My Summer Challenge – 24 books in three months

Last summer I joined a challenge to take twenty books from my to-be-read pile(s) and to read and review them during the summer months (June to August inclusive). I had an interesting time with this and I summed up my summer’s reading here. The object of this challenge was to clear away some of the books that have been lurking on the to-be-read pile for some time. This year I find that the infamous pile has not receded at all (it’s probably grown) so I thought that I would set myself the challenge of reading 24 books this summer as it is 2024.

All the books I have chosen are, as far as I can determine, standalone books and I have picked out twelve fiction and twelve non-fiction – sadly, the to-be-read pile doesn’t appear any smaller after this extraction ! I shall list my choices below but cannot promise to read them in this order or even to finish them all – I will allow myself substitutions. I have tried to get as much variety as possible into the list.

24 books in thirteen weeks means that about two need to be read each week, although I will probably read other stuff as well. This doesn’t sound too daunting until you realise that I have a ten day holiday abroad scheduled in the middle of this and that I particularly want to read fun books whilst I am away. Of course, there are no prizes for succeeding and no penalties for failing but I do enjoy a good challenge and I am looking forward to this.

Here are the books, more or less in the order that I intend to read them. Some I know something about and others are completely new to me. Some of them, you will note, are from my Advent Calendar (see here for further details).

Handling the books to write this list makes me a little concerned about some of my choices – maybe, I should have gone for thinner books ! Still, let’s see how I do..

The End of the Day	Claire North	She writes quirky books about improbable situations so I will either love or hate this one.
Footloose & Fearless @ Fifty +	Denise O’Leary	One woman’s account of walking in Latin America
Girl, Woman, Other	Bernadine Evaristo	A recent prize winner that has garnered good reviews
Penguins Stopped Play	Harry Thompson	Creating a cricket team to play on each of the continents
The Care and Management of Lies	Jacqueline Winspear	A novel about two women’s experience in WW1
The Tale of Beatrix Potter	Margaret Lane	A biography of the children’s writer
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep	Joanna Cannon	A novel of secrets set in the 1970s
The Botany of Desire	Michael Pollan	A history of the world through four plants
French Braid	Anne Tyler	A family novel of how the past affects the present
After the Romanovs	Helen Rappaport	The story of the Russian emigres in Paris in the 1920s
Crow Lake	Mary Lawson	A novels of families set in Canada
Mean with Money	Hunter Davies	Musings about money and domestic economy
Conversations with Friends	Sally Rooney	A novel of young people, temptations and relationships
The Salt Path	Raynor Winn	Walking the South West Coast Path following a crisis
Elizabeth is Missing	Emma Healey	An old woman looks for her friend
Around the World in Eighty Days	Michael Palin	The book of the TV programme
A Nest of Magpies	Sybil Marshall	A novel of English village life
The Bugatti Queen	Miranda Seymour	A biography of a woman in motor racing between the two world wars
The Heart of the Matter	Graham Greene	Set in West Africa it’s a novel of betrayal and love
Small Boat in the Midi	Roger Pilkington	A memoir of life on a barge in Europe’s waterways
Border Crossing	Pat Barker	A novel about crime and good and evil
The King of Sunlight	Adam Macueen	A biography of the Victorian businessman William Lever
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet	Becky Chambers	Adventures in space
To the Poles Without a Beard	Catharine Hartley	One woman’s attempt to walk to the South Pole