Does anyone here follow the book channels on YouTube?  Here is one that I like:

I have subscribed to it for a few years now. My user name for the comment section is the same as the one that I use here.  Many interesting books are discussed by Kailey, who operates the channel, which has been in existence for ten years. There is much discussion of C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as well as other Christian authors. I would recommend it highly. 🙂

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@SnowAngel, the conclusion of a mystery really does make a big difference in how enjoyable it is as a whole! And that's funny about my reading paralleling Scarlet's. How is your fiction reading going?

I'm trying to remember what I've read in the last month or so, it's not nearly as much as I had hope to read. *pulls out reading journal* I've read three Max Brand westerns in September, going to keep one and probably giveaway the other two - I really liked the first one I read, but the other two were just okay. I read two Zane Grey books in August, so lots of westerns in the last couple months. The siblings had been bugging me for ages to read a Zane Grey book, so I finally did and Forlorn River and Nevada were quite good. I will be reading more Zane Grey at some point.  

I also read a couple of kids books, Molly Pitcher by Augusta Stevenson and Morgan's Long Rifles by Allan Taylor. I nearly always enjoy reading historical kids books and those two didn't disappoint.   Plus the illustrations were great in both books, a lot like Little House.

I didn't finish a nonfiction book in August, so I'm still reading Chosen By God and at the rate I'm going this month I won't be done with it until sometime in October. Hopefully I'll still get to ten nonfiction books this year, although I might pick short ones for the next three months. 

SnowAngel

@narnian78, I haven't paid attention to any book Youtube channels (and am unlikely to) but it sounds like you're enjoying the ones you're following.

@SnowAngel, I hear you on not having read nearly as much as you'd hoped to have read - I hope October is a better reading month for you! Still, reading several books and being able to get rid of a couple of them is still progress. And historical kids books are a lot of fun!

@Silverlily, because of your recommendation, I picked up a couple of Caroline Cookson's books recently. The Door at the End of the World was pretty fun, but I think I actually may've preferred The World's Greatest Detective (then again, I've been on a mystery kick of late). Thanks for the recommendation!

Speaking of mysteries, I'm currently reading another Patricia Wentworth. I have a couple more by her out from the library and then I will have exhausted the immediate stock, so you all hopefully won't have to hear about her in-thread too much longer.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@SnowAngel, I hear you on not having read nearly as much as you'd hoped to have read - I hope October is a better reading month for you! Still, reading several books and being able to get rid of a couple of them is still progress. And historical kids books are a lot of fun!

Actually you are right, I did get a fair amount of reading done and made progress on honing my book collection. I just didn't read as much as I would like to have which would probably still not have satisfied me.

Earlier this month I read Iron Scouts of the Confederacy by Lee McGiffin, another historical fiction for kids and it's so good. I have very fond memories of my parents reading it to my siblings and I, it's always fun to revisit past favorites and find them unchanged.  

I have returned to the world of Lord Peter Wimsey, I read Murder Must Advertise last week. I really liked it, might be my favorite in the series thus far. Now I'm reading The Nine Tailors and having a hard time keep interest in it, the story is taking forever to get moving.

Still reading Chosen by God (it keeps getting lost on my desk, must be time to clean my desk up), and I'm about three-quarters of the way through The Boniface Option by Andrew Isker, I've liked what I've read thus far.

SnowAngel

I'm glad September's reading and progress looks a bit better in retrospect, @SnowAngel! I know Murder Must Advertise usually ranks highly in people's favourites of the series - and The Nine Tailors much lower. Hoping the latter will pick up the pace soon!

I finished my last stack of Patricia Wentworths, and am now eying a long delayed reread of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell alongside the reread of The Last Battle I just started. On the other hand, some library holds have started coming in, so those might push the Gaskell reread out a bit further if I'm not careful.

@Silverlily, thanks for recommending Caroline Cookson to @valiantarcher -- I ended up reading The World's Greatest Detective as well. The various nods to Sherlock Holmes were a lot of fun; and I suspect there were other references as well that I missed on my way through the story.  

I'm currently reading The Ordinary Acrobat by Duncan Wall. It's a mix of circus history and the semester(s?) the author spent in a university dedicated to the circus arts in France. I picked it up on a whim and am enjoying it a lot.

@mel glad to have discovered somebody y'all are enjoying!

...my reading plate is so full right now. I should comb through my pile and see if some of them are likely to appeal here...

I just wanted to do a quick post in this topic because I recently reread The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith so I could start a series of blog posts about adaptations of it. I know Fantasia is always interested in books she can read to her kids. I don't know if she or her kids would enjoy that one, but I do so I thought I'd mention it. It's one of those books where more people have heard of the adaptations than the source material even though IMO the source material is way more interesting. Here's a sampling of my blog post. 

The movie’s Perdita is also a combination of two characters from the book. In Dodie Smith’s version, Pongo’s mate was named Missus Pongo and Perdita was the name of a stray dalmatian who had lost her puppies and whom the (dog owners) took in to help nurse their dogs’ litter of fifteen. Again, this is understandable from a practical standpoint. Having the mother dalmatian just be called Missus was pretty lame. Perdita doesn’t do much in the book besides help nurse the puppies and developing her in the movie would have slowed down the pace. But this change reflects the absence of one of the most endearing things about the literary Hundred and One Dalmatians: its surprising streak of realism. (I said, streak of realism, not a lot of realism.) Not only does the book insist that a single mother dog would have a hard time nursing fifteen puppies by herself, it also has the humans keep Pongo from away from Missus after she gives birth because “mother dogs did not usually Like to have father dogs around when puppies had just been born.” It also has them try to keep Missus and Perdita and the puppies that each nurses apart on the grounds that Missus would hurt her children that she didn’t recognize, and she and Perdita would fight though this turns out to be unwarranted.

