My Wrap Up Post -- 2025 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE

THE 2025 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE

My Wrap Up Post

This is my wrap up for the 2025 European Reading Challenge. To join the 2026 challenge (and I hope you do), go to the main challenge page, here.

Even though 2025 was the 13th year I hosted the challenge, I haven't been very good about my own participation. In 2024, I even forgot to do a sign up post! I resolved to do better in 2025 and I did, a bit. I read more books set in European countries and I read more books in translation, but I was still no good at reviewing the books I read. Maybe 2026 will be the year I hit my stride.

I didn't pick any particular books for the challenge. Those in the photo were possibilities, but I didn't read any of them. Here are the counties I visited in the books I did pick, in the order I visited them:

• THE UK: Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. As always, I read many, many UK books, but this reread of an old favorite was the first UK book I read in 2025.

• IRELAND: Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan. I also read quite a few books set in Ireland or by Irish authors. This was the first I read in 2025, but it wasn't my favorite. 

• BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien

• FRANCE: Maigret and the Spinster by Simenon, one of the translated books I read, by a Belgian author who wrote in French.

• RUSSIA: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, a translated classic.

• NORWAY: How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days by Kari Leibowitz

• UKRAINE: The Lady of the Mine by Sergei Lebedev, another book in translation. 

• HOLLAND: The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, also in translation. 

• AUSTRIA: The Salzberg Connection by Helen MacInnes

• CZECH REPUBLIC: The Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes

• BULGARIA: A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

• GREECE: Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki, a translated NYRB Classic.

• POLAND: The Ice Saints by Frank Tuohy, 1964 winner of the James Tate Black Memorial Prize and an undercover gem. 

• GERMANY: Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, translated. 

• SWITZERLAND: Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes. Thank goodness for MacInnes -- she took me to several European countries. 

• DENMARK: The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

• PORTUGAL: I Like it Here by Kingsley Amis

• ITALY: Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell

• FINLAND: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, author of the Moomin books, in translation. 

• BELGIUM: The British Baking Book: The History of British Baking, Savory and Sweet by Regula Ysewijn. A very British book but by a Belgian author who originally wrote the book in Dutch. 

In all, I visited 20 countries for the 2025 European Reading Challenge and read eight books in translation, both persona bests. Let's see how far I can go in 2026!

My Friends by Fredrik Backman -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Thank you for joining me for the first Book Beginnings on Fridays of the new year! Book Beginnings is a weekly blog hopping event where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

Happy 2026 and happy reading!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human. 

-- from My Friends by Fredrik Backman. 

Not to sound like the cranky old lady I don't want to become, but I disagree with the opening sentence. Actually, the first chapter put me off so much I almost gave up. But My Friends is my book club's pick for this month so I wanted to try harder. I read some reviews that assured me there would be adults, not just teenagers, so I kept reading. I'm now halfway through and like it quite a bit, although it's not my favorite.   

Have you read this one yet? Are you a Backman fan?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from My Friends:

Then they lay on the pier and drank cheap sodas and watched the sunset for free. The summer was still endless and the world-famous artist who wasn't world-famous yet slowly moved his finger across the sky in the last of the daylight, drawing skulls in the air.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

The TBR 25 in '25 & Mt. TBR Challenges -- MY WRAP UP POST

 

THE TBR 25 IN '25 CHALLENGE

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

My Wrap Up Post

I did two TBR challenges in 2025, the TBR 25 in '25 Challenge that I hosted and the Mt. TBR Challenge hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block. Both aim to clear books off TBR shelves. Any book in your possession as of January 1, 2025, counts as TBR. 

I finished the 25 books I picked for the TBR 25 in '25 Challenge earlier this year. I really buckled down and got 24 of them finished by June. The last one, Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking, took my longer because it was dry and dense. I didn't finish that one until the end of September and I started it in March. 

For the Mt. TBR Challenge, I finished an additional 112 books off my TBR shelves, for a total of 137 TBR books. I signed up at the Mt. Everest level to read 100 books off my TBR shelves and exceeded that goal. Inspired to try harder, I signed up for the Mr. Olympus level in 2026, with the goal of reading 150 TBR books. Wish me luck!

THE TBR 25 IN '25 CHALLENGE

• One Man’s San Francisco by Herb Cain

• French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David

• The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell 

• Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller by Margaret Forster 

• Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

• Careless in Red by Elizabeth George

• Q.’s Legacy by Helene Hanff

• Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith

• Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith

• Absolute Truths by Susan Howatch 

• Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay

• The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis

• The Widow on Dwyer Court by Lisa Kusel

• The Lady of the Mine by Sergei Lebedev

• Lost & Found: Public Theology in the Secular Age by Michael A. Milton 

• Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell

• Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl

• Dragon’s Teeth by Upton Sinclair 

• The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen by Nigel Slater 

• The Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

• A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

• Zabar's: A Family Story, with Recipes by Lori Zabar

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

The TBR 25 in '25 Challenge dovetailed nicely with the Mt TBR Challenge Bev at My Reader's Block hosts every year. This year, I signed up for the "Mt. Everest" Level to read a total of 100 books off my TBR shelves in 2025.

I climbed even higher! In addition to the 25 books I read for the TBR 25 in '25 Challenge, I read 112 books off my TBR shelves, for a total of 137 TBR books. That's a record for me.

