My Summer Challenge – results and opinions

The 20 Books of Summer Challenge was to take 20 books from my to-be-read pile and read and review them over the summer from the beginning of June to the beginning of September. I outlined how I had chosen which books to include and what I wanted to achieve in this post here.

I am delighted to say that I have succeeded in the challenge and twenty books have been read and reviewed. I list them below with a link to each review – just click on the title. You will note that I abandoned one book and substituted it with another and I give an explanation of that at the end of this post.

My favourite books were Travels With My Aunt and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight both of which I highly recommend.

This has been an interesting and achievable challenge which should have cleared quite a few books off that tottering to-be-read pile. Sadly, I think that I may have bought more than 20 to replace them ! Maybe next year ….

Fiction

• Apex Hides the Hurt – Colson Whitehead
• The House I Loved – Tatiana De Rosnay
• Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens – Did not finish. See below
• The Great Leader – Jim Harrison
• The Mitford Scandal – Jessica Fellowes
• Mystery in White – J Jefferson Farjeon
• The Dancing Floor – John Buchan
• Union Street – Pat Barker
• The Vanishing Half – Britt Bennett
• Every Man for Himself – Beryl Bainbridge
• Travels with my Aunt – Graham Greene

Non-Fiction

• A Different Class of Murder – Laura Thompson
• Selkirk’s Island – Diana Souhami
• The Riddle and the Knight – Giles Milton
• The Africa House – Christina Lamb
• The Daughters of Yalta – Catherine Grace Katz
• Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller
• True to Both My Selves – Katrin Fitzherbert
• The Wilder Shores of Love – Lesley Blanch
• No Boys Play Here – Sally Bayley
• Starvation Heights – Gregg Olsen

Why I didn’t finish Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I don’t usually write blogs or reviews about books I don’t finish but in this case I chose this book for my challenge and then didn’t manage to get through it so I should explain why. It’s a popular book and my copy was loaned to me by a relative who thought it was a great story so I assume that this is a matter of taste. I have now skimmed through the remainder of the book and read quite a few reviews and I know what is going to happen including a twist at the end. I found the book trite and completely unbelievable and knowing the rest of the story and the ending doesn’t change my view of it. I could not accept the way that the main character grew up as being at all realistic or plausible and that spoiled any enjoyment which I might have had in the story. I don’t often give up on books but even for the sake of a challenge I couldn’t read any more. My opinion is not widely shared but the variety of stories, readers and opinions is what makes the book world so interesting.