2020 CHALLENGE: My Wrap-Up Post for the 2020 European Reading Challenge

 

WRAP-UP: COMPLETED

This is my wrap-up post for the 2020 European Reading Challenge. To link your wrap-up post, please go to THIS PAGE and add your link. 

To sign up for the 2021 European Reading Challenge, and I hope you do, please go to the main challenge page HERE. 

Unlike most reading challenges, the European Reading Challenge ends on January 31 of the following year. I just think there's so much going on at the end of the year with holidays and many people busy with work that it's nice to have the extra time to finish. You do not have to take the extra time. Personally, I finish reading all the books I'm going to read for the challenge by December and usually give myself January to do my wrap-up post and any reviews I still have to write (if I write them).

But I have the luxury of a few days off this year for the first time in forever so I'm doing my wrap-up post now. 

BOOKS I READ/COUNTRIES VISITED

I visited 10 countries for the 2020 European Reading challenge, which is pretty good, since I signed up for the 5-Star, Deluxe Entourage level to read five books. I don't get to compete for the Jet Setter prize because it's my challenge, but even if I did I wouldn't qualify because I didn't review any of the books! I read a lot in 2020, but I couldn't concentrate enough to review anything. 

I'm listing the countries in the order I visited them. Only one book from each country counts for the challenge, but I'm listing all the books from each country just because. It makes it easier to track from year to year, especially to see if I'm making progress on reading more books in translation.

Of course, most of the books are still from the UK. That always happens. 

GREECE: Circe by Madeline Miller. Ok, it was ancient Greece, but it counts. 

Prospero's Cell: A Guide To The Landscape And Manners of The Island Of Corfu by Lawrence Durrell

UK: Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged by Roger Scruton

Home Fires by Kamila Shamsie

The Egyptologists by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest

Party Going by Henry Green

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers

Warlight by Michaele Ondaatje

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn

Never Mind: Book One of the Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

Bad News: Book Two of the Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

Some Hope: Book Three of the Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

Mother's Milk: Book Four of the Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

At Last: The Final Patrick Melrose Novel by Edward St. Aubyn

Death in Holy Orders by P. D. James

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch

House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

The Adventures of Sally by P. G. Wodehouse

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Murder Room by P. D. James

English House Style from the Archives of Country Life by John Goodall

Something to Answer For by P. H. Newby

For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George

Room at the Top by John Braine

Just Like You by Nick Hornby

They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie

The Hanging in the Hotel by Simon Brett

Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries by Helen Fielding

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

The Stars Look Down by A. J. Cronin

NORWAY: The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

IRELAND: Days Without End by Barry Sebastian

The Likeness by Tana French

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Country Girl: A Memoir by Edna O'Brien

FRANCE: Cheri by Colette

The Last of Cheri by Colette

Gigi by Colette

The Vagabond by Colette

The Shackle by Colette

France is a Feast: The Photographic Journey of Paul and Julia Child by Alex Prud'homme

Paris to the Past: Traveling through French History by Train by Ina Caro

The Stranger by Albert Camus 

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker

GERMANY: Less by Andrew Sean Greer

PORTUGAL: Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry

SWEDEN: Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

RUSSIA: Make Russia Great Again by Christopher Buckley, a very 2020 choice

Letters to Yesenin by Jim Harrison

Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov 

ITALY: The Invitation by Lucy Foley

A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante

A Venetian Reckoning (aka Death and Judgment) by Donna Leon

All in all, I read 62 books in European countries or by European authors. I made some progress in venturing outside the UK, but still spent most of that time in France, Italy, and Ireland. 10 of the books were translated to English and the Nabokov book almost counts since Russian was his first language and Bend Sinister was only his second book written in English. 

My goal for 2021 will be to spend more time in Scandinavia and venture further into Eastern Europe. I hope to visit some countries I haven't been to before on the European Reading Challenge and read more books in translation. 

Teaser Tuesday: About Face

Brunetti and Cataldo, as often happened in the city, had never been introduced to one another, although Brunetti knew the general outline of his history. The family had come from Friuli, Brunetti thought, some time early in the last century, had prospered during the Fascist era, and had become even richer during the great boom of the sixties.

-- About Face by Donna Leon. Published in 2010, this is the 18th mystery in Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series, set in Venice. I was reading them in order, but they really didn't seem to need to go in order, so I skipped ahead when I found this audio version at my library. 

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

2013 Challenge: Three TBR Challenges

COMPLETED!

I am signing up for three TBR challenges for 2013 that I am going to tackle with a personal twist.  I hope to chew through a batch of my TBR list by participating in the Mt. TBR, Off the Shelf, and TBR Pile Challenges.

 

I signed up for the Mt. TBR Challenge at the Mt. Vancouver level to read at least 36 books and the Off the Shelf Challenge at the Make a Dint level to read at least 30 books.  The TBR Pile Challenge involves a commitment to a specific 12 books (noted below), with two alternates.

The personal twist is that I plan to read the books from a particular shelf.  According to my LibraryThing tags, there are 1,421 books on my TBR shelves. Even though I read good number of books every year, I never seem to make visual progress through my TBR books.

So I have latched onto the idea that I want to read all the books on at least one shelf. I want to see a gap grow on the shelf as I finish book after book. I have a wall of TBR fiction books so I picked one shelf from it at random and plan on reading all the books from that shelf in 2013, with the one limitation that I am only going to read one book by each author on that shelf. From the shelf I picked, that means reading 21 books in 2013.

I also picked one of my non-fiction TBR shelves at random with the goal of reading 10 books off that shelf in 2013.

There are other books from my TBR shelves that I plan to read in 2013, either for other challenges or on whim, which will count for the other books in these TBR challenges.


