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Six Books for Shorter Days

A small, opinionated autumn reading list — for long evenings, rainy weekends, and anyone who likes to read under a blanket.

Alex Rowan1 min read
A stack of worn hardback books with a pressed leaf bookmark, on an armchair beside a knitted blanket.

Every September I pull a handful of books off the shelf for the darker months. Some are rereads, some are new. All of them reward slow reading.

The list

  1. The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd — A short, luminous book about walking the Cairngorms. Read it a chapter at a time.
  2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard — Ferocious attention to the natural world. Every page has a sentence worth copying out.
  3. Stoner by John Williams — A quiet life, told with such tenderness it hurts.
  4. The Peregrine by J. A. Baker — Obsessive, poetic, unlike anything else.
  5. A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr — A perfect novella about one golden summer. Ideal for a single rainy afternoon.
  6. Wintering by Katherine May — On rest, retreat, and the seasons we can't hurry through.

How I read in autumn

I keep a pencil in whatever I'm reading and write in the margins — hence the name of this site. Underlines, questions, the occasional exclamation mark. Years later, those notes are often more interesting to me than the books themselves.

Have a recommendation? Send it my way. I read every letter.