Why I can’t tell you what I’m reading this month
Sep 29, 2025
Okay, I can tell you some of what I’ve been reading this past month or so:
Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, for a wonderful explication of the ways Mary fulfills the types and patterns of the Old Testament, always pointing to Jesus;
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Sigrid Undset’s biography of Catherine of Siena, for a glimpse of the action of God through the eyes of a passionate mystic; and
White Week and Other Stories, a beautiful collection by Wojciech Chmielewski that appears for the first time in English thanks to a collaboration between the Polish Book Institute and Wiseblood Books. With its sorrowful character sketches, its haunting wartime dislocations, and its mystical relationship to time, Chmielewski’s book reminds me of everything I love about W. G. Sebald. One story, “Deventer,” refers directly to Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn; a man named Kacper dips backward into a life lived centuries ago among a group of monks who transcribe books and sew shoes. This enigmatic character also recalls Gaustine from Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter, which won the International Booker Prize in 2023. (You can read more about Time Shelter here.)
So, yes, I’ve been reading lots of interesting books. But the book I’ve read the most closely this month? The one that’s generated pages and pages of notes? The one I’ve agonized about getting just right? Can’t tell you. And, no, I’m not finishing a long-delayed dissertation. I never even began one.
The reason I can’t tell you is that the book is part of a proprietary reading list that won’t be revealed to group members (some 13,000 of them around the country) until next summer. This month, I’m preparing an entry for the 2026 Well-Read Mom Reading Companion—a wonderful resource that rivals any undergraduate English textbook I’ve ever used. I’ve belonged to a Well-Read Mom group for a few years now, and I can’t say enough good things about this wide-ranging Catholic book club to help women “Read More and Read Well.” So, while I can’t tell you anything about the book I’ve been reading, I can say that it’s a wonderful choice. And since this current year of Well-Read Mom is just beginning, there’s still time to join a group or start one of your own.
Speaking of book clubs, my Well-Read Mom group did me the great kindness of reading The Bicycle Messenger in September. Thank you, ladies! I learned so much from our discussion! A few of our members work directly with people who suffer from mental health conditions similar to the one that affects Steven Hawley in the book. Others had been to Poland on a recent pilgrimage with former Milwaukee Archbishop (now Archbishop emeritus) Jerome Listecki. Still others shared their own family experiences with mental health and adoption. I learned that one of my narrators, Mary Ellen Hawley, managed to “fracture the family” through her attempts at control—though others rose to defend Mary Ellen for taking a leap of love. In other words, everyone was very engaged. One of the best things about publishing a novel is that I finally get to show my friends and family what I’ve been doing all this time. Any anxiety I had about people who know me reading the book has been transformed into the joy of receiving their reactions. What a gift.
Finally, for Milwaukee-area friends, I’ll be reading from The Bicycle Messenger on November 11 at 6:30 p.m. at St. Jude the Apostle Parish in Wauwatosa. More information is yet to come, but many thanks to Fr. Justin Weber and to the Women of St. Jude for agreeing to host me.
Joan Elizabeth Bauer 