It is going to be an interesting experiment because the reasons a books makes it to my TBR shelves are far broader than the reasons I would typically chose a book to read.  I am going to end up reading several books that would probably sit on my shelves for many more years given the natural course of things. 

BOOKS

I read a total of 53 books from my TBR shelves in 2013 -- 41 fiction and 12 non-fiction.  These are all books that have been on my TBR shelves since at least last year, some since the 1980s.

For the TBR Pile Challenge, I finished all the books I pre-selected.  My books are here, with links to reviews:

• What a Piece of Work I Am by Eric Kraft (reviewed here)
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (reviewed here)
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer winner; reviewed here)
• She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb (reviewed here)
• Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik (reviewed here)
• The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (reviewed here)
• Independent People by Halldor Laxness (Nobel winner; reviewed here)
• Smiley's People by John Le Carre (not reviewed)
• Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin (reviewed here)
• Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane (reviewed here)
• Blood From a Stone by Donna Leon (not reviewed)
• Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard (not reviewed)

In addition, I read one of the two alternates and skipped the other:

• Son of Holmes by John Lescroart (finished; not reviewed)
• Winterkill by Craig Lesley (skipped; didn't read)

In addition, I read another six books from my randomly selected shelf:

• Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (Pulitzer winner; not reviewed)
• The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman (not reviewed)
• Perfect Happiness by Penelope Lively (not reviewed)
• Small World by David Lodge (not reviewed)
• Death at the Chateau Bremont by M. L. Longworth (not reviewed)
• On the Edge by Peter Lovesey (not reviewed)

I rounded out the Mt. TBR and Off the Shelf Challenges with other fiction books from my TBR shelves:

• Death in the Truffle Wood by Pierre Madnan (not reviewed)
• A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. Wodehouse (reviewed here)
• The Gathering by Anne Enright (Booker winner; reviewed here)
• Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin (not reviewed) 
• The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (reviewed here)
• Beast in View by Margaret Millar (reviewed here)
• The Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy (reviewed here)
• Flying Finish by Dick Francis (not reviewed)
• What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies (reviewed here)
• A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym (not reviewed)
• Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron (Edgar winner; not reviewed)
• The Rector's Wife by Joanna Trollope (not reviewed)
• Forfeit by Dick Francis (Edgar winner; not reviewed)
• Parachutes & Kisses by Erica Jong (reviewed here)
• The Child in Time by Ian McEwan (not reviewed)
• The Great Leader by Jim Harrison (not reviewed)
• The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch (not reviewed)
• Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (not reviewed)
• The Conscience of the Rich by C. P. Snow (not reviewed)
• The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (not reviewed)
• A Taste for Death by P. D. James (not reviewed)
• The Vicar of Nibbleswicke by Roald Dahl (not reviewed)

And several non-fiction books from my TBR shelves:

• Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer by A. J. Liebling (reviewed here)  
• Personal History by Katharine Graham (reviewed here)
• The Perfect Martini Book by Bob Herzbrun (not reviewed)
• Childhood by Anthony Burgess (not reviewed)
• The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto by Bernard DeVoto (reviewed here) 
• Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution by Thomas McNamee (reviewed here)  
• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (reviewed here)
• Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl 
• The Art  of Fiction by David Lodge (not reviewed)
• Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore (reviewed here)
• Because He Could by Dick Morrison (not reviewed)
• The CEO of the Sofa by P. J. O'Roarke (not reviewed)

NOTE

Updated on December 26, 2013.  I will finish The Dean's December by Saul Bellow before the end of the year, bringing my total TBR Challenge reading to 54.  

What Are They Reading? Dressed for Death

Authors tend to be readers, so it is natural for them to create characters who like to read.  It is always interesting to me to read what books the characters are reading in the books I read. Even if I can't say that ten times fast.

Usually, the characters' choice of books reflects the author's tastes or, I sometimes think, what the author was reading at the time.  But sometimes the character's reading material is a clue to the character's personality, or is even a part of the story. 

This is an occasional blog event. If anyone wants to join in, feel free to leave a comment with a link to your related post. And feel free to use the button.  If this catches on, I can pick a day and make it a weekly event.

Dressed for Death by Donna Leon



In this third installment in Leon's Venice-based series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, both Guido and his wife Paola are reading some pretty heavy tomes.

Paola is on vacation with the kids in the mountains, escaping the August heat of Venice.  Apparently she is a big Henry James fan and is reading his novel, The Sacred Fount.  Paola and I are going to have to agree to disagree about James.  He will never be one of my favorites, as I discussed here and here.

Stuck in the city to solve a mystery, Guido draws inspiration from Tacitus, reading the classic author's History of Rome.

Whew!  Maybe Paola and Guido need to take a break and read a good mystery!

Favorite Author: Donna Leon

Donna Leon is an American author living in Venice.  She writes a mystery series set in and around Venice that features Commissario Guido Brunetti. The lengthy series is listed in publication order, starting with the first book in the series.

I included her series in my list of Venice books, but I want to have a separate Favorite Author list for her too.

Those I have read are in red.  Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

If anyone else is reading these books, please leave a comment with a link to related posts.

Death at La Fenice

Death in a Strange Country

Dressed for Death

Death and Judgment

Acqua Alta

Quietly in Their Sleep

A Noble Radiance

Fatal Remedies

Friends in High Places

A Sea of Troubles

Willful Behavior

Uniform Justice

Doctored Evidence

Blood from a Stone

Through a Glass, Darkly

Suffer the Little Children

The Girl of His Dreams

About Face

A Question of Belief

Drawing Conclusions

NOTES

Last updated on December 26, 2012.