This annual challenge is run by my namesake Cathy at 746 Books.
The rules are simple…and accommodating. Pick your own 10, 15 or 20 books you’d like to read between 1st June and 3rd September. Want to swap a book? Go for it. Fancy changing your list half way through? No problem. Decide to drop your goal from 20 to 15. Cathy’s fine with that.
In putting together my original list, I decided to concentrate on four categories:
- My Classics Club list which has been rather starved of attention lately
- My other reading challenges all of which could do with a little help
- My pile of review copies sent to me by lovely authors who, in addition to their writing talents, also possess seemingly limitless patience waiting for my reviews
- Blog tour commitments I had in the next month or so
Over-confidence – what a thing that is, eh? After much soul searching (as it did seem a bit like cheating), I allowed myself to take advantage of the flexibility offered to change my list part way through, as you can see below. I’ll be honest, if I hadn’t done that I’d have been nowhere near completing the challenge and, as it is, I only managed to complete 18 of my 20. However, the challenge has allowed me tick off a few books from my Classics Club list and to make a couple of authors happy by reading and reviewing their books.
Clicking on the title will take you to my review of the book, or the book description on Goodreads if I’ve either not yet written my review or haven’t finished reading the book.
1 – The Half-Hearted by John Buchan Read and reviewed
2 – The Watcher by the Threshold by John Buchan Read and reviewed
3 – The Dark Tide by Vera Brittain Read, not yet reviewed
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
4 – Replaced with Huntingtower by John Buchan Read and reviewed
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
5 – Replaced with Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Read and reviewed
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
6 – Replaced with The Promise by Michelle Vernal Read and reviewed
The Assassin of Verona (William Shakespeare Thriller #2) by Benet Brandreth
7 – Replaced with Old Baggage by Lissa Evans Read and reviewed
8 – Diamond Cut Diamond by Jane Jakeman (What’s In A Name Reading Challenge) Read and reviewed
Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee (TBR Pile Challenge)
9 – Replaced with The Mistress of Pennington’s by Rachel Brimble Read and reviewed
10 – Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski (When Are You Reading? Challenge) Read, not yet reviewed
11 – Spirit of Lost Angels (The Bone Angel #1) by Liza Perrat Read and reviewed
12 – The King’s Daughter by Stephanie Churchill Read and reviewed
A Queen’s Spy (The Tudor Mystery Trials #1) by Samantha Burnell
13 – Replaced with The Secrets of Primrose Square by Claudia Carroll Read and reviewed
14 – Choose to Rise: The Victory Within by M. N. Mekaelian Currently reading
15 – Money Power Love by Joss Sheldon Currently reading
16 – A Woman’s Lot (Meonbridge Chronicles #2) by Carolyn Hughes Read and reviewed
17 – Forsaking All Others by Catherine Meyrick Read and reviewed
18 – Summer of Love by Caro Fraser Read and reviewed
19 – Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks Read and reviewed
20 – The Emperor of Shoes by Spencer Wise Read and reviewed
If you participated in the 20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge, do leave a comment or link to your list to let me know how you got on…
I signed up again this year because it was the perfect motivation for me to focus on the NetGalley and other ARCs I had with publication dates in August and books I needed to read for blog tours this month. I kept my target realistic, aiming to read six ARCs.
As you can see from my bingo card, I did struggle a bit especially since my reading doesn’t often include fantasy novels, pirates or dragons and I have an inbuilt aversion to DNFs. I’ve shown in my list below the squares to which each book was allocated.
