Autumn Reading

We've all heard the expression "beach reads", but is there an equivalent for the fall? If there were such a category, it might include books that counteract the busy-ness of the back-to-school/holidays-are-looming-season and the gloominess of shortened days with the desire to curl up inside with something not too serious. Here's my list for the new category - Fall Reads: funny, warm, fuzzy, inspiring, or short, from the New Fiction shelf:
David Sedaris, the very quirky humorist's latest book is squirrel seeks chipmunk, a modest bestiary, animal tales for the modern age - these stories fall into the short and funny category.

Lynne Hinton (Friendship Cake) is back with Wedding Cake and Christmas Cake which reunities readers and Hinton fans with the ladies of Hope Springs, North Carolina. If you like Jan Karon's Mitford series or Phillip Gulley's Harmony series about village life centered around church activities, you might want to add Hinton to your must read list.

Anne Lamott's latest, Imperfect Birds, a coming of age/family story is described as in the jacket blurbs as "A heartbreaker and a heart-mender." (Martin Cruz Smith) Lamott falls into the inspirational category.

Susan Wittig Albert, author of the China Bayles (herb farm)  and the Beatrix Potter mysteries, has a new series about the Darling Dahlias, a garden club in Alabama whose members solve mysteries. The first title is The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber
Tree. Albert's books are in the "cozy" mystery genre.

And finally, what could be shorter and more seasonally appropriate than a collection of holiday short stories? Editor Otto Penzler brings us Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop, a compilation of the seasonal stories commissioned by Mr. Penzler to hand out to his bookshop customers.
Related links: The Mysterious Bookshop, The Darling Dahlias, Lynne Hinton, David Sedaris on the Daily Show, Anne Lamott's website.