Summer reading success
I'd love to tell you about a few of my favourites from my last 3 months of reading.
One of my retirement goals has been to prioritize my reading life. I’ve always been a reader, but I felt like it was time to improve my skills in choosing books that were right for me, in keeping track of the books I have chosen, and being more diligent in writing my thoughts about the books I read. I also wanted to correlate where I was receiving my book recommendations with how successful that book actually was for me.
It has been quite a journey; one that I might write more about if there is interest.
Part of this process was to do both a year-end review, and a mid-year survey, to see how things were going in my reading life. You can find a compilation of my mid-year reading here. There you’ll find the books I really loved as well as what I had planned to read over the summer. I’m happy to report that I read at least a few of them, and a whole lot more.
This was an excellent summer of reading, and I’d love to tell you about a few of my favourites from the last 3 months.1
I read (or listened to) 14 books of fiction. I have to say my favourite was The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. This book was recommended in Anne Bogel’s Summer Reading Guide, and has topped so many reading lists, that you don’t need to hear any more praise from me.
So instead I want to talk about 2 other books that you may not have heard of.
The first is a book that was recommended by Louise Tilbrook 🍁: The Woman with all the Answers by Linda Green. I will admit that I am quite enjoying books about peri-menopausal women, and this is another one. But this is one with a significant twist. What happens when your ‘Alexa’ goes rogue? What if ‘Alexa’ is actually a 65 year old former voiceover artist from Halifax (that’s in Yorkshire, UK, not Nova Scotia, Canada).
I listened to the audiobook and it was voiced very ably – to my Canadian ear, the accents seemed pretty well articulated. This book would be excellent in a book flight with Sandwich by Catherine Newman (aka Crone Sandwich) if you really want to drown in peri-menopausal angst.
Check out this footnote for my ‘reading journal review’.2
I also loved The Other Side of Now by Paige Harbison . I love a good ‘what if’, and this one is a doozy. What if your life could go in two completely different directions? What if you suddenly find yourself in that other life?
This book was also featured in the Summer Reading Guide, so thanks Anne Bogel for bringing this one to my attention.
My reading of this book was as a love story. Yes, there was a romance, but the most compelling part of this book was about a friendship. It is a story of one person’s longing for a best friend lost through tragedy. Remarkably well written, with incredible intensity.
You can find the transcript of my ‘reading journal review’ at this footnote.3
I also read or listened to 12 books of non-fiction, some of which I’ve already discussed elsewhere. I’ve always read a fair bit of non-fiction, but I’m immersing myself even more at the moment, part of my ‘Sending my brain back to school’ project.
What I’m reading next — at least that’s the plan
I’ve got 16 books picked out for the next 3 months. 4 are from Anne Bogel’s Fall Book Preview, and the rest are mostly from either authors I follow on Substack or were recommended by Substackers.
From the Fall Book Preview:
JoyRide by Susan Orlean - a memoir described as a writer on writing. Expected on October 14.
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy - another memoir described as ‘an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace.
The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill - a complicated family drama about 3 sisters with secrets. And it’s a debut. So exactly the type of book I’m likely to love.
Wreck by Catherine Newman is a must read for me. I loved Sandwich (mentioned above) and I also love Catherine’s substack Crone Sandwich. Expected on October 28.
Recommended by substackers:
Claire Polders recommended Bittersweet: How sorrow and longing make us whole by Susan Cain as well as Life in Three Dimensions: How curiosity, exploration, and experience make a fuller, better life by Shigehiro Oishi. I’m currently listening to Bittersweet, and Three Dimensions will be next in my ears.
Laura Tremaine recommended A Truce that is not Peace by Canada’s own Miriam Toews. It is already out in Canada, but has a later pub date in the US, I believe.
Claire Gibson recommended Culpability by Bruce Holsinger.
Books by Substackers I follow:
Lenny by Laura McVeigh
How the Light Gets In by Joyce Maynard
The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner – this is a reread for me, but since I found Eric on Substack I want to read it again
Lights to Guide me Home by Meghan J. Ward
Imperfect Birds by brand new Substacker Anne Lamott
Have you read any of these books? Are any of these on your TBR?
