September is generally a moody season, what with the schooling semester starting back in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn settling in. It doesn’t really feel the same here in the Southern Hemisphere given its the middle of second semester at university, spring break starting for many, and we’re trying to shrug off winter’s persistent chill. So I am going to be leaning into the Northern Hemisphere experience this month and focusing my reading on what I had dubbed as “scholarly books”.

Now, don’t take this too seriously. My scholarly reading is split into two categories – classics and dark academia. For my classics, I will be looking at novels, short stories, and poetry collections that have been given high praise and credited as undeniable feats of importance in the literary world. But, if you know me, you know I struggle with the classic novel perspective and expositionary prose. So, to mitigate my chances of DNFing or crawling my way through books, I have done a little sneaky thing and either gone very far back to the works of Rumi, Dante Alighieri, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Edgar Allen Poe, or not that far back for works by Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and James Baldwin. I know the colonial narrative perspective and timeframe is frankly boring for me, so in choosing works on either side of that I am hoping to still read classic works and enjoy them in the process.

Then we have the dark academia reads. I originally picked up about seven dark academia reads to compare to each other given the similar settings, themes, and fantasy elements, but I hit a wall almost immediately and had to change plans. I still have several dark academia books to read, not to mention Katabasis which just came out last week, so there should be enough of these reads for a fun school setting with studies, shocking acts, references, rivalries, and commentary on a number of themes. I have books from Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, R.F. Kuang, Elizabeth Kostova, Alexis Henderson, and Olivie Blake, all of which I believe I will finish without DNFing. I admit, while I love dark academia, I am quite picky with it and am more likely to DNF a novel of this genre if I don’t gel with the characters, overall themes, or tone.

Keep an eye out for works that take your fancy, reviews that pique your interests, and books that you have been meaning to get to but just haven’t yet. While I won’t be posting everyday (and thank the books gods for that!) I will still be giving you a decent number of reviews for September. Oh, and let’s not forget the discussions to be had on Sundays where I update you all on my PhD journey and plans. Happy ready!