Springcleaning – The Conclusion

I started this challenge to clear away some of the books that have been languishing on my to-be-read piles for far too long – see my original post about the challenge here. I buy more books than I read, which is a habit that is not sustainable, and this results in some books falling by the wayside and being forgotten. I chose 25 books which had been around for quite a while and tried to split them between fiction and non-fiction and read them in three months. It’s something that I have done before and I shall probably have to do again. I did get all the books finished in the time allotted but it was tight and there were times that I read as an obligation rather than a pleasure so I shall be less inflexible with myself if/when I do this again.

This year’s books were mostly a delight and I found some new favourites. I didn’t hate any of them which encourages me to think that there are some real gems awaiting my attention in the piles that remain. I have retained ten of the 25 and found a place for them on my bookshelves with 15 being passed on to find new readers. I enjoyed two of the 25 so much that I have now bought others by the same author – this is one of the reasons that my book piles never disappear !

This has been a fun and rewarding challenge. The books have been varied and reading them has taken me around the world, into the past, underground, into the future and opened my eyes to things I hadn’t known before. I am going to list the books below and you can read my thoughts about them if you click on the titles.

Books I really loved or I thought were brilliant

The Flight of the Phoenix       Elleston Trevor

The Promise         Damon Galgut

The Quick and the Dead         Janine Di Giovanni

Letters from Constance   Mary Hocking

Suite Francaise    Irene Nemirovsky

Brighton Rock      Graham Greene

Irena’s Gift   Karen Kirsten

Underland  Robert Macfarlane

Books I enjoyed reading

My Italian Bulldozer         Alexander McCall Smith

Consumed  Arifa Akbar

Ill Met by Moonlight      W Stanley Moss

Magnificent Obsession  Helen Rappaport

The Rendezvous  Daphne De Maurier

Grandmother’s Footsteps       Imogen Lycett Green

The Maltese Falcon       Dashiell Hammett

The Regional Office is Under Attack         Manuel Gonzales

Nathaniel’s Nutmeg      Giles Milton

Breakfast with the Nikolides  Rumer Godden

A Traveller in Time        Alison Uttley

Koh-I-Noor    William Dalrymple and Anita Ahand

Minority Report   Philip K Dick

Vroom by the Sea             Peter Moore

Books that I found disappointing

The Crichel Boys  Simon Fenwick

The Naked Shore Tom Blass

Moonglow   Michael Chabon