Booking Through Thursday: Autumn Reading

Over the past few nights we've felt the temperatures drop into the low 50s. The days have been cooler too, with a high being 80. It would seem that Summer is ending and Autumn is really almost here.

The blog, Booking Through Thursday posted the following thought provoking question today:

Autumn is starting (here in the US, anyway), and kids are heading back to school–does the changing season change your reading habits? Less time? More? Are you just in the mood for different kinds of books than you were over the summer?

The short answer: Not really.

The longer answer: I have no school-aged children, so I can only base my answer off my own past. While I was in school Autumn did mean less time for pleasure reading and generally more time reading non-fiction, biographical or books affiliated with a specific topic I was learning that semester.

Currently the school schedule doesn't affect me. My life routine is pretty much the same be it Winter, Spring, Summer or Autumn. While I was working full-time I used to set goals to read one big book over the summer since I seemed to have less time during the rest of the year. I read Gone With the Wind and East of Eden during the quiet summer evenings at that time.

Since my daughter was born and I have started working part-time from home I have found I have a lot more time to slip in reading. My reading is generally driven by two things -- my mood and whatever book is scheduled next for the book club I belong to. My moods change. Sometimes I feel like deep reading and at other times lighter books. Generally the book club digs into deeper reading once the summer is over. We've read some of our meatiest books during the months of September through January. (And this year appears to be no different. Milton's Paradise Lost is on the list for October.)

Now that I've been keeping up this book blog I find myself pushing through more books than in the past. Looking over the last couple of months I have read a sprinkling of classics mixed in with some very light-reading. I suspect that as the days grow shorter I will find myself immersed in more and more classics and deeper reading. (I've planned to read Bleak House by Charles Dickens along with Carrie at Reading to Know in October.) But on the other hand... there's nothing quiet like a good mystery on a dark, cold Autumn evening.