2023 European Reading Challenge -- WINNER!

 

2023 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE

THIS IS THE WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT POST FOR 2023

TO FIND THE 2023 REVIEWS, GO TO THIS PAGE

TO FIND THE 2023 WRAP UP POSTS, GO TO THIS PAGE

THE 2024 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE SIGN UP IS AT THIS PAGE

2023 was the 11th of the European Reading Challenge! The challenge involves reading books set in different European countries or written by authors from different European countries.

My big thanks go to all the participants who joined me for the Grand Tour last year!

JET SETTER GRAND PRIZE WINNER

The 2023 Jet Setter prize goes to Sabine at sabines.literary.world who participated on Instagram. 2023 is the third year in a row that Sabine has won the challenge. But she slowed down a bit last year. In 2021, Sabine visited all 50 European states -- TWICE! In 2022, she hit another grand slam, but only one time around the continent. In 2023, she visited 35 of the 50 European states and reviewed the books she read. Her wrap up post discusses her reading journey. At this rate, she might actually face competition next year!

Honorary Mention (but no prizes) go to the ten other participants who completed the challenge and posted wrap up posts about the countries they visited and the books they read:

Avid Series Reader (11)

Alexis Drake on Goodreads (7)

Cinzia at Quattro passi sulle nuvole (21)

Mark at Carstairs Considers (6)

Kym at Just a Second (7)

Maphead's Book Blog (26)

Will Work for Books (8)

Reese at Typings (17)

Yvonne at A Darn Good Read (4)

Me, Myself, I Read (and Write) (7)

My own wrap-up post is here. I read 12 books from different European countries, and four were translations, which is better than the year before. I didn't even try to review the books I read, which is more than I can handle as long as I am running my own law firm.

Congratulations to all the readers who completed the 2023 challenge!

There is still plenty of time to join us in 2024.

JOIN THE 2024 CHALLENGE! SIGN UP HERE!

The gist: The idea is to read books by European authors or books set in European countries (no matter where the author comes from). The books can be anything – novels, short stories, memoirs, travel guides, cookbooks, biography, poetry, or any other genre. You can participate at different levels, but each book must be by a different author and set in a different country – it's supposed to be a tour.

Sign up HERE for the 2024 Challenge.

The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

What book has been on your TBR Shelf the longest?

For me, the answer is The Cloister and the Hearth, which I bought in 1981 when I was a freshman in high school. It was a pretty edition of an old book and I liked it. Then I never read it and have carted it around ever since. I decided to finally read it after 40+ years! It is one of the books I'm reading for the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge. 

What do you think of the opening sentence, below?

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays to share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book you want to highlight, even if you are not reading it right now. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows.

-- from The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade. This historical fiction novel was published in 1861 but is set in the 1460s in Holland and Italy. 

I had no idea what to expect. But I didn't expect it to be such a rollicking adventure story! Without giving away anything not on the back cover, the hero Gerard falls in love with Margaret but wants to go to Italy to make money copying manuscripts and learning to be an artist. Through trickery and deceit, he hears she died and never knows she had their baby son (out of wedlock!), so he becomes a priest. Adventures ensue as Gerard and Margaret figure out what went wrong. Lots of other crazy things happen, including being chased by a leopard, bloodhounds, and bears. 

I still have 75 pages to go and I don't see a happy ending on the horizon. But I love the journey even though I suspect the destination might be disappointing. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please leave the link to your Book Beginnings on Fridays post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Cloister and the Hearth:

But when Ghysbrecht told him that Margaret was a girl of good character; that it was not to be supposed she would be so intimate if marriage had not been spoken of between them, his brow darkened. 

“Marriage! that shall never be,” said he sternly.

2023 European Reading Challenge -- MY SIGN UP POST & WRAP UP POST

2023 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE

COMPLETED

MY SIGN UP POST

This is my sign up post for the 2023 European Reading Challenge. If you want to join me -- and I hope you do -- please go to the main challenge page, here. You will find details and a Linky box to add a link to your own sign up post. You can play along through your own blog, a social media profile, or just in the comments on the Challenge pages. Join us to take the Grand Tour of Europe in books!

2023 is the 11th year of the European Reading Challenge and the 11th year I am signing up for the Five Star (Deluxe Entourage) Level to read five books set in different European countries or written by authors from five different countries. I have not been good about reviewing the books I read, but that may change as things slow down a bit for me at work (knock wood) and I have a little more time to play with this blog. 

MY ERC BOOKS

I haven't picked the books I am going to read for this challenge. The books in the photo above are some possibilities. As I read qualifying books, I will list them here. 

