Books-by-the-Month: September

September has a smell—the faintest tang of sharpened pencils, apple skins, and air that is juuuuust beginning to cool. After the looseness of summer, September arrives like a Marian the librarian closing the door with a gentle click. Autumn is creeping in, and with it comes the subtle ache of endings: the end of childhood summers, the end of daylight’s abundance, the end of lazy hours spent doing nothing but listening to the hum of cicadas, and something in us stirs toward introspection. 

But where there are endings, there are also beginnings—syllabi, sharpened pencils, freshly cracked spines and all they represent. And for Jews like me, September on the (solar) calendar often means the end of the (lunar) Jewish year and the beginning of the new one; a month when we can come home to ourselves.
 

Below is a collection of books for this in-between month: a time for introspection, transformation, and gathering the harvest—of thought, memory, and imagination.

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 For the “back-to-school” spirit:

 

1. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman


There is no better companion for a bookish September than Anne Fadiman herself. Ex Libris is a love letter to reading—to the physical heft of books, the quirks of bookish families, the joyful chaos of merged libraries. My first literary agent (and pal!) Louise first introduced me to the great Anne Fadiman, so-much-more-than-an-essayist upon such great subjects as ice cream, early rising, marrying libraries, re-readings, and many others. 

Fadiman’s essays hum with intelligence and delight; she treats language as both playground and cathedral. Reading this collection feels like returning to class under the kind of professors who grades not on correctness, but on enthusiasm. 

This slim (and pleasingly red) volume is not only perfect for all things commuting, but a delightful collection of essays regarding the nature of, character of, reading of, acquisition of, and visceral love of books. Start with Anne Fadiman, and her incredibly smart but still utterly readable prose will win you over, make you laugh and swoon all in one, (again) pleasingly slim, red companion.

A perfect read to reignite one’s lifelong affair with words. 

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2. Give Yourself a Gold Star! by Leslie Jonath 

 

Sometimes? Sometimes you just need some gosh darn approval. Sometimes you need a gold star or two to feel like you aren’t slowly dying from a sense of deep-set contemporary-times-related-melancholy. Leslie Jonath’s charming little book reminds us that before we chase new goals, we should honor the triumphs already won! Give Yourself a Gold Star! is a whimsical, illustrated encouragement manual, part pep talk, part gratitude journal. 

If you’re feeling like you miss the scent of freshly sharpened pencils AND you require a little pick-me-up from Mrs Devine and Mrs Zarider (aka: my first-grade teachers) but are a grown-ass adult, then this is the book you’ve be willing to trade your lunch for. 

Did you manage to wake up on time? 
Remember your keys? 
Do something nice for a friend? 
Adulted like a PRO?

Good job, YOU. 

Celebrate your achievements large and small with Give Yourself A Gold Star!

Rather than a DO list, this book encourages you to keep a DID List (to remind yourself of what you accomplished, instead of just worrying about what you need to do), the book helps you to break things into the tiniest steps (so tiny that just writing the list is one of the tasks) and give yourself a GOLD STAR for doing each one. Believe me: when life gets grim, this book helps you put into perspective just how much there is to be grateful for, and how much you do have going on in this once and only life. 

Give Yourself A Gold Star! is the literary equivalent of a crisp new planner paired with your favorite pen: lighthearted yet oddly profound. It reminds us that self-kindness is also an achievement, and perhaps the first lesson we should re-learn every fall.

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For the Jewish New Year.


3. This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Rabbi Alan Lew
 

Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—is a glorious and shimmering time of year. Where secular New Year is about fireworks, Rosh Hashanah is all about reflection, self-accounting, and the courage to begin again, renewed. 

There is no greater book on this moment in the Jewish calendar than Rabbi Lew’s modern classic of spiritual reflection, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. Rabbi Lew’s book is the essential guide to entering the Jewish High Holy Days with heart and intention, but beyond the Jewish specificity, this book offers a philosopher’s perspective on existence itself, and is relevant to all, regardless of faith or background. 

He traces the emotional arc from Tisha B’Av (mourning) through Rosh Hashanah (renewal) to Yom Kippur (atonement), revealing how the calendar mirrors the human psyche’s rhythms of loss and return. Lew writes with the warmth of a wise teacher and the clarity of a poet:

“The great journey of transformation begins with the acknowledgment that we need to make it. It is not something we are undertaking for amusement, nor even for the sake of convention; rather, it is a spiritual necessity.” 

Rosh Hashanah invites us to reflect not on how much we’ve achieved, but on how much we’ve become — to count our days not by their product, but by their presence. Even if you’ve read it before, it’s worth revisiting each year—like the liturgy itself, it changes as you do.

Sit somewhere quiet, and revisit it. The page, like the year, is waiting for you to turn it.

