October 2025 - Autumn

Hello all, with apologies for being slightly later in the preceding month than usual, as I was away on a long holiday, I am posting the thread for our October 2025 discussion on the theme of Autumn.

I have not yet decided for sure myself what book I am reading for this theme, but I am considering The Fires of Autumn by Irene Nemirovsky, which is a sort of prequel to her more famous and posthumous work Suite Francaise. Autumn in this context is being used figuratively to indicate the decay of French society in many ways in the inter-war period, presaging the winter of the Nazi occupation.

I think Autumn can be a theme to be used in ether literal or figurative ways for this theme.

So what will you read for this theme?

I am planning on reading The October Boys by Adam Millard. This is more of a scary read than a historical one. It is set in the 1980s and sounds alot like Stephen King's It.

I think I will read The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman. It's about a class reunion in autumn, also during the autumn of their lives.

I have a Virago (a VMC) around the house by Barbara Pym, Quartet in Autumn, which I've yet to read. Sounds like the title is more figurative (autumn of the characters' lives) than referring to an actual season. I've also got Armistead Maupin's Mary Ann in Autumn (also "autumn of life") which I could reread; but I'd actually prefer to do a complete reread sometime of the entire "Tales of the City" series starting with the very beginning.

There's a Halloween story to The Gates by John Connolly, the first volume in the "Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil" middle-reader trilogy. I've read the first two volumes but just got the third from Amazon – and the entirety might be worth a read/reread from the beginning.

And there's Charles Williams's final novel, All Hallows' Eve, which is the only one of his novels that I haven't reread in recent years, having read it only back in college. It includes a preface by T.S. Eliot, but it also evinces Jewish stereotyping (though calling it outright anti-Semitic may be overstatement). Note that this last of his novels was published in 1945 and that Williams died on May 15 of that year, just over a week after VE-Day. It's the one volume of his "supernatural thrillers" that I haven't reread recently. For those not familiar with Williams, he was the "third Inkling" with Lewis and Tolkien.

And I just noticed that Jane Austen's Persuasion apparently uses an autumnal theme. Read all of Austen back in high school and really don't care for her, but I do have the Belknap (Harvard) Press annotated edition Persuasion: An Annotated Edition – quite lush pictorially, which might help me get through it.

"The Drums of Autumn" by Gabaldon is 4th in her series which I read years ago. There are dual story lines in the beginning, which is common enough in her series. If memory serves, the drums of autumn signals transition points in the characters' lives, in the colonies, and ultimately their relationship with England.

I'm thinking about Wicked Autumn. Also considering Autumn by Ali Smith which seems to be quite short.

I’m thinking The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet...

>7 MissWatson: That is a very good one!

I have now read Irene Nemirovsky's The Fires of Autumn which I thought was another brilliant novel by her. She is best known for her unfinished novel Suite Française based around the Nazi invasion of 1940 and the massive flight of the population southwards. Like that work, to which it acts as a sort of prequel, Fires of Autumn was also published after her death in Auschwitz in 1942, though much earlier, in 1957. This work covers a much longer period of time, from 1912 to 1942, following the fortunes of three families, the Bruns, Jacquelains and the Détangs, from early naivety about a quick victory in the First World War to cynicism about the rapid crumbling of French resistance to the German invasion in 1940-1. One key theme is the yawning gap in understanding between those young men who have been made hard and bitter from fighting in the front line and their families back at home who cannot begin to understand the psychological impact of what their sons and brothers have witnessed and experienced. Nemirovsky can vary her writing style from quite detailed descriptions of meals and clothes in peacetime to laconic accounts of death in war: "When the war is over, when I’m old, after I’ve retired, Thérèse and I . . .’ He never finished his thought; it was cut through as if stabbed by a blinding light: a 105mm Howitzer shell had exploded in the bedroom, killing Martial."

After the war many young men become devoted to pleasure and money making in a nihilistic attempt to forget what they had gone through. Bernard Jacquelain becomes like the cynical René Détang in pursuing money and success for their own sake, having an affair with René's wife, and neglecting his own wife Thérèse (the widow of Martial) and their children. In the end his own son Yves dies partly as a result of some of the business decisions he has taken. Despite the deep cynicism inherent in much of the storyline, there is an upbeat ending when Bernard returns from war to Thérèse and their daughters as a changed man.

I guess I have to say the autumn theme is quite indirect here, but with a novel this good, I don't think that matters.