UPDATE: I finished the challenge by reading books set in 12 different European countries or written by authors from different countries. Four were books in translation, which is better than usual for me but I'd still like to read more books by non-American, UK, or Irish authors. 

1. The Big Four by Agatha Christie (UK)

2. A German Requiem by Philip Kerr (Germany)

3. Even the Dead by Benjamin Black (Ireland)

4. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo (Sweden)

5. The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain (France)

6. April in Spain by John Banville (Spain)

7. The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (Holland)

8. Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher (Czech Republic)

9. The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier (Italy)

10. Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland)

11. Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser (Norway)

12. War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Russia)

2023 European Reading Challenge -- WRAP UP PAGE

WRAP UP PAGE

THIS IS THE PAGE FOR WRAP UP POSTS

TO LIST YOUR REVIEWS, GO TO THIS PAGE

TO SIGN UP, GO TO THE MAIN CHALLENGE PAGE, HERE, OR CLICK THE BUTTON ABOVE

LINK YOUR POST

When you complete the 2023 European Reading Challenge at whatever level you signed up for, please do a wrap up post and enter a link to your post here. Please link to your wrap up post, NOT the main page of your blog or social media profile.

A wrap up post can be very simple. You can do a separate post on your blog or social media platform. Or, if you participate in the challenge on your blog and just update your original post without doing a separate wrap up post, that's OK too. Just post a link to your updated post here. If you participate on social media, please do some kind of wrap up post listing the books you read and link it here.

OR LEAVE A COMMENT

If you want, you can also simply leave a comment below listing the books you read. Please include your name, the names of the books, the authors of the books, and the countries of the books.

WANT THE PRIZE? WRAP IT UP!

Without some kind of wrap up post, I don't have any way to know if you finished the challenge. I like to know so I can visit everyone. But it is more important if you are competing for the Jet Setter Prize. If you want to compete for the prize, you have to leave a wrap up post or I will have no way to know if you visited more countries than the other people competing with you. This is also why you need to identify the country of your book. I don't want to guess and I don't want to research. 

When I announce the prize winner, Honorable Mention will go to the participants who visited the most countries (but not as many as the winner), with links to their wrap up posts. If you don't link a wrap up post, I won't be able to find you.

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NOTE ABOUT DATES

You now have to finish reading all books by December 31, 2023. You have until January 31, 2024 to finish your reviews and your wrap up post. I will announce the winner as soon as possible after January 31, 2024.

2023 European Reading Challenge -- REVIEW PAGE

REVIEW PAGE

THIS IS THE PAGE TO LIST YOUR REVIEWS

IF YOU HAVE FINISHED, WRAP UP POSTS GO ON THIS PAGE

TO SIGN UP, GO TO THE MAIN CHALLENGE PAGE, HERE,

OR CLICK THE BUTTON ABOVE

LINK YOUR REVIEWS HERE

Please add links to your review posts in the Linky box below. Please put your name and/or the name of your blog or social media handle, the name of the book you reviewed, and the country of the book or author. For example: Gilion at Rose City Reader, War and Peace, Russia.

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LINKS

When you review a book for the 2023 European Reading Challenge, please add it to this list using the Linky widget above. Please link to your review post, NOT the main page of your blog or social media account.

You do not need a blog to participate. If you review books on Instagram, Facebook, goodreads, or some other platform that generates a URL, you can add link to the review in the Linky box above the same as a link to a blog post. Please link to the review, not your profile page. If you have questions about how to find the URL for a social media review post, leave a comment to ask me, email me at gilion at dumasandvaughn dot com, or DM me on Instagram @gilioncdumas.

REVIEWS

You do not have to review books to complete the European Reading Challenge. You can complete the challenge simply by reading one to five books (or more), each set in a different European country or written by an author from a different European country. But if you do review books, please link your reviews here so other people can find them.

Also, if you want to win the Jet Setter Prize, you have to review the books. Only books reviewed count for the prize. If you are competing for the prize, definitely link your reviews here. You can link all your reviews, but only one book per country counts towards the prize.

WRAP UP

If you complete the challenge, please link some kind of wrap up post on the wrap up page. That way, I know who finished the challenge. If you do not do a wrap up post separate from your sign up post -- you just update your original post -- that's fine! But please, please, please link to the updated post after you finish the challenge. It is too hard for me to count all your reviews to figure out if you finished the challenge or not.

NOTE ABOUT DATES

You have to finish reading all books by December 31, 2023. You have until January 31, 2024 to finish your reviews and your wrap up post. I will announce the winner(s) as soon as possible after January 31, 2024.