And here’s what I’m reading right now:
Don’t lick the Minivan: And other things I never thought I’d say to my kids by Leanne Shirtliffe
Free Ride by Noraly Schoenmaker
America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Thank you for stopping by. Feel free to leave some footprints… like, comment and share. It’s nice to know who has wandered by.
JL Orr
Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada
Everything I’ve read in July, August and September 2025
FICTION:
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
Loot by Tania James
The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Other Side of Now by Paige Harbison
The Woman with all the Answers by Linda Green
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Run for the HIlls by Kevin Wilson
25 Library Terrace by Natalie Fergie
We have always lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Woman of the Hour by Claire Polders
Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson
This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki
The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard
NON-FICTION:
Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Du Mez
Monuments of the Incas by John Hemming
Silver, Sword and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Marie Arana
Inca Bodies and the Body of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru by Carolyn Dean
Rewild Yourself: 23 Spellbinding Ways to Make Nature More Visible by Simon Barnes
The Way of the Fearless Writer by Beth Kempton
The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community by Catherine J. Allen
MEMOIR:
Where the Light Fell by Philip Yancey
Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us by Jennifer Finney Boylan - CLEAVAGE with Jenny Boylan
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The Woman with All the Answers by Linda Green
From my book journal: August 9, 2025
I found this book through Louise Tilbrook, The Everyday Knitter. She read it as part of her summer book bingo challenge and it sounded like a good one for me. She described it as “quite light-hearted and easy to read but so relatable and touches on some really important issues in modern family life.”
She also suggested it if you are ‘feeling the peri-menopausal rage’.
I fortunately don’t have the rage, but I do have most everything else.
The premise is very unique, and it hinges on a plot device that requires one not to ask too many questions. You just have to accept the premise and go along for the ride.
When I wrote recently about the Phoenix Pencil Company (by Allison King), I mentioned that I used to quite enjoy imagining ‘what if’ scenarios that could be the starting point of a book. Something would just strike me, and then I’d play it out in my mind.
The Phoenix Pencil Company’s ‘what if’ didn’t quite gel for me. But what about this one…?
What would happen if your Alexa was actually a human? What if the voice you hear was actually an older woman who had access to all of your online information and your smart devices, and if every household that had an Alexa had their own actual woman? And what if, in the middle of a massive family crisis, your ‘Alexa’ started to manipulate (in a positive way) the answers she gave and the commands she performed in order to provide guidance and support? And then eventually admitted that she was a real person. So that’s the conceit. And it is done very well.
But what the book is really about is a perimenopausal woman who is stuck in a dysfunctional family, with an overwhelming job, aging parents, and just too much on her plate.
With the help of ‘Alexa’, she is able to pull it together, and maybe make it all work.
This book has some very funny moments – darkly comic, as well as some very heavy moments. It’s not a gentle read.
I listened to it on audio – the accents were excellent.
I’m glad I was able to get this book (audio) through Everand as the library does not have it. Linda Green has written quite a few books, but none seem to be easily available here (in Canada).
Strongly recommend if you are not sensitive to sticky subjects or strong language.
The Other Side of Now by Paige Harbison
From my book journal: August 14, 2025
From the (Modern Mrs Darcy/What Should I Read Next) 2025 Summer Reading Guide, Anne (Bogel) described this book as ‘unputdownable, a personal alternate history, set in Ireland’. It also occurs in LA, similar to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which was almost too much Hollywood for me.
But I love Ireland.
The book jacket says ‘Two Lives. One chance to get it right’.
The ‘what if’ of this story is – what if a person can have two lives? One life that branches two different ways at a certain decision point. And what if one version finds themselves in the life of the other version? And where do we become who we are? How different would the essence of these two versions of the same person be?
This is an adult debut, and it is very accomplished. It succeeds in its structure and the challenge.
But what this story really is, in my opinion, is a love story. It is the story of one person’s longing for a best friend lost through tragedy.
And it is a story of how one’s reaction to death, and feeling responsible for that death, so deeply fractures one’s life.
I found it fascinating to read about such a compelling friendship, so motivated by intense love, but that also doesn’t survive, and not just because of an early death.
A recommended read.