>6 WelshBookworm: i read ali smith and really liked it. think its the best of the four part series

autumn is my fav season I must have something on my shelves; stay tuned

>7 MissWatson: wonderful book david mitchell at his best

autumn peopleby ray bradury perhaps

ghost written

The Autumn of the Patriarchwhich may be relevant to todays world

october countryshort stories

ghostwritten

Elizabeth Strout's Tell Me Everything is set in autumn, according this excerpt from the book description: "It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother."

Of Strout's novels, I've read Amy and Isabelle, Olive Kitteridge, My Name Is Lucy Barton, Anything Is Possible, and The Burgess Boys. Most others I have in TBR piles somewhere or other, although I've yet to buy Tell Me Everything, which I don't plan on reading until I've done a complete in-publication-order read/reread of Strout (which I'm planning for next year, after I've managed to pull them all together onto one shelf).

But some folks on here may be interested in using Tell Me Everything for this month.

The Fortnight in September by R. C. Sherriff (1931)

For me autumn begins in September, so I started a re-read of this book in September and finished it in October.

This is a simple story about the Stevens family (Mr, Mrs, Mary, Dick and Ernie) on their annual September trip to the English seaside circa 1930. The book begins the day before the trip in their modest London home and ends a fortnight (and a day) later on the afternoon they are leaving. There is delightful detail of the packing, train ride, arrival, and boarding house where they stay every year, with its worn furniture and lumpy beds. In the story, each member of the family has a tiny "moment of discovery." Although there isn't much plot per se, Sherriff's style and good humor kept me reading. We can tell he enjoyed the characters he created.

Overall it is a gentle, heart-warming story of an average, mostly happy family in a bygone era, and I'm so glad I re-read it right now.

>15 kac522: Sounds great, I will check that one out. It will remind me of my own family seaside holidays to Blackpool and Hastings in the 1970s (albeit in August, not autumn).

>16 john257hopper: It is lovely without being saccharine or sentimental. They go to Bognor. I've put in a interlibrary loan request for his book Greengates, about a retired couple. Persephone has published both of these, but I have no idea what I'll pay now due to our ridiculous tariff policies. His other book, The Hopkins Manuscript is in a different line altogether. I'd like to find a copy of his play, Journey's End, about WWI.

138. Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman was a 1951 play which is set in the 1940's following the end of WWII. The setting is boarding house in Louisiana in Autumn on the Gulf. The story is told through the dialogue of residents and guests. The story begins when ex friends and lovers decide to reunite at the house. They are all expecting this to be a good time. However, the visits were painful as most didn't achieve what they thought they would when they were young. Most are cynical, emotionally detached, and self-absorbed. This reader didn't care for any of them! This reminded me a lot of the plays of Tennessee Williams. 72 pages 2.5 stars RTT: Autumn

The Wiki is here, if you would like! https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Reading_Through_Time_Challenge#October:_...

>4 CurrerBell: Thanks to the comment about Persuasion being set in the fall, I decided to pick that one up for this month. It's a reread for me, but I read the book when I was young, and it's so long ago now that I remembered nothing from the novel. The first half or more of the book is set in the fall, and the feelings expressed at that point seem to fit an autumnal setting very well. I enjoyed the story and was glad to have read it again.

>19 Tess_W: Thank you for the link!

Be sure to sign up to host the monthly reads in 2026:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/374586#n8974012

>4 CurrerBell: Finished a couple weeks ago a reread of John Connolly's The Gates. When I first read it some years ago I gave it 3½***, and on reread I'll gave it (probably a little generously) 4****. The use of humorous footnoting reminds one of Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy and Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, both of which, though, are definitely better than The Gates.

I've now finished a reread of the sequel, Hell's Bells (U.S. title The Infernals), to which I gave 3*** on my first read and which I think I'm going to keep at 3***. The first book was a clever concept, and Nurd becomes a much better character in this second volume, but after a while I start wondering if the whole thing was really worth the effort.

I've just now started on the third volume, The Creeps, which I've never read, the reread of the first two volumes being preparatory to a read of The Creeps.

The Gates is set specifically on Halloween, but the entire trilogy seems autumn-Halloween apropos.

Edit: And having finished The Creeps, I'll note that it's actually specifically Christmas-oriented. And rating The Creeps 3*** is quite generous. This is one of those trilogies that just ran too long and after a while Connolly's overuse of humorous footnoting got tedious and repetitive.

I picked The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet because it has autumns in the title and I couldn’t think of anything else. I am so glad I did, because this is wonderful. Thanks for the recommendation!

I'm halfway through Wicked Autumn and enjoying it very much. Love the humor! Also reading Case of the Fleet-footed Mummy which seemed appropriate for Halloween.