a thrilling, chilling, spooktacular October!