Ramblings of a Thirty-Something

 You know, my very first "list" post was from October of last year. It seems only appropriate to do one this October. We're halfway through the month. We've made it through the first quarter of this new way of teaching. I've survived the first eight weeks of my current grad school class {barely, but there's still time...this class might defeat me}. Harvest is finished. The weather has turned crisp.  Yep, a perfect time to craft a new list. My Current Books I am not reading them all at once. Two of them I have checked out from the library and really need to get around to reading them. Our October "Wines & Spines" {aka, my book club} pick was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I'd read it years and years ago, and it was a delight to re-read. If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up. I have November's book in my stack, but I haven't started it yet:  Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. I'm just getting enou

October is the perfect time to read a good ghost story. I don’t mean a horror story, with homicidal maniacs or killer clowns {looking at you, Stephen King}. I’m talking about a ghost story—ancient houses, lonely spirits, unsuspecting guests. Perhaps, to be more accurate, I mean a good Gothic ghost story. I know what you’re thinking, and no, a Gothic tale does not have anything to do with those kids from high school who wore all black {although their look was originally inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s work}. It does have to do with Gothic architecture, as many of the stories from the height of the Gothic fiction period took place in homes built in the Gothic style. There is a very rich history of Gothic fiction, and it came to spawn some of the most prolific “spooky” authors of all time:  Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and of course, Edgar Allen Poe. And my girl, Jane Austen, wrote one of the most famous parodies of Gothic fiction ever:  Northanger Abbey . Her heroine, Catherine Morela