#20BooksOfSummer – Challenge Update – Completed!

As I look out the window on a very rainy Sunday, it’s nice to be able to report that I have completed the 2018 20 Books of Summer Challenge – yay me!!!  

So thank you to Cathy of 746 Books for hosting yet another fabulous Summer event!  My target this year was to read 20 books from my NetGalley bookshelves and, for the most part!, that is exactly what I did!! I did change a few books along the way as I found myself adding some new NetGalley finds on to the list, alongside some books that I bought myself that I just couldn’t resist reading for the challenge.  I found it to be a fabulous way of kicking my butt into gear and getting some books read that had been sitting around on the virtual shelves for quite a while!  Maybe there needs to be the 20 Books of Autumn & Winter challenges too to help me shift more off the ever expanding TBR piles!!

So here’s a rundown of the books that kept me entertained – click on the title for a link to my GoodReads reviews!

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter  – 4 stars

A Proposal To Die For by Vivian Conroy  – 3 stars

 

Vox by Christina Dalcher  – 4 stars

Summer at Hollyhock House by Cathy Bussey  – 3 stars 

Snap by Belinda Bauer  – 4 stars 

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden  – 5 stars 

The Moby-Dick Blues by Michael Strelow  – 3 stars 

Girl With Dove by Sally Bayley  – 3 stars 

Summer at Carrick Park by Kirsty Ferry  – 5 stars

The Daughter of River Valley by Victoria Cornwall  – 5 stars 

Whistle In The Dark by Emma Healey  – 3 stars 

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale  – 4 stars

The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan  – 5 stars 

Oh Crumbs by Kathryn Freeman  – 5 stars 

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman  – 5 stars 

Arlette’s Story by Angela Barton   –  4 stars 

The Book of M by Peng Shepherd  – 3 stars

The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan  – 5 stars

 The Cafe At Seashell Cove by Karen Clarke  –  5 stars

My Mother the Liar by Ann Troup  – 4 stars 

☀☼☀☼☀

Did you take part this year? I hope it has been successful for you as well! Roll on next Summer!!

20 Books of Summer – 2017 challenge!

It is back!! My favourite time of year!!  And all thanks to Cathy at 746Books who started all this off way back when!  It runs from the 1st June to 3rd September and is just a fun little challenge to help spur you on in getting a few more books read and, hopefully, reduce the TBR mountains just a little!

It is always difficult putting together a list and you do have the freedom to change it if you want – your list, your rules!! – but I find that having a set list makes me focus a little more and takes the stress out of wasting time deciding what to read next! The stress I had this year putting my list together was how to decide what books to put on! There are piles of books everywhere in my house screaming out to be read – do your TBR piles do that to you too?! – and I finally settled on the hidden TBR piles and that is those on my Kindle/s!!   I do have a tendency of downloading books after seeing a review, or finding it for free, and then it is gone never to be heard of again!  So this challenge will now give me the kick up the butt to finally read these books, along with a few that have been on my NetGalley shelf for a while, and hopefully help me decrease one TBR pile for a while!

So here is a list of what will see me through the next couple of months – click on the title for links to the GoodReads page if you’d like a bit more info about each book!

1.  Colt Harper: Esteemed Vampire Cat by Tyrolin Puxty

2. Mr Penumbra’s 24-hour bookstore by Robin Sloan

3. The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

4. The World of Shadow by Kate Hamer

5. Up Close by Henriette Gyland

6. Impossible Views of the World by Lucy Ives

7. After I’ve Gone by Linda Green

8. The Ice by Laline Paull

9. How to stop time by Matt Haig

10. House.Tree. Person by Catriona McPherson

11.A Thousand Paper Birds by Tor Udall

12. Finding Secrets by Lauren Westwood Writer

13. The Butterfly Storm by Kate Frost

14. Laura Lake and the Hipster Weddings by Wendy Holden

15. Mist & Whispers by C.M.Lucas

16. Bricking It by Nick Spaulding

17. The Girl with the Green Tinted Hair by Gavin Whyte

18.  Reunited by Daniel Gothard

19.The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a ship of her own making by Catherynne M.Valente

20.  Second Chance Summer by Jill Shalvis

And there we have it! The list for 2017!  Isn’t it bad when you can’t remember downloading half of the titles you find as you rummage through the library on your Kindle!!  Oops!!  So hopefully they’ll all be fabulous reads and I’m really looking forward to discovering some new authors to me and I think there’s a book to cover every mood this Summer!

Will you be taking part in the 20 Books of Summer?! I hope so! Looking forward to seeing more lists!!

HAPPY READING!!

Reading Challenge 2017 – BookBuster!

Another year flies by! And thankfully in this years’ case as it all seems to have been doom and gloom from week to week!  Praise be for books to transport us to different worlds to escape the often grim goings on in the real world – there’s a topic for another day…. which book world would you like to go and live in?! I know I can think of a few!!

It has been a very successful reading year for me and I think my venture into blogging and reviewing had a major impact on that!  According to GoodReads I’ve completed 206 books this past year and I find that amazing – I’m sure they’ve miscalculated haha!!  If only that number had helped clear my shelves and decreased my TBR pile!! Seems to have just made it worse!  But I have found that the more that I read, the quicker I get at reading – not sure if others find this?!  And I do find myself staring at some rather large books still sitting on my shelves that I’ve maybe avoided this year so maybe I’ll read less in 2017 and just tackle those epic books we all have on our shelves that often scare us off!

One of the challenges I will  be taking part is from the GoodReads group The Book Vipers who are running a BookBuster challenge for next year.  Just like the TV show you can choose to read books from authors’ whose names start with the letters across the board or, like I’m going to do, complete the A-Z authors challenge. Any genre counts so I am using this a great opportunity to get reading books that have been on my shelves – in real and ebook form! – for quite a while and get me reading a few different genres.

My A-Z list

A – Lyrebird by Cecilia Ahern

B – 2am at the Cats Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino

C – Call of the Undertow by Linda Cracknell

D – Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan

E – Doorways by Robert Enright

F – The Somnambulist by Essie Fox

G – Little Girl Lost by Janet Gover

H – Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

I – The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

J – 183 times a year by Eva Jordan

K – Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

L – The Original Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig

M – The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy

N – Uprooted by Naomi Novak

O – Wesley the remarkable owl by Stacey O’Brien

P – The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

Q – Exercises in Style by Raymond Queaneau

R – The bookshop on the corner by Rebecca Raisin

S – The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

T – The Secret Library by Oliver Tearle

U – The Witchfinders Sister by Beth Underdown

V – Sex Object by Jessica Valenti

W – Girl Reading by Katie Ward

X – The Good Women of China by Xinran

Y – A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Z – Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

So these are the books I’m hoping to get through, although I may switch a few over the year but will see how the mood grabs me!!  Is anybody else taking part in this challenge or have they found other challenges to take part in? Would love to hear from you and if you are – good luck!!  Let’s hope we all succeed!!

Happy Reading!!