The Sunday Prescription

One reading topic, one week of plans, and plenty of books administered weekly for chronic readers.

Symptoms: The ten before the end

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you are all doing well, and getting some time to read a good book this week! Next Sunday is November first, and as the year is ending, everyone is talking about their ten before the end, or ten books that they want to read before the end of the year.

Now I participated in this last year, and I think I actually got pretty close - I want to say I read 9 out of the 10 I proposed in October. But as I sat around looking at my shelves and thinking about it this year, I decided not to post anything about it, and not to really consider doing it this year. And contrasting this October with last October has been a big reason why.

Last year, I was being much more prescriptive with my reading. I was doing monthly TBR's, and generally sticking to them. I give my reading a lot of structure. Now that works really well for some people, but for me, I found myself struggling with it. As I've talked about before, I consider myself a reasonably feral mood reader, and a few months back I decided that to embrace that even further I was going to be cutting back on ARCs. ARCs were a big part of my struggles, because they have deadlines and due dates. So this October, I had one ARC to read (Victorious by VE Schwab) that I was so excited to read, our book club books that I was excited to read, and then I have just let the mood reading run wild. It has been so much fun! I have read a few books I wanted to read last October, but never got to. I've been able to jump into some highly anticipated stuff, and even though I have been reading at my own pace, I have noticed I'm so much more excited to read this month. Contrast that with last year, and

So this year, the idea of doing a ten before the end just struck me as something that I didn't want to do. I'll read 10 books before the end of the year, but I'm not sure what they'll all be, and that has me really excited! now, to be fair, I do know a few of them:

• Two will be our last two books club books of the year, The Demon Star and Scion.

• Two will be the Fable book club books. In November we'll be doing Boudicca's Daughter, and for December I'm not 100% sure quite yet!

• Two will be our Dark Traveler pick a books for November that will be The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

However, everything else is...who knows! I know I want to sneak a few nonfictions in there, I have some great stuff on my TBR, and I also know that book 5 in the Gael Song series, Son of the Serpent, is coming out in November. I'm so excited to see where I find myself over the next few months.

I preach a lot on my channels about how reading is an individual experience that we all share, and that we should all read what we want, how we want. I know for me, leaning into the feral mood reader side of me has been so much fun the last month, and I'm looking forward to continuing to embrace that. But I know for some of you, reading with a plan is more fun, and for some it's somewhere in between! So what are you: feral mood reader, strict planner, or somewhere in the middle?

The Rx: What I'm Reading and Doing

So there is a lot going on! First and foremost I am really excited to announce a new tier option for everyone here on Bindery called The Apothecary! This is going to be a quarterly book box that will start shipping in January 2027. Each quarter will feature a book and some extra goodies, with the following themes:

• January: Fantasy

• April: Sci Fi

• July: A surprise book/genre!

• October: Horror

Here are the details/rules for the new option:

• Obviously, you need to be comfortable sharing your shipping address with me!

• Cost is $12/month

• You must be a member for 2 months before you get your first shipment

• At the outset, I am going to offer this international as well (I ship from the US), and I will pay for the up front shipping costs. However, there may be extra import duties or costs on your end that would be your responsibility to cover.

• There will be no skips - I'm a one man show here, so skips would not be feasible. If it is a book you already have or don't want to read, you are welcome to sell or give away!

I have already had more folks sign up than I expected, and I appreciate you all so much for supporting me and being a part of our community!

Book clubs continue on! We're wrapping up Japanese Gothic, and The Demon Star is looming for November. I'm very excited for that one. For our Fable book club, we will be reading Boudicca's Daughter by Elodie Harper. This is a standalone historical fiction that follows the meteoric rise and devastating fall of the Iceni warrior queen Boudicca through the eyes of her youngest daughter. Excited to read it, and hope to see some of you there!

Our Monthly Reading Challenges are wrapping up for the year here soon. Remember, to be eligible for the $25 Bookshop.org gift card, you need to either be in the StoryGraph Challenge, or let me know what you read in our Discord channel by October 31. November's reading challenge will be to finish a series. For this, you get a bonus entry for each book in a series you read. So if you read and finish a trilogy, that's three entries for the gift card! For me, I'm thinking of doing either The Jasad Crown, or A Day of Fallen Night.

I'm having a ton of fun with The Bone Season, and so many of our Dark Travelers are either reading or have read this one, so the discussion is great. I'm finishing that as soon as I hit send on the newsletter here. I'm also loving The Castle and the Cloister so far. Really excellent! Up next...who knows!

Hobby wise, in the wood shop I'm finishing up a couple built ins and a writing desk, and then in November/December will be starting some built ins in my basement for Lego and record displays. And speaking of Legos, I have The Shire set that just showed up that I'll be starting here soon.

If you are not on our Discord server, you should consider hanging out! I do exclusive giveaways there, and I have some really exciting ones planned for the next few months (including a full hardcover set of the Villians series by VE Schwab and more)! I don't really do giveaways on IG/TT because I like to reward you all in our community, so be on the look out for those. We have two giveaways running right now!

Hope you all have a great week of reading and life, and I'll see you next week!

Want More In-Depth Access?

If you enjoy getting into the details with me about reading, then consider upgrading to The Dark Travelers or Apothecary tiers! My Dark Travelers get an exclusive Discord role and channels, a weekly deep dive reading update video, early access to YouTube videos, and each month they get to pick a book for me to read. This can be a book they want to read with me, or something they want me to try for them. I then do a member's only review when I'm done. It's super fun and a great tight knit group that I really enjoy talking books with, and I'd love to have you part of it!

The apothecary is a quarterly book box I'm starting in January 2027! You get all the benefits of the Dark Travelers above, as well as a quarterly themed book box. Thank you to everyone who has joined already!

Time to share your thoughts, rating, and recommendations for our October book pick! We've also added a "shelf" section where you can look at the previous book responses because the recommendations section for Fishbone Cinderella is a treasure trove.

Can't wait to see the feedback for this one and then on to Piranesi (so, soooo excited for that!)

Here's the site: https://4fb.club/survey/2026-10-book-survey

To see the Shelf, click on the icon on the top left :)