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For Autumn, creeping in…

3. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
 

I have a family friend who recently told me he re-reads To Kill a Mockingbird every couple of years, and does this consistent "return reading" with no other book. Why? I'd wager a perfect mix of school memories, themes of justice, awakening, and childhood coming to an end always ring true, and become truer each day. 

 

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable coming-of-age tale in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage iniquities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime. 

For me, there is something exquisitely September-like about To Kill a Mockingbird: its slow, sideways sun-dappled afternoons, its moral awakenings, and the ache of innocence giving way to understanding. Through Scout’s eyes, we experience both the wonder and the cruelty of a small Southern town—and the bittersweet passage from childhood simplicity to adult conscience. Plus, Harper Lee’s prose and exquisitely fleshed out characters feel like the turning of leaves: golden, crisp, edged with the inevitability of loss. 
 

I love a re-reading (I myself try to do this with East of Eden every few years) because the exercise displays a level of growth and expansion within ourselves. The book remains steadfast: changing not-at-all, but we do. As a child whose childhood came to an end prematurely, and as a young girl with a lawyer for a father I so revered, To Kill a Mockingbird teaches me new things with every re-examination.  

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For September as Self-Improvement Month.

 

5. Rising Strong by Dr. Brené Brown 

 

If September is the season of reevaluation — of checking in with one’s courage, direction, and heart — then Dr. Brené Brown’s Rising Strong is its perfect anthem. The reason I love Brené Brown so much is because she is a researcher above all else—her brilliant writing, story-telling and humanity is all supported by her exhaustive scientific research studying shame and vulnerability. 

 

With her signature mix of research, empathy, phenomenal storytelling ability and razor-sharp wit, Brown explores how we recover after failure: how we reckon with our own stories and transform shame into resilience. It’s the perfect book to accompany the early fall impulse to start again—to turn over a new leaf (literally and figuratively).

 

Dr. Brené Brown is a Texan-born researcher, storyteller, professor, and public thought-leader who has carved out a unique space at the intersection of rigorous qualitative social-work research and deeply personal, widely accessible storytelling. Brown’s academic and applied research focuses on the dynamics of courage, vulnerability, shame, empathy, and human connection. She describes herself as a “researcher-storyteller” who collects qualitative data (interviews, narratives) and uses those stories to uncover patterns of lived experience. Her 2010 TEDx Houston talk “The Power of Vulnerability” quickly became one of the most-watched TED talks in the world, thrusting her research into mainstream conversation:  

She has authored multiple New York Times best-sellers (e.g., The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Atlas of the Heart) that have reached massive audiences far beyond academia. But my pick for September's "Self Improvement Month" has to be Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, in which she presents what she calls the "Rising Strong process"—a three-phase journey through struggle, truth-telling, and transformation. 

The phases are:
    1    Reckoning
    2    Rumble
    3    Revolution
 

Brené Brown is a voice bridging research and lived experience—someone who invites us to embrace vulnerability, examine shame, and rebuild toward wholehearted living. Rising Strong offers a grounded, generous, and richly actionable entry into that world. It doesn’t just tell you why courage matters—it shows you how to live it when you’ve already stumbled. 

For anyone seeking renewal (and that’s maybe you), this book offers more than insight: it offers initiation. Read it with a pen in hand, ready to underline every sentence that sounds like it’s been waiting for you.

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6. Still Life by Sarah Winman
 

If September is about returning home to oneself, Still Life is a perfect companion. This 2021 novel— really a parade of small stories (my favorite!), is set across decades predominantly in Florence and London. 

 

It is a luminous, big-hearted novel about found family, art, history, and the quiet heroism of living fully. Winman’s character—an art historian, a soldier, a parrot named Claude—linger long after the final page. 

This is a book to read as the nights lengthen and the air smells faintly of crisp leaves and nostalgia. It’s a promise that beauty survives, even as seasons change. Make yourself a “proper cuppa” and enjoy this one for the love of warmth, art, and the beginning of cozy season...

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A Season for Turning Pages

September is when reading becomes ritual again—the attentive, nourishing act it was meant to be. It’s the time to trade poolside paperbacks for well-loved hardcovers, iced coffee for tea, and to rediscover the quiet companionship of books that teach as much as they comfort. 

This is the month of beginnings disguised as endings: of new notebooks and second chances, of self-reckoning and self-kindness. In honor of this shift, here is a list of books that suit September’s temperament — nostalgic yet hopeful, warm but clear-eyed, and perfect for curling up beside the first mug of tea of the season.

Whether you’re returning to work, to school, or simply to yourself, may these stories accompany you into the golden hush of early autumn — one page at a time, as the world turns gently inward.