Read:
The Fox Wife – Yangsze Choo (Henry Holt & Company, 2024)
A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf (Penguin Modern Classics, 1975)
In the Woods – Tana French (Penguin Books, 2017)
The Likeness – Tana French ( Penguin Books, 2017)
The Coast Road – Alan Murrin (Harper Via, 2024)
Lifelines – Heidi Diehl (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019)
Did Not Finish:
The Journals of Sylvia Plath
Had picked this up at a library sale years ago and never got around to reading. I have no strong feelings about Plath which probably explains why it took my so long to read it and why I couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm as I read it. Felt like I got the idea and DNFed on page 45.
The City and the City – China Mieville
Really interesting premise but I found it difficult to follow. Could be because I tried this one on audio and so the names and characters were harder to keep track of. But the whole concept didn’t make much sense to me. Would maybe try again in a different format. DNFed at 23%.
Currently Reading:
The Names of All the Flowers – Melissa Valentine
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Land of Big Numbers – Te-Ping Chen
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store – James McBride
2024 Reading Goals
Goliath Challenge: 14, 1444/30, 000 (2, 063 in August)
Goliath Books Read: 3 (none in August)
Translated Works: 3/15 (none in August)
Books I Already Own: 7/15 (A Room of One’s Own in August)
Pre-2023 TBR: 6/25 (A Room of One’s Own – 2022, Lifelines– 2019)
Current TBR: 213 (previously 213)
Thoughts:
I read six books in August and I’m pleased with that because August was a veerrry busy month. We started off with a fun camping trip and then I went straight in to work leading up to the annual Writers Festival here on the Coast. Our store is the bookseller for this four day event and it’s always a really fun, really busy weekend. I worked twelve days straight, including some 12+ hour long days. That said, overall the weekend was a success and I do really enjoy it. I got to hear some great Canadian authors – some I’d read before and some that were new to me and that I’m now eagerly looking forward to reading. After the festival finished, we took off for a few days away as a family. Then Peter went back to work and we had some extended family visiting us and now it is back to school. So fitting in six books to read in August seems pretty good to me!
The Fox Wife was probably my favourite of my August reads though Lifelines was much more enjoyable than I expected. I’d added it to my TBR years ago and had forgotten why. I think someone reviewed it on their blog – let me know if it was you! A friend loaned me two Tana French mysteries – insisting that I would like them even though I very rarely read mysteries. They were just what I needed to keep me reading through my busiest weeks.
And the 20 Books of Summer? How did I do?
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- As For Me and My House – Sinclair Ross
- The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
- Beowulf (trans. by Seamus Heaney)
God in the Dock – C.S. Lewis- Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander – Thomas Merton
- Why I Write – George Orwell
The Journals of Sylvia Plath- Sleeping Giants – Rene Denfeld
- The Cursed Friend – Salvioni
The Coast Road – Murrin’- River East, River West – Aube Rey Lescure
The Capital of Dreams – Heather O’Neill- The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
- The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith – Peter Carey
- The Back of the Turtle – Thomas King
- Far to Go – Alison Pick
- White Boy Shuffle – Paul Beatty
- The Hand that First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell
The Little Friend – Donna Tartt
Abysmally! I did terribly! Out of a list of 20 books, I read 5! I was aiming for 15 but secretly hoping for 20. I did however read 17 books in the months of June, July, and August so I certainly don’t feel like a failure and despite my poor results I’m glad I participated in this challenge again. All of the 20 books I picked for my list are books I own and so even striking 5 off the list and thereby removing them from my house feels like a win. I really liked that when I found myself hesitating on what to read next, I went easily to choose something from my own shelves. (And by shelves I mean a teetering pile I hide behind the closet door.)
In fact, I’m putting together another 20 books I hope to read this Fall. Will I read all 20? Probably not. But it will help me to prioritize reading books I already own.
How was your August reading? Do you read more or less in the summer? Who participated in the 20 Books of Summer challenge and actually read all 20??
Karissa Reads Books 
LOVE Tana French, is this your first time reading her? She’s such a star. Re. 20 BoS, I did manage it but I was very flexible with mine: I chose categories of my TBR instead of specific books, which really helped.
Yes, this was my first Tana French! I was really impressed!
What kind of categories did you have? Do you usually divide your TBR up that way or did you do it specifically for this?
I have a google doc list called “unread books in the flat” which is divided into Library, Kindle Backlog, NetGalley, and Recent Acquisitions—that provided the initial idea! My 20BoS categories ended up being Kindle backlog, NetGalley books, and books from the Guardian 1000 Books to Read Before You Die list that have one-word titles (niche, I know), all of which I chose to source through our public library system.
I love this idea of putting together a fall list. I think I don’t quite click with 20 Books of Summer but I kept doing it just because I like to make lists. Do, maybe I should just enjoy seasonal lists?? After all, where I live there are 4 seasons!
Also, this — “And by shelves I mean a teetering pile I hide behind the closet door — I felt this in my bones, lol.
I just like making lists too! We have 4 seasons here too and so the idea of choosing out my reading to correspond with that seems appealing. It matters less to me if I actually read all those books in that timeframe!
An interesting list! I also DNFed The City and the City. I don’t know how anyone can read it. Moonstone is good, but I always recommend Collins’s No Name, such a gripping story and a book ahead of its time in portraying so many issues. As far as I recall Orwell’s Why I Write ended up to be not quite what I initially expected, but I may be confusing it with some of his other essay. And, you still did well with this challenge, well done. A reading slump hit me this summer, so I did not participate at all.