The Autumn Archive, part 1

Autumn is my season, dear. It is, after all, the season of the soul. (Virginia Woolf)

Welcome to the first installment of The Seasonal Archive, where I’ll be sharing my favorite movies, TV shows, books, and all things seasonal. We will obviously start with autumn, as it is my favorite and the current season I’m in. (I’m so sorry for all my Southern Hemisphere subscribers!) This newsletter will be divided into three parts, with each part covering one month of the season, so prepare to see me often! Hopefully, you won’t get sick of me and my lists — I am, after all, a September Virgo. Feel free to leave a comment if you’re familiar with my recommendations; I love sharing and exchanging thoughts with you. As always, thank you for reading.

— Ella

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reading — september books

I personally love this particular selection of books. I included some of my favorites and made a little collage, trying to encapsulate the feeling of each story. September is back-to-school season, so expect to find a few campus novels!

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North Woods, written by Daniel Mason (2023)

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?

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Pnin, written by Vladimir Nabokov (1957)

One of the best-loved of Nabokov’s novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950's. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.