This was a stellar month for reading for me. I read two fantastic novels and one really great nonfiction book. However, nothing compares to the excitement of starting The Stand for my 2026 Slow Read project with Laura Tremaine! We have a great community of readers here at By Plane or By Page, and I genuinely hope you all will participate. All you need to do now is subscribe for free!
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
Though you never think it possible, you can celebrate and grieve in the same breath. It is a holy abomination.
I LOVED this book. Based on the life of Revolutionary War-era midwife Martha Ballard, it was expertly paced, beautifully written, and filled with people as real as your neighbors, even though they lived hundreds of years ago. The historical mystery had momentum, but I didn’t find myself galloping through the pages. As badly as I wanted to find out what happened, I also didn’t want to miss a single one of Lawhon’s insights, particularly about parenting young adults.
I cannot recommend this novel highly enough. Bonus: It’s set during a long, hard winter, so it’s seasonally appropriate as well!
North Woods: A Novel by Daniel Mason
[S]he has found that the only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.
Another WINNER! (Is the literary universe apologizing for so many recent duds? Perhaps!) Mason’s novel tells the story of a single home in the North Woods of Massachusetts. It begins in the 1600s with a pair of Puritan lovers building a cabin to escape the colony and continues centuries into the future. It is enveloping and inventive. Every story is like its own novella until you realize Mason is expertly weaving them into a complementary tapestry. He also manages the tonal shifts brilliantly. I understand why this novel was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Highly recommend.
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman
It’s because being a finite human just means never achieving the sort of control or security on which many of us feel our sanity depends.
While navigating the hellscape that is our attention economy, Oliver Burkeman is a thinker I go to again and again for guidance. I loved Four Thousand Weeks and was a little worried this might be a rehash. It wasn’t. Burkeman grapples deeply with the desperate desire for control and how, ultimately, letting go is the key to managing what you can. Equal parts philosophy and actionable advice, I find his books deeply comforting and deeply motivating.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.
I took another trip through this novel in preparation for our Common Ground Pilgrimage to Switzerland. With every reading, I find more depth and suffering in Shelley’s novel. I also find sentences (like the one above) that leave me grappling with my own life and leaving Frankenstein and his monster far behind. Over the course of the pilgrimage, our group delved into the pages and discussed topics ranging from gender and parenting to artificial intelligence, the struggles of travel, and whether or not Frankenstein was a psychopath, ultimately concluding that there wasn’t a monster at all.
What I Didn’t Finish
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
My friend Kate texted me this graphic in late September, and since I was heading to Switzerland for the Frankenstein pilgrimage, I decided to tackle one of these Gothic classics I hadn’t read before. I knew The Mysteries of Udolpho from Northanger Abbey, whose heroine, Catherine Morland, is obsessed with Radcliffe’s novel. I also knew Austen was pretty merciless in mocking the melodrama, and I should have listened to good old Jane. I liked it enough at first, but after 120 pages of 650, I realized I wasn’t up for weeks more of Emily St. Aubert getting jerked around by fate and the men in her life. I gave up.
What did you read (or put down) in October
I found The Frozen River frustrating, so I guess I'm here with a spicy take! I thought Martha felt like a 21st century woman plunked into 18th century New England--her point of view felt too modern to me. I did find the story interesting and the exploration of women's roles enlightening (and infuriating). So I did like it enough to finish, but I have a hard time with historical fiction because of the insertion of a modern perspective.
I also loved Frozen River! However, I thought it jumped the shark a bit with the way the knife was used towards the end of the book (trying for no spoilers in this comment!). I liked so much about the book but felt that aspect made it seem like not as authentic historical fiction.