"…this does happen with some dogs. It would never have happened with Missis, but it will already have been seen that she and Pongo were rather unusual dogs. And so was Perdita. And so, if people only realized it, are many dogs. In fact, usual dogs are really more unusual than unusual dogs."

Perhaps a Disney movie was never going to reference the brutalities of nature in this way even to avert them. But in doing so it loses the sense you get from the book of a real fondness for and interest in dogs and animals in general...

The book also has some odd use of Christian imagery. Not only is the main villain associated with Hell and the Devil but at one point, the dogs find sanctuary in a church building with a nativity set in it, which they find by following a star on Christmas Eve. Missus has previously resented churches since dogs aren’t allowed in them but changes her mind after this positive experience. Her “pet” is reported as saying that she herself would go to church more if dogs were allowed inside. I don’t know much about Dodie Smith, but the book gives the impression that she found Christianity-or Christian imagery anyway-attractive but disliked that it didn’t provide any afterlife for dogs. (The protagonists of a later children’s book she’d write, The Midnight Kittens, would be an atheist and an agnostic, though not militant ones, which presumably reflects her own beliefs at the time. But you wouldn’t guess that from The Hundred and One Dalmatians.)

You can read the whole thing (my post, not the book) here. Giving De Vil Her Due Part 1 | The Adaptation Station.com

I had this book as a child and LOVED it! Finally someone else who's read it. I saw the movie first so was surprised at how the source material differed, but as an adult I appreciate the book more, especially the details of the Great Bark each night. For years after that I really thought that was how dogs communicated.

, I am glad to be done with The Nine Tailors, I had a hard time getting through this one. I'm glad it's a library book, off it goes back to the library. I'm reading The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys #1) and then I'm going to start Gaudy Night.  

Finished The Boniface Option by Andrew Isker on Sunday, highly recommend it. And I am close to finishing Chosen By God by R.C. Sproul as well.  

SnowAngel

I am currently reading Vulcan’s Glory by D. C. Fontana. It is a story set in Spock’s early days aboard the Enterprise. Dorothy Fontana was one of the finest writers for Star Trek’s original series. I would recommend this story as one of Star Trek’s prequel adventures, being set in the time of Captain Christopher Pike. I am sure it would have made a good or at least several fine episodes if it would have been made for television. 🙂

Working my way through Gaudy Night, finally Lord Peter and Harriet are in the same location. I was getting a little frustrated with the plot, but now it's starting to pick up a little bit of speed. Seems like this book might be a little long for the plot, or else I am just in the mood for a western and shouldn't be reading this one right now.  

I'm on the final chapter of Chosen By God, hoping to finish it tonight and then I will still need three more nonfiction books to make 12 for the year. Trying to decide whether to read Alistair Begg or Michael Card next, I have books by both in my collection that I have never read.

SnowAngel

@Mel, did The Ordinary Acrobat finish strong?

@Silverlily, how's your reading going? Any more particular standouts?

@SnowAngel, even with it being a struggle, it looks like you were able to make it through The Nine Tailors in a week, which is not bad at all! I hope Gaudy Night goes better - though it does look awful thick in comparison to the others.

It took a bit to get into it, but I did make it through my reread of North and South before the end of the month (and enjoyed the last half to 2/3rds much better than the start). I'm struggling with my reread of The Last Battle (how awful everything is and the good qualities Tirian is lacking in are really standing out this time) and have had a handful of other books either be a struggle to get through or not get finished, which is discouraging. I'm a couple chapters into The Left-Handed Fate by Kate Milford and I'm not sure if it'll break the trend or fall in line; the previous books I've read by her have been fairly good but I haven't loved (or reread) any of them.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@SnowAngel, even with it being a struggle, it looks like you were able to make it through The Nine Tailors in a week, which is not bad at all! I hope Gaudy Night goes better - though it does look awful thick in comparison to the others.

It was just over a week to read The Nine Tailors, I struggled to keep interested in that one, but I'm glad I read it as part of the series. 

While I didn't enjoy all the stuff about the college or the limited dialog early in Gaudy Night, I would definitely say it improved as it went on. I finished it last night and have moved my bookmark to Busman's Honeymoon.  

I've never read Elizabeth Gaskell, although I enjoy watching the North and South miniseries with my mom and sisters, one of these days I should make time to read the book.

I've put my nonfiction bookmark in Made For His Pleasure by Alistair Begg...then I remembered I still haven't finished Do More Better by Tim Challies because I stuck it in the pocket of my camera bag and then forgot it was there until just now. Maybe should try to finish that one this month too. 

SnowAngel

Hurrah for finishing Gaudy Night and moving on to Busman's Honeymoon! You'll just have the short stories after that then, I think, unless you move on to the one(s) Jill Paton Walsh completed. When you finish, I'd be curious to hear which novels are your favourites (if not the full ranking).
I've enjoyed both the book and mini-series adaptation of North and South, though I seem to recall a number of scenes being added near the end of the series to help pad or fill out the ending since Gaskell apparently had finish it in a rush (something to do with the magazine in which it was originally serialised reducing her number of installments at the end?).
All the best with your nonfiction reading this month!

The Left-Handed Fate was a bust for my current reading; I couldn't take some aspects of the main plot seriously and I was far more interested in the poor American navy sailor boy who was getting cornered into falling in with the privateer crew than the privateers or their mission. Maybe I'll try again at another point and it'll go better.