Sadly, my favorite season is coming to a close, and with it, the 20 Books of Summer Challenge hosted by 746 Books. I started off strong, fell off the list in July, and here’s how I ended up.
Total books read this summer: 22
Books read from 20 Books of Summer Challenge List: 15
Books on the list started but not finished: 2 (The Three Musketeers and Dark Money)
Total books reviewed: 13
Books reviewed from Challenge List: 9
Best reads: The Power, Bloodchild and Other Stories, Hillbilly Elegy
Here’s what I read from my 20 Books of Summer list:
- Difficult Women by Roxane Gay
- The Power by Naomi Alderman
- Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
- Reading the Bones by Sheila Finch
- Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor
- Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
- Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler
- Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
- A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
- Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
- The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Thanks to 746 Books for a great challenge! It was good motivation to read more deliberately rather than reaching for whatever sounded good at the moment. I’m glad I read such “weighty” works as The Sympathizer, Homegoing, and Housekeeping. Though I didn’t get through any classics, and I definitely leaned toward more of the lighter (and shorter) fare on my list.
While this was a fun challenge, it will be nice to get away from a reading list for a while. I’ve piled up a lot of books on my TBR list and now I plan to just read “spur of the moment” for a while. Until next summer, anyway.
Did you do the 20 Books of Summer challenge, and if so, how did you do?
You fell off in July but *still* managed to read more from your list than I did from mine. My mistake was to pick some long books …..
Great job! I tried the 20 books of summer once (I was only trying for 10 books) and failed miserably, so I’ve not ventured again. In summer I tend to want to do more free-range reading, I think. My hold on Hillbilly Elegy just came in from the library, so I have to start that now!
That’s a mighty impressive list! I absolutely loved Homegoing. Housekeeping was interesting and beautifully written, but I found it oppressive.
Well, I only read nine from my original list, so in that regard you did much better than me. I stuck with my TBR for about a month and then had to abandon ship. Always next year 🙂