september 2026 books (more!)…

Unto Us A Son Is Given (Donna Leon): Apparently (according to my blog), this is the 10^th Leon book I’ve read… ridiculous. She’s definitely not an Agatha Christie, but I do enjoy the way she writes (well, I like Guido Brunetti and his family!)… and, of course, I just love feeling I’m back in Venice again.
Put Out More Flags (Evelyn Waugh): I’ve always liked Waugh’s books and bought this one on a whim at a second-hand book store… and then promptly slotted it on to one of our bookshelves and forgot it! Fortunately, I recently re-discovered it (while looking for another book, as you do!) and really enjoyed it. It’s set in the opening months of WW2 and is “a sharp, transitional satire about upper-class English idlers navigating the absurdities of the early ‘Phoney War’” (as Wikipedia puts it)… and focusing on social posturing, bureaucratic incompetence, and evacuation schemes. The book was first published in 1942 (my copy is 1943) at a time when Waugh was a Captain in the Royal Marines. It’s both hilarious and shocking. I loved it.
The Living Mountain (Nan Shepherd): This is our next Storysmith book selection (I’ve read it twice before, but never tire of it). Nan Shepherd (1893-1981) was a rather special woman. She was born and lived almost all her adult life in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen and worked for 41 years as a lecturer in English at what is now Aberdeen College of Education. She was a keen hill walker and lover of nature. She wrote ‘The Living Mountain’ (the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland) during the years of WW2, but the manuscript lay untouched for more than 30 years before it was finally published (in 1977). I found it breathtakingly beautiful in its quiet simplicity; it’s not a mountaineering book or a travel guide (and doesn’t contain a single photograph or illustration), it’s a book that reflects a life lived within these mountains – the sounds, the senses, the air, the light, the colours, the plants, the climate… and much much more. It’s a very gentle book that one needs to take time reading… digesting her words and realising (yet again) the importance of looking+seeing, listening+hearing, stopping+digesting… just as Shepherd took her time to fully appreciate the environment in which she lived. Utterly beautiful.
Where The Streams Come From (Chris Goan): I keep coming back to this book by my good friend Chris (first published in 2018) - as part of my daily, early morning, read-out-loud reflections. It certainly works for me!
Windswept (Annie Worsley): Worsley was an academic: a physical geographer whose specialism was landform. She and her family had visited the Highlands of Scotland for many years - especially the more remote parts of Wester Ross. A decade ago, she and her husband decided to trade in their lives in the north-west of England, and settle on a couple of old crofts in South Erradale, to the west of the Torridon mountains. They both enjoyed walking and climbing, and looked forward to getting better acquainted with this remote area… but Worsley developed a debilitating autoimmune condition, as a result of Lyme disease, which hugely limited her ability to explore the landscape - as a result, she’s been ‘forced’ to focus on the ‘small details’… and this is one of the delights of her writing. The book (published in 2023) takes us through the seasons - starting at the autumn equinox - and so I’ve gently been following its journey over the past 12 months. Worsley is a brilliant writer and her descriptions are beautifully lyrical in character. It’s an enriching, wonderful book… and I’m really going to miss my regular meanderings with her (and it was lovely that finishing the book coincided with my re-reading of Nan Shepherd’s ‘The Living Mountain’… similar writing styles and outlooks and both set in Scotland).