Litsy

I had a great reading month! Two of these made my #AuldLangSpine list (Women & Other Monsters, which most of my IRL book club was disappointed in, so…caution), & The Ten Year Affair. Thematically, 10 Year & All 4s are very similar…but I preferred 10 Year, which is far less experimental (which I suppose makes it more “boring”), but still very funny!

If I‘d had room, I would‘ve added The Ghost Orchard to my list, too. So good.

monalyisha On a tangentially-related note, I won‘t be running the kids‘ fantasy book club at the library in the New Year, so I won‘t have the juv titles mucking up my stats and graphics. 😅 Aesthetically, it‘s been driving me nuts! 🙈 Lost Evangeline was 100% for me, though. I love children‘s literature; I just don‘t always love choosing titles for myself that are intended to appeal greatly to a wide range of 10-year-olds. 4w

shortsarahrose I loved Women and Other Monsters but definitely understand why not everyone would like it. The combo of cultural criticism and memoir is just a form that works well for me! 4w

monalyisha #AWreads2025 4w

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KT1432

Comfort Me With Apples | Catherynne M. Valente

This has been on my TBR forever and it‘s just so right up my alley I‘ve gotta get to it either by the end of the year of beginning of 2026! I mean I just know “Arcadia Gardens” must be creepy and diabolical from the description on page 2 of the HOA only allowing colors like Purity, Innocence, and Mother‘s Milk to be painted lmao.

Non-book related, HEB had the BEST (Envy) apples this year!! Yum😋

#ARichLife #Apples

Eggs, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Eggs Love everything about this 🍁🧡🍎 1mo

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monalyisha

The Ghost Orchard | Helen Humphreys

pick

I understand why Humphreys titled the book The Ghost Orchard. It is absolutely the strongest section (followed by that on Robert Frost, and The Imagined Discovery of the White Winter Pearmain). The way in which she grafts the story of her relationship with both her friend and her father, and their deaths, onto the story of the apple is brilliant. The Parafilm that seamlessly binds the stories is Frost‘s friendship with the poet Edward Thomas.👇🏻

monalyisha 1/2: As she writes, “A hundred years is very old for an apple tree, as it is for a person. An apple tree exists for the same amount of time that we do, and this gives our relationship with the trees a certain poignancy.” It makes sense that the book would be equal parts plant & human-animal. We are capable of having all sorts of relationships (with the land and with each other). 1mo

monalyisha 2/2: I almost wish that there was *more* memoir…but it‘s perfectly eloquent (and almost bite-sized — or, “of small to medium size,” as the catalogs would put it) the way that it is. 1mo

Chelsea.Poole Great review! 1mo

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monalyisha Thanks, @Chelsea.Poole! Embarrassingly, I‘d totally confused Helen Humphreys with Helen MacDonald in my head. Now, having read this, I‘m just a Helen fan. Thirty Helens Agree: Helens can write! 1mo

rockpools I learnt just yesterday that the Apple orchard I grew up with/in had been scrubbed up - this ‘100 years‘ fact makes me feel much more at ease (the trees weren‘t young when I knew them! Thank you - perfect timing for me. I‘ll try and find the book (which apparently I stacked years ago). And I thought Helen Humphreys and Helen Garner were the same person, so… 1mo

TheKidUpstairs I've never read this one, but I am a big fan of Helen Humphreys in general, especially her fiction. She's just a fabulous writer :) 1mo

monalyisha @TheKidUpstairs Which of hers have you read? The one title on my radar is

Followed by the Lark: A Novel

1mo

TheKidUpstairs @monalyisha I haven't read Lark yet, but a former colleague of mine who is also a big Humphreys fan says it's his favourite, so I expect good things. Afterimage is one of my all time faves, and I also LOVED The Lost Garden. I've also read The Reinvention of Love, The Frozen Thames, and Field Study (and all were great reads).

Afterimage

(edited) 1mo

monalyisha @TheKidUpstairs Adding them stat! You know I trust you. 😉 1mo

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monalyisha

The Ghost Orchard | Helen Humphreys

“It was all praise and miracle. Edward Thomas was right about a line of apples being the same as a line of poetry in another language.”

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monalyisha

The Ghost Orchard | Helen Humphreys

It‘s fun to be reading about the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail.

I always stop on the way home from visiting one of my friends in VT. It‘s not a long trail (nor is it The Long Trail) but it‘s one of my favorite little walks!

It‘s nice to remember, especially in November, that it can be a blessing to live in New England. Romanticize your life, right?

AnnCrystal 🤩💝. 1mo

dabbe 💚💙💚 1mo

Amiable I ❤️ living in New England in all seasons. Even in November. But in February it‘s close. 😬😀 1mo

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AvidReader25

At the Edge of the Orchard | Tracy Chevalier

pan

This was a miss for me. In 1800s in the Black Swaps of Ohio the Goodenough family struggles to survive with their small apple orchard. The characters are miserable, but at least their spite is interesting. In the second half we follow just one of the children, Robert, to the gold rush in California, as he explores the redwoods there. He feels like an absence of a character. With no depth or distinguishing characteristics besides his emptiness.

ReadingInTheRealWorld Sadly, this was a miss for me too. Maybe my least favorite of Chevalier's books. 1mo

AvidReader25 @Seabreeze_Reader Yes! I‘ve loved some of her other books. 1mo

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