TBR 23 in '23 Challenge -- WRAP UP PAGE

WRAP UP PAGE

FOR THE TBR 23 IN '23 CHALLENGE

January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023

THIS IS THE PAGE TO LINK YOUR WRAP UP POSTS

TO LINK A REVIEW, GO TO THIS PAGE

TO SIGN UP FOR THE CHALLENGE, GO TO THIS PAGE OR CLICK THE CHALLENGE BUTTON ABOVE

LINK YOUR WRAP UP POSTS HERE

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WRAP UP LINKS

If you complete the challenge, please link some kind of wrap up post in the Linky box above. That way, I know who finished the challenge. If you just update your original post and do not do a wrap up post separate from your sign up post that's fine! Please still add the link to the updated post in the box above.

If you have trouble adding your link, leave it in a comment and I will add it or email me your link at gilion at dumasandvaughn dot com and I will add it for you. Please put your name and the name of the your blog or your social media handle and the platform in the comment or email so I can find you. Thanks!

REVIEWS

If you review a book for the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge, please add the link to your review on the review page. Please link to your review post, not the main page of your blog or social media account.

You do not have to have a blog to participate in this challenge. If you review books on Instagram, goodreads, or some other social media, use the link from your social media review post in the Linky box on the review page. Please link to the review, not your profile page. If you have questions about how to find the URL for a social media review post, leave a comment, email me at gilion at dumasandvaughn dot com, or DM me on Instagram @gilioncdumas.

TBR 23 in '23 Challenge -- REVIEW PAGE

 

REVIEW PAGE

FOR THE TBR 23 IN '23 CHALLENGE

January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023

THIS IS THE PAGE TO LIST YOUR REVIEWS

IF YOU HAVE FINISHED, WRAP UP POSTS GO ON THIS PAGE

TO SIGN UP, GO TO THE MAIN CHALLENGE PAGE OR CLICK THE BUTTON ABOVE

LINK YOUR REVIEWS HERE

Please put your name and/or the name of your blog or social media handle and the name of the book you reviewed. (EX: Rose City Reader, War & Peace or @gilioncdumas, Pride & Prejudice.) Please link to your review post and not your blog home page or main social media profile page.

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LINKS

If you review a book for the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge, please add the link to your review in the Linky box above. Please link to your review post, not the main page of your blog or social media account.

You do not have to have a blog to participate in this challenge. If you review books on Instagram, goodreads, or some other social media, use the link from your social media review post in the Linky box above. Please link to the review, not your profile page. If you have questions about how to find the URL for a social media review post, leave a comment, email me at gilion at dumasandvaughn dot com, or DM me on Instagram @gilioncdumas.

If you have trouble adding your link, leave it in a comment and I will add it or email me your link at gilion at dumasandvaughn dot com and I will add it for you. Please put your name and the name of the book you reviewed in the comment or email. Thanks!

BOOKS AND REVIEWS

The only point of the challenge is to clear 23 books off your TBR shelf in 2023. You can pick all of them them ahead of time, some of them, or none of them. If you pick them, you can change your mind later and switch books. The only "rule" is that you must own the book before January 1, 2023.

Your TBR shelf can include a virtual shelf of ebooks or audiobooks, as long as you owned them prior to January 1, 2023. It does not include library books.

You do not have to review books to complete the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge.

This is supposed to be fun!

WRAP UP

If you complete the challenge, please link some kind of wrap up post on the wrap up page. That way, I know who finished the challenge. If you just update your original post and do not do a wrap up post separate from your sign up post that's fine too! But please still add the link to the updated post on the wrap up page.

TBR 23 in '23 and Mt. TBR Challenges -- My Sign Up Post & Wrap Up Post

 

THE TBR 23 IN '23 CHALLENGE

COMPLETED

This is my sign up post for the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge. The simple idea is to read 23 books off your TBR shelves between January 1 and December 31, 2023. If you want to join me (and I hope you do), go to the main challenge page here to sign up. You can participate through your blog, social media, or just in the comments on the challenge pages.

You do not have to pick all your TBR 23 in '23 books ahead of time. I like to, so I do. You can pick them now. Or you can pick some now and some as you go. You can pick them all at whim. Or you can pick now and then change your mind. The only real rule is that you read books that you already owned before January 1, 2023. Find all the rules on the challenge page.

MY TBR 23 IN '23 BOOKS

I like to pick my books ahead of time and keep them stacked by my bedside to motivate me through the year. These are all books that have been on my shelves for so long I want to read them so I can stop looking at them! One has been on my shelf since 1982!!

