An Open Book: November 2025 Reads

Happy Feast of St. Francis Xavier! With a new month beginning, it's time to link up with An Open Book to chat about what I read last month. November was a bit of a handful in many aspects of my life, so I only read three books-but they were all quite different from each other and very enjoyable. Let's dive in! 

Just Making: A Guide for Compassionate Creatives, by Mitali Perkins 

In this book, Perkins, a novelist, shares pieces of her writing journey and lessons that she received, all while exploring the relationship between social justice and art. Basically, the question of: How can we sit alone in a room to create art while there are starving people in the world? Perkins draws from her own heritage and various creatives across the globe to bolster her discussion, and she also provides helpful reflections on the sins that interfere with our creativity, as well as ways we can love and serve others in and through our work. I found a lot of her discussion really helpful, and even though this book didn't hit me the way I thought it would, I really enjoyed it and am glad I read it! 

Mystery of the Roman Ransom, by Henry Winterfeld 

In this follow-up to Detectives in Togas, the mischievous group of Roman schoolboys decide to give their teacher a gift for his fiftieth birthday: a slave they purchased with their savings. They are surprised to discover that it is not, in fact, their teacher's fiftieth birthday, and the slave they acquired is carrying a letter that has to do with a forthcoming assassination. The boys are thrust into a fast-paced adventure as they try to unravel the threads of the mystery. This was really action-packed and fun, and I loved reading it and talking with my oldest about it! 

The Odyssey, by Homer; trans. Emily Wilson

This epic follows Odysseus as he tries to travel home from the Trojan War. However, his journey to Ithaca is difficult as the gods and goddesses, monsters and humans, all interfere with his plans. Although I read The Iliad years ago, I had never read The Odyssey in its entirety, and I'm so glad I finally read it! Though I was taken aback by just how violent the ending of the story was, when Odysseus finally makes his way home (I knew that Greek literature is violent, but this hit a whole level of brutality I wasn't expecting) I picked up the Emily Wilson translation because it was the only hard copy at our library, and I really enjoyed it. Wilson translated the poem into lines of iambic pentameter and it is more of a "contemporary" translation. I ordinarily would stay away from something labeled "contemporary translation," but aside from a couple words that seemed a little too modern to me, I thought it was very well done. Wilson's translation kept the story moving and it was way easier to read and more accessible than other translations of Homer's works. So I'm very, very grateful that this translation was the one the library had :) 

Thank you for joining me this month! If you have any recommendations, please drop them in the comments-I'm always on the lookout for good books, especially as I begin to think of the coming year and the books I want to read :)