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I have been a terrible bookworm this year. I've barely been reading. However, the year isn't over yet! I still have time. Here's what I'm hoping to finish in the next few months.

Books To Read In Fall

Bee Journal by Sean Borodale

Poetry

Bee Journal is a poem-journal of beekeeping that chronicles the life of the hive. It observes the living architecture of the comb, the range and locality of the colony; its flights, flowers, water sources, parasites, lives and deaths.

Why I want to read it: I want to read more poetry. I want to read more nature books. This seems like the perfect mashup of both those things.

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Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Adult Speculative Fiction

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can—will she?

Why I want to read it: I love historical fiction, but I've somehow never read a Kate Atkinson book. It's time to fix that! I'm interested in the speculative elements of Life After Life.

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An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth: What Going To Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, And Being Prepared For Anything by Chris Hadfield

Memoir

Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield's success—and survival—is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst and enjoy every moment of it.

In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff.

Why I want to read it: Chris Hadfield is an entertaining dude. I love watching him talk about science. He's funny and passionate.

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The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Adult Fantasy

Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen.

The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.

Why I want to read it: I'm in the mood for a good fantasy series. I need something chunky that I can get lost in. This series looks promising. It sure is chunky.

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Idol, Burning by Rin Usami

Adult Literary Fiction

Akari is a high school junior obsessed with "oshi" Masaki Ueno, a member of the popular J-Pop group Maza Maza. She writes a blog devoted to him, and spends hours addictively scrolling for information about him and his life. Desperate to analyze and understand him, Akari hopes to eventually see the world through his eyes. It is a devotion that borders on the religious: Masaki is her savior, her backbone, someone she believes she cannot survive without--even though she's never actually met him.

When rumors surface that her idol assaulted a female fan, social media explodes. Akari immediately begins sifting through everything she can find about the scandal, and shares every detail to her blog—including Masaki's denials and pleas to his fans—drawing numerous readers eager for her updates.

But the organized, knowledgeable persona Akari presents online is totally different from the socially awkward, unfocused teenager she is in real life. As Masaki's situation spirals, his troubles threaten to tear apart her life too. Instead of finding a way to break free to save herself, Akari becomes even more fanatical about Masaki, still believing her idol is the only person who understands her.

Why I want to read it: It's very relevant to modern times. It seems like every celebrity has skeletons in their closet, and the internet has extremely strong opinions about those skeletons. Fandom culture is intense.

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The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Adult Historical Fantasy

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Why I want to read it: It's time to see what the hype is about. The internet loves this book. One of my coworkers loves this book. I want to love this book.

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On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder

Adult History Nonfiction

Timothy Snyder is one of the most celebrated historians of the Holocaust. In his books Bloodlands and Black Earth, he has carefully dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. 

Why I want to read it: **Gestures vaguely at everywhere.**

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What are you reading this fall?