October Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

Before my Anthropologie discount ended, I scooped up a really cool Scandinavian cookbook and a The Little Prince pop-up book I've thought about buying for years.

The only other book I bought in October was a used collection of Poe stories illustrated for children. It's the perfect Halloween book.

Land of Love and Drowning, and Not that Kind of Girl were both book-club reads. Despite its beautiful language, I found Land of Love and Drowning to be very hard to get through. I think I maybe should have read it more slowly and spent more time just sitting with things, but I had to finish it in time for our meeting.

Lena Dunham's book was about why I expected: very smart and funny in parts and somewhat underwhelming in other parts. 

I absolutely tore through Love Me Back. It's beautifully written, but not for anyone who wants a linear story or a tidy ending.

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was hugely enjoyable and quite moving. I'm glad I finally got around to reading this often recommended book. 

Cover, Peter Mendelsund's book about his career designing book covers a big ol' tub of candy for anyone who loves design or books. Since I love both, I absolutely reveled in it. 

This is Where I Leave You was quite funny and moving in places, but left me somewhat unsatisfied. I think it's mainly because none of the female characters felt flushed out well enough. I'm still interested to see the movie. 

The Afterlife with Archie was surprisingly substantive. I knew I'd enjoy the art, but I didn't expect to get so hooked into the story. 

I finally finished Sleep Donation. It's taken me forever to get through this tiny novella because it's only available as an ebook and, for whatever reason, I can't download it on my iPad, which means I had to read the whole thing on my phone. Phone reading has worked for me in the past for simpler stories, but it just wasn't conducive to Karen Russell. But, I really wanted to get through it, so I decided to read in on the plane to New York. It was just lovely: very inventive and thought-provoking, and it put me right to sleep.