📚🍁Everything I Read in September

Two books, a lot of reotganizing and the beginnings of a library shelf.

At the end of August, I moved from Wisconsin back to Illinois, back to my hometown, where has so much changed (pricier homes, upscale restaurants galore) and yet some things stay the same (Metra trains hourly downtown. Hurrah!). My move back had it share of pitfalls: an unpaid leave of absence from my daytime job that went on a week longer than it should have, creating an entertainment room with a library shelf, Selectric typewriter and a record-album tension pole that’s barely used. I haven’t even finished decorating or filling a closet with my own collection of books.

Most library books don’t end up here, honestly.

I no longer had access to the extensive holdings at Milwaukee’s Central Library. What to do? What to do? (to borrow Mel Brooks’ favorite saying. More on that in a minute.)

Dive into the nearest library. In fact, I got my new library a day after I got my new license plates. Which brings me to the book that riveted me early in the month. The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time by Jane Bertch was already in my mental “must read” book list. I picked up the book because it was mentioned in a Chicago Tribune article. I read the newsprint version of this article maybe in August while I was still in Milwaukee. When I learned that Bertch was a University of Illinois-Champaign graduate in my ahem, age group, I was very intrigued. I thought maybe our paths had crossed on the Quad. I actually emailed her at her Parisian business address. Alas, she was a few years younger, so we didn’t meet anywhere on campus.

What I loved the most about The French Ingredient? Learning about how to navigate friendships in Paris. How it’s hard to make friends with natives when you’re an outsider, how to “read” the French, their mannerisms and how to respond. That part of the memoir was absolutely riveting. Much like the French, Bertch didn’t get much into her personal life. In fact, I wasn’t clear on who she was with in the end of the book. I would have liked more humor, more recipes, more, more!

Shortly after I checked out The French Ingredient, I got All About Me! by Mel Brooks. I was drawn to the book because Brooks wrote the forward for another humor book published this year. Brooks is 100-years-old. So I looked for his memoir and checked it out.

During my down time from my day job, I went to Door County for a few days with Brooks thick book in my bag. I read the book in the car, late at night, early in the morning. One night while I was by a window reading. I spotted a lit tugboat on Lake Michigan

Paired with the audio version of this 451-page book, All About Me! was a slow but lively read by Mr Brooks himself. It was slow to read, but what a fast-moving book, more engaging with Brooks narrating the audio. The guy was 95-years-old when he recorded the audio and he ad libbed often, which I found hilarious and a little hard to follow with my finger on the page of his book.

I just loved Brooks’ energy and enthusiasm, He was talking often about people he worked with, people he’s outlived. But he didn’t get overly nostalgic and barely mentioned people’s passins, easy to do when you’ve lived a century. In fact, there were only three people he mentioned passing in his memoir, most notably his wife Ann Bancroft. and he didn’t even go into much detail about that. I think he gave it all of a paragraph. I don’t think it was intended to be dismissive, but he just wanted to ‘get on with the show’ to borrow a little show biz parlance.

The first nine chapters are about his early life, up through meeting Bancroft.

I was hoping he’d get into rooming with Carl Reiner, his best friend on and off the screen. I remember seeing Jerry Seinfeld visit the two, I think, in his show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Or whatever the title of that Netflix show was. Not one mention!

The rest of the book is about his accomplishments beginning with Get Smart and all the way through the Producers on Broadway.

What I loved the most about the French ingredient? Learning about how to navigate friendships in Paris. How it’s hard to make friends with natives when you’re an outsider.

Here are some gems from All About Me!:

⚡️ On silent film comedy:

“Charlie Chaplin was the only person who could make you laugh and cry simutaneously.”

⚡️ On comedy:

“Comedy is a very powerful component of life. It has the most to say about the human condition because if you can laugh you can get by. You can struggle when things are bad if you have a sense of humor. Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long good-bye. It’s a defense against unhappiness and depression.”

⚡️ On failure: “I think it’s important to fail, especially between the ages of twenty and thirty. Success is like sgar. It’s too good. It’s too sweet. It’s too wonderful and it burns very quickly. Fialure is like corned beef hash. It takes a while to eat. It takes a while to digest. But it stays with you. Failure may not feel good when it hapens, but it will always sharpen your mind. You’ll always ask yourself, “Where did I go wrong? Why didn’t this joke or this sketch work? ‘ And there will aways be reasons. You can’t just say, ‘Well, it’s not funny. You has to ask yourself, ‘Why is it not funny?’”

🍁 Books Mentioned:

• All About Me! —Brooks

• The French Ingredient — Bertch

Favorite books of 2026 so far:

• January— Foster—Claire Keegan

• February —Joyride—Orlean

• March—By My Hands—Gadsby

• April—-

• May—The Woodcut Art of JJ Lakes— Taylor

• June—Unpacking the Boxes—Hall

• July—Song for Nagasaki—Glynn

• August —

• September — All about Me!—Brooks

I hope your September was less bumpy than mind and filled with work, however you define it. (I did end up in the ER on Friday. I won’t bore you with details, but I’m OK.) So here are some questions now the September is tucked away.

• What your favorite book of the month, the one you organized your life around, read in 15 minute snatches wherever and whenever?

• Any favorite audiobooks?

• For Brooks fans, what’s your favorite Mel Brooks move?

• And finally, what’s on your book list for October?

Here are some shots of my library book shelf in the works.

Last but not least, don’t forget to check out my Stampfans.com page if you want to receive a letter written and typed by ME delivered in the USPS mail. Just hit the button below!