Here's a list of what is in this basket, listed in alphabetical order by author name, not as shown in the picture above. I may read them in this order because I have no other plan.

• The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury. Campus novels are my favorite sub-genre and this one is a classic.

• Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There by David Brooks, now out of date social commentary, which happens when I leave books on my TBR shelf for so long. 

• Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin. I can't wait to get to this one and have More Home Cooking I plan to slip in as well. 

• The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy is a NYRB Classic that gets lots of social media love for it's awesome cover. 

• Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin. This is on my shelf because it won the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 1995. I want to read it now because I read Francine Prose's praise of Elkin in her book, What to Read and Why.

• A Cordiall Water: A Garland of Odd and Old Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man and Beast by M.F.K. Fisher, one of her few books I haven't read yet.

• In Search of a Character: Two African Journals by Graham Greene. He's a big favorite of mine but I've not read his nonfiction before.

• The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff is a book I found in a Little Free Library and it looked interesting, if not my usual cup of tea. I'll give it a go, although I did not like Fates & Furies. 

• Mystical Paths by Susan Howatch is the last of five novels in her Church of England series, which I really enjoyed.

• Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. I can't believe I've never read this. 

• Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser. My law partner gave this to me for Christmas two years ago and I forgot about it!

• Black Dogs by Ian McEwan is one of his earliest books and has sat on my shelf a long time. 

• The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean. Another contemporary classic I can't believe I haven't read yet.

• Oregon Confetti by Lee Oser is a book that caught my eye a few years back then got lost on my shelf. It looks excellent. 

• The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade. This is the one I bought in high school in 1982 and have carted around ever since. It is time I finally read it!

• The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer is one of the many ex pat memoirs lingering on my shelves. 

• The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. I finished the last of the Wimsey novels last year but never get around to the short stories. Time to fix that. 

• The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark looks terrific. 

• S. by John Updike is a modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter, which sounds very good. 

• Know Your Style: Mix It, Match It, Love It by Alyson Walsh is a fun little book about fashion for women of a certain age. 

• The Spring by Megan Weiler is a novel about an American ex pat living Tuscany. It's a book club pick so i will read it sooner rather than later, and maybe follow it with the Tuscan memoir.

• The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor won the 1998 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and is about a jazz saxophone playing bear in New York City. OK. I'll give it a try.

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

COMPLETED

This TBR 23 in '23 Challenge dovetails nicely with the Mt TBR Challenge that Bev at My Reader's Block hosts every year. Like I've done for the past couple of years, I am signing up for the "Mt. Kilimanjaro" Level in 2023 to read a total of 60 books off my TBR shelves. That means 37 books in addition to those listed above.

MY MT. TBR BOOKS

I will try to remember to list my Mt. TBR books here as I read them, although I completely forgot this last year.

UPDATE: Indeed, I forgot to list the books as I went along, but here they are. I read 63 books off my TBR shelves, in addition to my 23 TBR 23 in '23 books, for a total of 86 books off my TBR shelves -- my best year ever!

• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (abridged)

• The Big Four by Agatha Christie

• Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

• Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George

• A German Requiem by Philip Kerr

• Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

• Waverley by Sir Walter Scott

• Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin

• The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

• Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier

• The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

• Winston Churchill: Painting on the French Riviera by Paul Rafferty

• Slightly Foxed, No. 25, Edited by Gail Pirkis

• A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

• The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier

• The Holy Bible, King James Version

• On Cussing: Bad Words and Creative Cursing by Katherine Dunn

• In the Presence of the Enemy by Elizabeth George

• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

• So Big by Edna Ferber

• The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud

• Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

• Mapp & Lucia by E. F. Benson

• Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George

• More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin

• Lucia's Progress by E. F. Benson

• Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

• Trouble for Lucia by E. F. Benson

• The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion

• Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes

• A Simple Country Murder by Blythe Baker

• In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George

• Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty

• A Better Man by Louise Penny

• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter

• Snow by John Banville

• After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley

• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

• The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

• Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

• A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George

• Mating by Norman Rush

• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

• The Chosen by Chaim Potok

• Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

• The Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats

• The Long Good-Bye by Raymond Chandler

• Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

• The Man with Two Left Feet by P. G. Wodehouse

• Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn

• A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George

• Innocent Blood by P. D. James

• Straight Man by Richard Russo

• Piccadilly Jim by P. G. Wodehouse

• The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

• Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin

• Aqua Alta by Donna Leon

• War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy