October brings the cooler weather and most of us (in this town) seem ready and willing. Mild weather is awesome. But then comes winter. Seasons change but it is always the same – usually either too hot or too cold with a happy month between the change. This is that happy month.
Word of the Month
Joy
Bible Verses of the Month
How joyful are those who fear the Lord— all who follow his ways! You will enjoy the fruit of your labor. How joyful and prosperous you will be!” – (Psalm 128:1,2 NLT)
This month’s reading diary is at the bottom of this page, after the book list.
My Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/lindajm
★ – I’m reading it.
✓ – I finished reading it. Yay!
⇗ – Still reading at the end of the month.
⇓ – I did not like it or finish it. (DNF = Did Not Finish)
∅ – Stalled – I started but didn’t finish. (Soft-DNF)
Challenges
1. Reading Books I Already Own – During 2025 I commit to reading books I’ve already bought.
2. The David McCullough Reading Challenge continues. Courage! Persistence! This month I continue reading the biography of John Adams.
3. The Visual Theology Christian Reading Challenge – 42/73 – the poster is available from the Visual Theology website.
4. The 2025 Biblical Studies Challenge – this challenge asks us to read one book monthly on a topic one would study if lucky enough to attend a Bible college.
5. Inktober 2025 !!!! Click on the prompt list for more information.
I’ll post my inked creations in the diary down below. I’m using Daler-Rowney Acrylic Inks.. they are colorful and they feed my fantasy art. For black I use Carbon Ink or Pitt Faber Castell India ink pens.
Finished Reading This Month
✓ Drama: Marrow, by Aditi Brennan Kapil
Available only as an audiobook. An outstanding performance. Confusing at times. My review.
✓ Horror Novella: A Short Stay in Hell, by Scott L. Peck
A Mormon man dies and goes to hell where he learns the only true religion is Zoroastrianism and that he must go live in a library with an abundance of books. My review.
✓ Dystopian Novella: I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman
A group of women are locked in an underground prison cell for years. They have no idea why. Interesting highly-rated short audio fiction – about five hours.
Update: Finished and reviewed here. Fascinating. Many unanswered questions, but that was part of the story.
✓ Mystery/Horror: Trapdoor, by JP Pomare
This is an Audible-only short novel. It is not a clean book – there’s some bad language, but that doesn’t bother me much so long as it is not gratuitous. Here’s my review.
Reading Intentions
★ Biography: John Adams, by David McCullough
This book is for the McCullough Reading Challenge.
★ Classic Fiction: Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes
This is the first classic novel I need to read for my classical education project. I’ve read some of this before. Unfortunately I quit after about 300 pages because it seemed repetitious and I couldn’t love the stupidity of the main character. However, I’ve always wanted to give it another try, especially since I’m more devoted to reading now than I was then.
Did Not Finish – aka: DNF
Nothing DNF’ed this month so far.
My October 2025 Reading Diary
October 1 – Another month, another opportunity. This month I made a list of projects I’d like to work on using Workflowy – a great website for listmaking.
October 2 – I found another cool website today. It tells me how many days between dates. You see, I finished reading Psalms again today. Just out of curiosity I wanted to know how many days it took me to go through the book reading just one Psalm per day. When I got to Psalm 119, which is extremely long, I read just one 8-verse section per day. There are 22 sections in Psalm 119. Plus I missed some days for busyness reasons. Anyhow, I started reading Psalms on March 10 and ended today. The site told me that was 207 days. In case you want to know how much time there is between dates, try this site: Day Counter. In case you are wondering, there are 84 days until Christmas!
October 3 – I finished painting the first Inktober painting. I’m using Daler-Rowney acrylic inks to paint. He is a fisherman.
October 6 – I’ve been working on filing, outdoor painting projects (mainly yard art) and am reading the biography of John Adams by David McCullough. It should take me all month to get through it. After that I have other big books calling my name. Meanwhile I’m looking for short fiction reads. Don Quixote appears to be more like a long term study project. I need to go back to the beginning and write summaries of every chapter I’ve already read. I’m doing this for my other project, The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. I figure there’s no sense in reading Don Quixote quickly if I forget everything soon after I read it.
October 11 – I haven’t been doing well with my hopes of Inktober but will post any other art I finish this month. I’ve become more focused on paper organization issues. One never knows what might interfere with plans. It started when I received a questionnaire from the county about mortgage issues. I found a question that made me search through my files and since I am super disorganized with papers that come in the mail, I ended up putting /all/ my loose papers and similar clutter on the dining room table. Then I found the needed answers in papers I’d already properly filed. Anyhow, with all that paper clutter on the table, I realized that I wanted to make another stab at getting it all straightened out once and for all time. So everything else got pushed to the side while I attacked my paper chaos issues. And chaos is the word for it – as I deeply desire not to live in chaos. I don’t want my possessions and papers to be chaotic. Also, after that I might reorganize my day room aka. art studio because that is also getting ridiculously out of control these days.
October 12 – A few days ago I finished a five-hour audiobook of Trapdoor by JP Pomare. It was very interesting, and though it had some F-words it was understandable cussing as the characters were locked in a cellar filling with water, and seeking an escape. Having finished that I looked for another short fiction audiobook and found I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. This one is about women locked in an underground dungeon cell for years. It is interesting that both books are set in underground prisons. This one is dystopian. Both novels are about 5 hours long. You see, I’ve been focused on long nonfiction (Truman & John Adams) plus Don Quixote which is super long, and so I discovered I’m already 10 books behind on my Goodreads Reading Challenge for this year. I must read short books to catch up! In my search for short literature I’ve discovered some gems. I don’t regret this.
October 14 – This morning I woke up after a dream involving a book – A Separate Peace – which in my dream I thought was written by Jodi Picoult, an author whose books I’ve never read. It is actually written by John Fowles, and I read it in 2021 and considered it an outstandingly great piece of worthy literature… enough so that I’m interested in rereading it. But not so fast. I’m still audioreading I Who Have Never Known Men and am intrigued, and enjoying it quite a bit.
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