My challenge, for September, October and November, was to read 25 of the volumes that have been hanging around for quite some time on the piles of unread books that are gradually taking over my house. Here is what I thought about the books when I started the challenge.
I didn’t make it to 25 books and four remain unread. A number of things have contributed to this failure, apart from over-ambition, including an unexpected family bereavement, a holiday abroad where I just read crime fiction, and the attraction of other books on my shelf. I think that 21 read and reviewed in three months is fine by me and I am glad that I undertook this challenge. I shall finish the final books in the next month or so and review them when I have read them just to finish things off properly. At some point next year I shall repeat the exercise with 25 other books that have been languishing unread for too long – this is a good way to make sure that I read the books which I might have forgotten – this is a challenge that can be repeated as I have many, many unread books waiting for my attention.
Meanwhile, here’s what I thought of what I read – click on the titles to be transported to the appropriate review.
Books I loved
We Die Alone by David Howarth – a great true story of a daring escape from capture in WW2
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather – a moving classic novel about Roman Catholicism in New Mexico and the men who established it
The Railway Children by E Nesbit – a classic children’s story which is still very enjoyable for the modern reader
The Passport by Martin Lloyd – a fascinating account of the history of an everyday document I had never previously thought about
Burying the Typewriter – by Carmen Bugan – a compelling biographical account of growing up in Communist Romania with a dissident father
Books I liked
Shadowlands by Matthew Green – an interesting examination of British settlements that have been abandoned over the years
China Room by Sunjeev Sahota – a novel of Indian life which opens the eyes of the reader to the role and repression of women in families and society
Elegy for a River by Tom Moorhouse – an environmental account of some of our endangered river species
Playing Sardines by Michele Roberts – delightful short stories giving us snippets of lives as they change
Corsets to Camouflage by Kate Adie – an account of women in warfare, mainly during the twentieth century, and the challenges they faced
The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim – a novel about Korean women living in America
Swell by Jenny Landreth – a history of women and their participation in public swimming
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad – a true insight into family life in Afghanistan through the eyes of the women
The White South by Hammond Innes – an adventure story of murder and survival set in Antarctica
The Rapture by Claire Mc Glasson – a novel set in a religious cult based in Bedford
The Poisoner by Stephen Bates – a true crime account of the death of a man in Victorian Shrewsbury and his possible murderer
Books that were okay
The Gran Tour by Ben Aitken – an account of the author’s trips on coach holidays mostly taken by older people
The Forgotten Spy by Nick Barratt – the story of one of the first Britains who spied for the Soviet Union
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak – when one woman dies we learn about her life and about those who are her friends
I Belong Here by Anita Sethi – After a racial attack the author walks in Northern Britain
Books that were disappointing
The Soldier’s Return by Melvyn Bragg – a novel set just after WW2 in Cumbria which I found too long and a bit dull
Books that I am currently reading
The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney – a book about the search for a missing woman who belongs to the travelling community. I’m about halfway through and enjoying it
Books that remain unread at this point
Tomorrow to Be Brave by Susan Travers – A true story of WW2
Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford – A novel about alternative lives for people killed by a bomb
Ancestor Trouble by Maud Newton – A biography of a family
Anne Is Reading 
That sounds pretty successful to me especially as you enjoyed most of them with only the Melvyn Bragg being disappointing. Well done
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