Three favourite novels #setinaschool for #booktober ! True Murder tells a gothic story of a girl from Ghana in a British boarding school, and its final lines make me shiver even during rereads. Tam Lin follows a bookish young woman through her four years at a Midwest liberal arts college, at which the Classics department happens to be a fairy court. And Gaudy Night is a feminist classic, ostensibly a mystery set at a woman's college in Oxford.

Yet for Kip and Shelley the sweets were subordinate to the thrill of roaming anonymously through the crisp October night. A smoky wind shook the trees; dry leaves drifted down and whispered mysteriously underfoot as they made their way along streets rendered magical by darkness. Every house boasted its grinning jack-o'-lantern; the moon itself was a huge orange pumpkin. A taste of wildness sharpened the air...

For the #booktober prompt today, #bestsidekick , I chose two. Philippa Somerville from Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, because she's clever and adventurous and opinionated and willing to go through anything for what is good. And because she can run along rooftops. ;) And Sieh, the trickster god of The Inheritance Trilogy, most likely found as a child or cat. Because I have always loved trickster gods, in fiction that is! @RealLifeReading

My bedtime reading! (Photo is from a couple days ago though.) Mysterious enough to give a fun shiver now and then, but not so creepy it threatens nightmares. This is the second Judith Hawkes book I've read & I love how much she researches her subject (this time Wicca, in the other one 'psychical researchers'), which enables her to include enough details, both otherworldly and mundane, that it almost feels like a memoir instead of a novel.

Joining in #booktober with a #longtitle selection; this is the longest one on my bookshelves. :) It's also a marvelous, insightful discussion about race in the US. Dr Tatum is a black professor who teaches many white students, and she's wonderful at delving into the issues without alienating potential white readers who've never had to think about race before. It's a book I've suggested to several friends as their introduction to white privilege.

I adored this book; Barnhill manages to turn many fairy tale tropes on their head without ever falling into the cliches of some modern retellings. It's fresh, thought-provoking, surprising, and full of such real characters I ended up laughing and crying with them. While I was happy to read this just for me, it'd also be great as a readalong with any older (8-9+) children in your life. The audio version has a skillful narrator too.