It’s the beginning of the –brrr months, as my husband calls them, our favorite season of the year. We’ve started school, had our disasters and reluctant bouts with self-discipline, and now it’s time to settle in, learn, and enjoy the autumn. Autumn is a lovely word, by the way, “from Old French, autumpne, or directly from the Latin, autumnus.”

I’ve done several autumnal series of posts about food over the years of this blog:

Apples: Fact, Fiction, Poetry and Recipe.

Pecans, the Nut of the Gods.

Autumn and Pumpkins

Potatoes: a Positively Ponderous Post.

You might enjoy reading about these autumn-ish foods as we head into September.

Then, there are the books of September.
Due out in September, 2013:
The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde. 09/03/2013 The Chronicles of Kazam, Book Two, sequel to The Last Dragonslayer.
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein. 09/10/2013
Silence: A Christian History by Diarmaid MacCulloch. 09/12/2013
United We Spy by Ally Carter. 09/17/2013
The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography by Alan Jacobs. 09/30/2013

September Events and Books:
September, 1914. During World War I, after the Battle of the Marne, both sides reach a stalemate in northern France, and the armies face each other from trenches along a front that eventually stretches from the North Sea to the Swiss border with France. Reading about World War I.
In September 2009, Abby Johnson was called into an exam room at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas to help with an ultrasound-guided abortion. What she saw in the ultrasound picture changed her mind about abortion, about the pro-life movement, and ultimately about her own relationship with a loving God. Read more in Abby’s book, Unplanned.
September 1, 1939. Germany invades Poland. Norway, Finland, Sweden, Spain and Ireland declare their neutrality. Later in September U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt announces that the U.S. will also remain neutral in the war. Mila 18 by Leon Uris tells the story of the Jewish people of Warsaw, Poland as they fought and hid from the Nazis who were determined to exterminate them.
September 7, 1977. The U.S. signs a treaty with Panama agreeing to transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
September 8, 1492. The Voyages of Christopher Columbus on the Santa Maria, Nina and Pinta begin. Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card includes both history (Christopher Columbus, native Central American cultures, and slavery) and futuristic/dystopian/utopian elements.
September 8, 1900: A deadly hurricane destroys much of the property on Galveston Island, Texas and kills between 6000 and 12000 people. The Galveston hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States. Reading through a hurricane at Semicolon.
September 16, 1975. Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia. Peace Child by Don Richardson is a wonderful missionary story set in Papua New Guinea.
September 28, 1961. A military coup in Damascus, Syria effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria. Mitali Perkins recommends a couple of books set in Syria, in light of the present crisis in that war-torn country.

Birthdays and Books:
Jim Arnosky, writer of nature and art books for children, was born September 1, 1946.
Elizabeth Borton de Trevino, whose historical fiction book I, Juan de Pareja, won the Newbery Medal in 1966, was born September 2, 1904 in Bakersfield, California. Also born on September 2nd: Poet Eugene Field and children’s humorist Lucretia Hale.
Aliki Liacouras Brandenberg was born September 3, 1929.
Children’s author Joan Aiken was born on September 4, 1924 in Sussex, England.
Lost Horizon author James Hilton was born on September 9, 1900.
Short story master O’Henry was born September 11, 1862.
On September 13th, Carol Kendall (1937), children’s fantasy writer, Else Holmelund Minarik (1920), author of the Little Bear easy readers, Roald Dahl (1916), humorist, and Mildred Taylor (1943), historical fiction writer and Newbery medalist, were all born, greatly adding to the breadth and joy of children’s literature.
Essayist and lexicographer Samuel Johnson was born September 18, 1709.
September 19th is the birthday of Arthur Rackham, illustrator, b.1867, William Golding, novelist, b.1911, Rachel Field, children’s author.
Poet T.S. Eliot was born on September 26, 1888.
September 29th is the birthday of Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist, b.1810.

A Reading List for September 24, National Punctuation Day.

Autumn is my favorite season.