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Your Autumn Reading List Is Here

Your Autumn Reading List Is Here

Everybody has heard of a summer reading list. Most people spend their summer catching up on all the reading they’ve failed to do during the rest of the year. Which is amazing – our summer memories are speckled with stories from other lands and lives. Apart from the adventure of our summer holidays, we are adventuring in our imaginations for a double retreat from the reality of our daily lives.

Reading is so important – fiction especially – because it gives us other points of views and puts us in situations that otherwise we would never come across in our own lives. During the rest of the year, we get caught up in our monotony, and our lives get too busy, and reading is something we put on the back burner.

But summer’s over (sadly), and why stop escaping from reality? If you want to continue your escapist reading streak into the autumn, well here are some books for you!

Fantasy, dystopias… Here are a selection of my favourite books that feel set in autumn.

American Gods is an award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman, and if you love the book, Amazon Prime has also made it into a 3-season series with a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – but as a book-lover, I highly suggest you read the book first!

Another fantastic fantasy is Dune by Frank Herbert. Written in the 1960’s, Dune served as inspiration for almost all of the science-fiction you know today. Star Wars and Star Trek were both inspired by Frank Herbert’s ground-breaking novel (and sequels), as well as Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. There are 6 novels in the original series written by Frank Herbert, but he died before he could finish the 7th. Luckily for us, his son took up the mantle and finished the 7th novel, as well as writing prequels and spin-off novels set in the same universe. Try and devour the first novel before the new movie comes out in November, starring Timothée Chalamet, Osaar Isaac, and our reigning queen of red carpet looks, Zendaya.

If you’ve ever read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series following Lyra, you’ll want to read his prequel series The Book of Dust. With two hefty books already released, and a third outstanding, you’ve got a lot of content to consume! And you’ll want to, because it’s just so good. Philip Pullman really knows how to torture you with a cliff-hanger, but that’s all I’ll say, because you’ll have to read it to find out…

These seven novels below are such great picks, and if you get really into them, there’s lots of extra reading (and watching) materials to take you further into their worlds… Why not pick up a book? Escape from your boring desk job, and the oncoming Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that autumn brings by going on a mental adventure. Some people call it not-dealing-with-your-own-problems, but I call it having-a-kickass-time-pretending-to-be-someone-else. Enjoy.

Image by Tim Hildebrant, 1981