Lately my reading life has been a strange mixture of comfort, disappointment, obsession, and rediscovery. Some books have felt like conversations I wanted to stay in forever. Others have felt like being trapped at a very long dinner party with someone determined to explain ancient grain storage practices in exhaustive detail.

Which is, honestly, part of the fun of reading widely.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

I finally picked up Mansfield Park by Jane Austen after years of somehow circling around it, and I was not prepared for how much I would love it. It may actually be becoming one of my favorite Austen novels, which surprises me because it is probably her least glamorous. There are no dazzling personalities in the way readers often expect from Austen. No Elizabeth Bennet wit firing in every direction. No sweeping romance dominating the story. Instead there is Fanny Price, quiet and observant and morally stubborn in a way that feels almost unfashionable now.

What struck me most is how psychologically sharp it is. Austen understands humiliation at the family level with terrifying precision. The social dynamics in Mansfield Park feel painfully real, especially if you have ever been the quieter person in a room full of louder, shinier personalities. I expected a respectable classic. I did not expect to feel emotionally ambushed by it.

The Banker's Wife by Cristina Alger

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I recently finished The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger, which was exactly the kind of intelligent thriller I tend to inhale in two sittings. Financial scandals, hidden identities, international intrigue, expensive people making terrible choices. It moves quickly without feeling stupid, which is rarer than it should be in thrillers. There is something satisfying about a book that understands pacing but still trusts the reader to keep up.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Then there is If I Stay by Gayle Forman, which I have read multiple times now and still love unapologetically. Some books become attached to a certain emotional atmosphere in your life, and this is one of those for me. The music running through the novel gives it a pulse that many young adult books lack, and the love story still works on me every single time. It is sentimental without becoming cynical about sentimentality, which is difficult to pull off. There is a sincerity to it that I think many contemporary novels are too self-conscious to attempt.

First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami

I also picked up First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami. Reading Murakami always feels a little like wandering through someone else’s dream after midnight. Sometimes the dream is profound. Sometimes it is self-indulgent. Usually it is both simultaneously. The stories in this collection feel quieter and more reflective than some of his earlier work. Loneliness, memory, jazz, aging, strange encounters that may or may not mean anything at all. Very Murakami territory. Even reading it slowly, there is something unmistakably atmospheric about his writing. Certain passages linger afterward like music overheard from another apartment window.

If All the Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan

One of the more meaningful books I have been reading is If All the Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan. There are books about Judaism that feel instructional, and there are books that feel lived-in. This one belongs firmly in the second category. I have especially appreciated how personal and literary it is at the same time. The Talmud becomes not just a religious text but a companion to ordinary life, grief, marriage, uncertainty. It reminded me that serious religious engagement does not have to flatten personality or intellect. If anything, it can sharpen both.

Out of the Depths by Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau

I also recently started Out of the Depths by Yisrael Meir Lau, which is understandably difficult reading at times. Some memoirs demand emotional attention in a way fiction does not. Rabbi Lau writes with remarkable restraint considering the subject matter, and that restraint somehow makes parts of it even more devastating.

The Confessions of Aubrey Beardsley by Donald S Olson

And then there is The Confessions of Aubrey Beardsley by Donald Olson, which feels decadent, strange, theatrical, and perfectly suited to Beardsley himself. Fin-de-siècle aestheticism has always fascinated me because it sits at the edge of beauty and collapse simultaneously. Beardsley’s world feels overripe in the most interesting way possible. Excess, artifice, morbidity, wit. You can practically smell the cigarette smoke and ink stains coming off the pages.

Ramses Serires by Christian Jacq

Unfortunately, not everything has been successful. I have been making my way through the Ramses series by Christian Jacq and, despite desperately wanting to enjoy it, I mostly do not. Ancient Egypt is one of those subjects that should be impossible to make dull, yet somehow these books manage stretches that feel oddly lifeless. The historical detail is obviously researched, but the characters themselves rarely feel alive to me. I keep waiting for the series to ignite emotionally and it just… does not. Perhaps this is a compatibility issue rather than a quality issue, but reading it has started to feel more like homework than pleasure.

Still, I like when my reading life contains failures alongside favorites. A disappointing book often clarifies your taste as much as a brilliant one does. You start noticing the difference between a book that merely contains interesting material and a book that transforms that material into something emotionally alive.

That has been my reading landscape lately: Austen and Murakami, thrillers and memoirs, Talmud and doomed aesthetes, emotional YA novels I will defend forever, and ancient Egyptian epics that I may eventually abandon out of sheer irritation.

And, naturally, all of these books are available in the shop for anyone else who wants to fall into them too. Check out the collection at Eva's Used Books!