I completed my 20 Books of Summer list just a few days ago and managed to get them all reviewed. This summer project is hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. I ended up having to substitute just a few from my original list for various reasons.
1. Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley
2. The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
3. Tomorrow Will Be Better by Betty Smith
4. Keeping Up Appearances by Rose Macaulay
5. Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
6. Are They the Same at Home? by Beverley Nichols
7. The Tontine Bell by Elisabeth Kyle
8. The Market Square by Miss Read
9. Revenge by Eric Brown
10. The Monarch of the Glen by Compton Mackenzie
11. Sheiks and Adders by Michael Innes
12. Dark Quartet by Lynne Reid Banks
13. Three Twins at the Crater School by Chaz Brenchley
14. Scarweather by Anthony Rolls
15. The Diary of a Farmer’s Wife 1796-1797
16. Gemma Alone by Noel Streatfeild
17. Visitors From England by Elisabeth Kyle
18. A Certain Smile by Francoise Sagan
19. Cheerfulness Breaks In by Angela Thirkell
20. Northbridge Rectory by Angela Thirkell
I read quite a lot more books than those ones over the summer as some came in from the library and NetGalley. It’s hard to say which is my favourite from these ones, it’s quite a mixed bag. Daughter of Earth was a surprising read, especially as it was so autobiographical, what an amazing woman the author was.
Three Twins at the Crater School was definitely different, a girls boarding school book which was written by a male fan of the Chalet School books, and has a science fiction setting on Mars – but it worked.
I think the one that I liked least was The Shuttle.
As ever this was a great way of getting me to concentrate on books that I’ve had on my own shelves, waiting for their moment in the sun!
Thanks Cathy for organising it all.
Congratulations! The reading bit is usually OK – it’s the reviewing bit that usually trips me up!
FictionFan,
Well my reviews are deliberately quite sparse so it usually doesn’t take me long to do them!
Well done – particularly as you managed to review them all as well! I got very close this year and read 19 of my 20. I just needed a few more days to finish the last one!
Helen,
I think it helped that we had quite a lot of days when it was just too hot to do anything but try to stay cooler in the house and read!
Well done! I am rubbish at sticking to lists, so always admire anyone who succeeds with this!
kaggsysbookishramblings,
I’m always wondering which book I should read next so this makes it easier for me!
Amazing, you read AND reviewed all twenty books. I only read 12 of mine, reading #13 now, and reviewed very few of them.
tracybham,
I probably read at least 30 books as I also read books that I had requested from the library, but I don’t work and sometimes it was too hot to do anything else!
Well done for not only reading this number of books but also reviewing them – that’s the hard part. I have such a backlog that I’ve almost forgotten about some of the older books
BookerTalk,
That’s why I try to get some thoughts down on books I’ve finished recently, some books stay with you for years and others are very easily forgotten, even if you vaguely remember enjoying them. My thoughts are usually scanty as I don’t want to give too much away to possible future readers.
Congratulations for reading so many of your original list, Katrina! Where are you going next with your reading? Any plans?
What is the state of your regional libraries right now? How are they doing after all the many, many setbacks and cutbacks?
Judith,
I’ve just picked up a couple from the library, The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith, I haven’t read anything by her since the 1970s, and The Corner that Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner which seems to be about a 14th century Benedictine convent, it sounds a bit In This House of Brede-ish – with the Black Death thrown in (Virago).
The libraries that haven’t been shut down are a shadow of their former selves so I’m rarely able to just pick off the shelf something that I would want to read from the nearest library. I got to these two by typing Virago into their search box!
Well done! I enjoyed this challenge a year ago and should have done it again. Some of your books are unfamiliar to me but I have read the Thirkells and Gemma Alone. I definitely own Dark Quartet and think I have seen it not that long ago (but it could be anywhere). I think I mentioned how I read everything by Elisabeth Kyle I could find in my youth (my favorite was Princess of Orange) but I must not have come across the two you read. I liked her Scottish settings.
I worked at my library from 9-5 today and came across a children’s book I thought was long out of print called The Ghost of Opalina. That was all it took to make me break my “read books I own” pledge. Oh well, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Constance,
Elisabeth Kyle’s books are surprisingly thin on the ground in Edinburgh bookshops, I think I’ll have to resort to the internet for Princess of Orange. If I still worked in a library I would be exactly the same as you, it’s all too tempting! I hadn’t even heard of The Ghost of Opalina but it sounds good.