Summer in the Rear View Mirror

"September days are here, with summer's best of weather and autumn's best of cheer" >>Helen Hunt Jackson, poet & activist


It wasn't the subtle change of the air getting cooler in the evening or the sudden disappearance of fireflies. It wasn't the calendar with the first day of school circled in red. As a child, the end of summer was clearly marked by my father's annual ritual of swimming out to the dock in the lake, climbing the stairs to the highest diving board, turning and waving to us as he prepared for his grand leap. 

I would stand knee deep in the water with my sisters and cousins, all of us lined up with our toes digging in the wet, spongy sand while giggling and pointing at the man poised at the end of the diving board. Our almost weekly family picnics at a Kansas City lake, Sunny Shores, would soon be lost to school, busy jobs and, eventually, snow. My father would return to being the man in the suit and hat, gone for long hours after backing down our drive each morning.

But on that one Sunday afternoon at the end of each summer, he was the silly man who would jump from the highest diving board, pretending to ride a bike, legs pumping and hands waving. We'd laugh and clap, cheering him as he swam back to shore. Then it was time to pack up the cars, exchange hugs, and return home, knowing we'd said goodbye to another summer. 

September has arrived along with chilly mornings, school buses chugging down the street and shorter days. It's an opportunity for Helen Hunt Jackson's best of cheer as we prepare for leaves to change from green to gold, go on brisker walks, and, in my case, crave carbs and casseroles.

It's also a perfect time for long evenings spent reading classics such as JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit in honor of Tolkien Week Sept. 17-23, or a banned book during Banned Books Week, Sept. 24-30.

                                      New Fiction:

The Cuban Affair - Nelson DeMille
A Column of Fire - Ken Follett
Enemy of the State - Vince Flynn
To Be Where You Are - Jan Karon
Proof of Life - J.A. Jance
Sleeping Beauties - Owen King & Stephen King
A Legacy of Spies - John le Carre
Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng
Forest Dark - Nicole Krauss
Five-Carat Soul - James McBride
The Ninth Hour - Alice McDermott
Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward
Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions - Amy Stewart
The Good People - Hannah Kent
The Golden Hour - Salmon Rushdie
The Exact Nature of Our Wrongs - Janet Peery
Don't Let Go - Harlan Coben

                                  New Nonfiction:

Unstoppable: My Life So Far - Maria Sharapova
Coming to My Senses - Alice Waters
It Takes Two - Jonathan & Drew Scott
Midnight Confessions - Stephen Colbert
Braving the Wilderness - Brene Brown
The Four Tendencies - Gretchen Rubin
Draft No. 4: The Writing Process - John McPhee
Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition - University of Chicago

>>And if you enjoyed being terrified by a clown named Pennywise, It by Stephen King is being re-released. 

September is Be Kind to Writers & Editors Month,
Classical Music Month & Library Card Sign-Up Month.

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