There are many ways to celebrate this season of change. Visiting festivals, and farmers' markets, cycling by the lakefront or through a canopy of changing leaves or just viewing the ethereal blue skies and crimson sunsets give us time to pause.
As the days become shorter, we tend to focus inward. Does the fall television season look much like last year's? Interested in reconnecting with a familiar literary "friend?" Look no further than a good book.
Here are some familiar classics just made for this season, which may take you to a place, and perhaps a time you would like to reconnect to:
Voted by the British Crime Writers Association as the "Best Crime Novel of All Time," The Murder of Roger Ackroyd tells the story of a man who knew too much. He knew the woman he loved had poisoned her first husband, had been blackmailed, then had taken her own life. A letter arrives that would reveal who the mystery blackmailer was. But Ackroyd was dead before he finished reading it. He knew too much…
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." In every corner of every room, phantoms of the past still live for the newly married Mrs. Maxim de Winter. A steely-eyed housekeeper and memories of the first wife, the beautiful Rebecca, still permeate throughout her new home. This classic features the finest mixture of romance and murder mystery. Reconnect yourself with the "mistress of the calculated irresolution."
Graham Greene called The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, "the finest spy story ever written." It's a tale that takes you into the world of shadows and lies. And the truth is that in this world, being a government agent can take you into the "cold" where it's everyone for themselves.
Nominated as one of the best-loved novels in the PBS series The Great American Read, The Stand was also voted one of the 10 best Stephen King books in a Rolling Stone readers' poll. Here's the master storyteller himself: "Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries and hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life."
Whoever said that history is boring has not experienced it through Hilary Mantel's award winning novel, Wolf Hall. It's all happening at the Court. Lots of players here: A new wife (one of many), new advisors (a daily turnover, it seems), many overnight guests at "the Tower," a dysfunctional king, and a very clever master of intrigue.
It's a great time to reconnect with exceptional writers, and fall in love again, with reading. What are your favorite fall reads?
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