Hello and welcome to what feels like the first autumnal post this year, with a theme of connection.

Once a week I make a social media post for Chapter One bookshop at Narberth Museum, and now this has a theme. As well as posting about the Poetry Pause podcast, which we make at the bookshop in the old book store, I’m posting now about books that I find irresistible, as a book addict.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson is one such book, followed by Wintering by Katherine May, and descriptions of both have got comments of the ‘I so love this book!’ version. Both tell great stories: The Summer Book of a grandmother and grandchild on a remote island over the summer, where the mother has died, and Wintering about a particularly challenging time in the life of someone who has just turned 40.

Though the pleasure of reading this great books is solitary, the feelings engendered by them are all about connection… with all of us as we age, become vulnerable through serious illness and worry about family members and their challenges…Both these books are about comfort, tough realism and hope, though The Summer Book is fiction and Wintering is not.

As I’ve got psychology workshops coming up in the next few months, then next month I’ll describe favourite self-help/personal development books. So if self-improvement is your autumn thing, see you then!