Tag Archives: Autumn

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Books for Autumntime

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I have always been a seasonal reader to an extent – particularly, it must be said, when it comes to Christmas-themed books – but I feel that my reading choices have been aligned more with the seasons in the last tumultuous year. Connecting my reading with the natural world around me has given me a sense of calm whilst the world has reached such a point of crisis, and picking up a seasonally themed book has become rather a soothing task. With this in mind, I wanted to collect together eight books which I feel will be perfect picks for autumn, and which I hope you will want to include in your own reading journeys.

These books are best enjoyed with a steaming cup of tea, a view of the changing foliage, and your most comfortable item of knitwear

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

‘Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard. But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?’

2. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

‘Working as a paid companion to a bitter elderly lady, the timid heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life is bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. Whisked from Monte Carlo to Manderley, Maxim’s isolated Cornish estate, the friendless young bride begins to realise she barely knows her husband at all. And in every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca. Rebecca is the haunting story of a woman consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.’

3. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

‘Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts. There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard. But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod’s family.’

4. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

‘To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history….Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of, a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history. The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself–to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.’

5. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.


Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent.’

6. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

‘In this sensational, hard-hitting and passionate tale of marital cruelty, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall sees a mysterious tenant, Helen Graham, unmasked not as a ‘wicked woman’ as the local gossips would have it, but as the estranged wife of a brutal alcoholic bully, desperate to protect her son. Using her own experiences with her brother Branwell to depict the cruelty and debauchery from which Helen flees, Anne Bronte wrote her masterpiece to reflect the fragile position of women in society and her belief in universal redemption, but scandalized readers of the time.’

7. Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

‘The young orphan Silver is taken in by the ancient lighthousekeeper Mr. Pew, who reveals to her a world of myth and mystery through the art of storytelling. A magical, lyrical tale from one of Britain’s best-loved literary novelists. of the Cape Wrath lighthouse. Pew tells Silver ancient tales of longing and rootlessness, of the slippages that occur throughout every life. One life, Babel Dark’s, a nineteenth century clergyman, opens like a map that Silver must follow, and the intertwining of myth and reality, of storytelling and experience, lead her through her own particular darkness. Stevenson and of the Jekyll and Hyde in all of us, Lighthousekeeping is a way into the most secret recesses of our own hearts and minds. Jeanette Winterson is one of the most extraordinary and original writers of her generation, and this shows her at her lyrical best.’

8. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

‘Stevenson’s famous exploration of humanity’s basest capacity for evil, “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” has become synonymous with the idea of a split personality. More than a morality tale, this dark psychological fantasy is also a product of its time, drawing on contemporary theories of class, evolution, criminality, and secret lives.’

Please stay tuned for the final subsequent winter recommendation post, which will be published at the beginning of the new season. Also, let me know if you have any seasonal reads to recommend!

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‘Autumn’ by Ali Smith *****

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Warning: gushing will ensue.  Please proceed with caution.

Well, it was no great surprise that Ali Smith’s Autumn is incredible.  I had originally asked my boyfriend to buy me a copy as my Christmas gift, and whilst he was happy to do so, I simply could not pass up the opportunity of reading a galley.  I am far too impatient when a new Ali Smith is released; she is my favourite living author, as I’m sure everyone knows by now, and meeting her whilst studying at King’s College London is the only time in my life that I have felt starstruck.

9780241207000Autumn is the first of four books in a seasonal sequence, and in my mind, it is the best choice to begin such a series with.  I adore all of the seasons, but autumn is a real joy; there is so much beauty around.  The novel has also been billed as a serious post-Brexit novel.  Brexit – that horrible word that my laptop is intent upon changing to the more kindly ‘Brett’ – is a decision which I still cannot believe has occurred; I find myself saddened by my fellow man, that such a wonderful and secure alliance could be severed so easily.  I have a feeling that these are Smith’s feelings too; the inference here, particularly when one takes the character of Elisabeth’s mother into account, are that Britain has made a mistake of great enormity, which will affect everyone in horrid ways.  Of the novel, in fact, she stated the following in a recent interview: ‘It’s a pivotal moment…  a question of what happens culturally when something is built on a lie’.

As anyone who has read her work before will know, Smith is incredibly sharp, and she has created, once again, a fantastic range of characters to people her latest novel.  The conversational patterns which strike up between them feel both unusual and realistic.  As always, Smith says a wealth of incredibly important things – about society, and humankind, and decision making, and friendship, and love.  She writes of the young and the old, the past and the future.

Smith’s prose, as always, is both stunning, and often profound: ‘It is a privilege, to watch someone sleep, Elisabeth tells herself.  It is a privilege to be able to witness someone both here and not here.  To be included in someone’s absence, it is an honour, and it asks quiet.  It asks respect’.  I could happily quote extensively here to further prove my point, so I shall.  ‘Time travel is real, Daniel said.  We do it all the time.  Moment to moment, minute to minute’.  The prose about Daniel’s younger sister was particularly compelling:

‘She dances round the room shouting the word he can hardly say himself in her presence.
She is mad.
But she is uncannily right about that story.
She is brilliant.
She is a whole new level of the world true.
She is dangerous and shining.’

Unlike the Brexit result, Autumn is perfect.  The material is incredibly well handled, and it is certainly one of her very best books to date; perhaps the very best, in fact.  I keep thinking that she can never get any better with each new release, and lo and behold, she does.  The novel’s wordplay is exhilarating.  Autumn is a triumph; compulsive and compelling, timely and timeless.  It is a wonderful, wondrous book.  When I reached the all to brief end, I was tempted to go right back to the beginning and read it all over again.

Purchase from The Book Depository

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New Look!

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We have a new look to celebrate the beauty of Autumn here at The Literary Sisters.  I personally adore every season, but Autumn is special with regard to the colours, the crisp leaves, the beginnings of frost, and the advent of spiced hot drinks.  Hope you like it!