October

My thesis rules my life. Actually, that's not even true. October was a rough month, and my thesis should have ruled my life, but it didn't. But I made it through, and part of the reason I did so this month was by escaping into books.

Books Bought:

• Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War II (Annegret Fauser)
• Now I'll Tell You Everything (Phyllis Reynolds Naylor)

Books Read:

• Commencement (J. Courtney Sullivan)
• Now I'll Tell You Everything (Naylor)
• Z (Therese Anne Fowler)

I actually bought Sounds of War last month, but I forgot about it then. I haven't read any of it yet, but the way WWI and WWII affected music is something I'm interested in (both wars had massive effects on the American band tradition). I probably won't get around to reading this book until next semester at best, but it will be a good one for me to own.

Now I'll Tell You Everything is the last book in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's "Alice" series. Some people say they grew up with Harry Potter, and to some extent that was true for me, but Alice is my fictional best friend from my childhood (and beyond). I read my first Alice book in the fourth grade (which takes place in the sixth grade for her) and continued reading until this year. Alice was older than me until the summer before my junior year when we were the exact same age (the books were published once a year and each covered a semester or a summer of her life), so since then she's been catching up with me. This final book covered her college years until her sixty-fifth birthday (relevant because that's when her seventh grade history class opens their time capsule), so it's not really a book that would interest anyone other than long-time Alice fans because the entire thing is basically snapshots of her life. But for people like me who have been reading about Alice's life for over a decade, it's the perfect end to the series.

Z is a fictional novel about Zelda Fitzgerald covering her life from meeting Scott in Georgia as a young woman to her separation from him when her schizophrenia set in. I have an odd fascination with Zelda, and I really enjoyed this interpretation of her life, but I wish that it had been more in-depth. Still, I recommend it, especially if you enjoy Scott Fitzgerald's writing. I have no idea how accurate Fowler's representation of him is, but it's interesting. 

One more thing - if you've been keeping up with this blog, then you might wonder, "What happened to Game of Thrones? Did she ever finish it?" Truth is, October was yet another month that passed by without me finishing that book...but I'm very, very close. I'm going to blame this on the fact that we now have to erase written-in scores and books while working at the music library circulation desk.

Hopefully I'll get my November post written at the end of the month instead of a third of the way into the next one...oops.