MY MT. TBR BOOKS

Here are the additional 112 TBR books I read in 2025, in the order I read them. 

• Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

• The Venetian Affair by Helen MacInnes

• Dragon's Teeth by Sinclair Lewis

• Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan

• The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien

• The Bean Book: 100 Recipes for Cooking with All Kinds of Beans, from the Rancho Gordo Kitchen by Steve Sando

• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

• Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake

• How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days by Kari Leibowitz, PhD

• With Thanks and Appreciation: Thoughts, Sentiments, Tokens and Traditions of the Past by Pat Ross

• Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

• The Templars' Last Secret by Martin Walker

• A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

• This Body of Death by Elizabeth George

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

• Sun Bird by Lindsay Moore

• Writing Notes with a Personal Touch by Daria Price Bowman

• Love Quotations: A Collection of Romantic Pictures and the Best Love Quotes, compiled by Helen Exley

• The Secret Place by Tana French

• Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon

• Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George

• Slightly Foxed, Vol. 84, Winter 2024

• Bamboo Farmer Wisdom: 101 Inspirational Thoughts by Greg Bell

• I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano 

• Lonely Planet Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories by DC Helmuth

• Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today by Christina Hoff Sommers

• Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George

• Literary Feasts: Inspired Eating from Classic Fiction by Sean Brand

• Penmarric by Susan Howatch

• The Trespasser by Tana French

• What Shall I Say? A Guide To Letter Writing For Ladies by Mrs. Humphreys

• The Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes

• A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George

• The St. Trinian's Story *and the Pick of the Searle Cartoons, edited by Kaye Webb

• The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh

• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

• The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle

• Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke

• Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten

• A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell

• A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene

• The New Artisans: Handmade Designs for Contemporary Living by Olivier Dupon

• The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis

• Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter

• Transcription by Kate Atkinson

• Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki 

• Double Blind by Edward St. Aubyn

• Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher

• The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan

• Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life by Daniel Klein

• The Ice Saints by Frank Tuohy

• Emma by Jane Austen

• Agent in Place by Helen MacInnes

• Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

• Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes

• Helena by Evelyn Waugh

• The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

• Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell

• The Best Man to Die by Ruth Rendell

• I Like it Here by Kingsley Amis

• Old Bones by Aaron Elkins

• Thus was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell

• The Bookman's Wake by John Dunning

• A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr

• Jazz Funeral by Julie Smith

• August Folly by Angela Thirkell

• Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

• The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

• No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym

• A Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell

• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

• The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien

• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

• Something Old, Something New: Classic Recipes Revised by Tamar Adler

• Murder Being Once Done by Ruth Rendell

• Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

• Zorba the Greek by  Kazantzakis

• No More Dying Then by Ruth Rendell

• Indian Summer by William Dean Howells

• The Luck of the Bodkins by P. G. Wodehouse

• Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark

• The Fisher King by Anthony Powell

• The Light of Day by Graham Swift

• The Anti-minimalist House by Massimo Listri

• Some Lie and Some Die by Ruth Rendell

• The Lonely Girl by Edna O'Brien

• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

• Shake Hands Forever by Ruth Rendell

• The Complete Stories by Evelyn Waugh

• Ivanov by Anton Chekhov

• Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford

• A Sleeping Life by Ruth Rendell

• Brazil by John Updike

• Falstaff by Rober Nye

• Persuasion by Jane Austen

• Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

• L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home by David Lebovitz

• The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch

• The Seagull by Anton Chekhov

• The Devil's Advocate by Morris West

• Girls in Their Married Bliss by Edna O'Brien

• The British Baking Book: The History of British Baking, Savory and Sweet by Regula Ysewijn

• Rabbit Remembered by John Updike

• My Life as a Man by Philip Roth

• The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe

• A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Sleter

• Cat Stories by James Herriot

• Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy

• The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

• Tempest Tost by Robertson Davies

• A Christmas Treasury of Yuletide Stories and Poems, edited by James Charlton and Barbara Gilson

• Leaven of Malice by Robertson Davies

My Sign Up Post -- TBR 26 IN '26 & MT. TBR CHALLENGES

 

THE TBR 26 IN '26 CHALLENGE

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

My Sign-Up Post

This is my sign-up post for the TBR 26 in '26 and Mt. TBR Challenges. If you want to join me in the TBR 26 in '26 Challenge (and I hope you do), go to the main challenge page, here. Bev at My Reader's Block hosts the Mt. TBR Challenge. You can find the details for that one here.

My shelves of unread books are groaning under the weight of my TBRs. According to my LibraryThing spreadsheet, I have over 2,800 books on my shelves, waiting to be read. Good thing I’m now (all but) retired. I plan to spend more time with my nose in a book!

Last year, I read the 25 books I picked for the TBR 25 in '25 Challenge, plus another 104 books for the Mt. TBR Challenge, for a total of 129 books read from my TBR library. My goal was to read 100 off my TBR shelves, so I am very pleased with 129. I’d like to exceed that number in 2026.


TBR 26 IN ‘26

You don’t have to pick your TBR 26 in '26 book ahead of time. You can. Or you can pick them as you go. Or you can pick and then change your mind. The only "rule" is that the books have to have been on your shelf before January 1, 2026.

Here are my TBR 26 in '26 picks, in the order they appear in the photo above. I'll read them in any old order. There was no rhyme or reason for how I picked these. I didn’t try to overthink it, I just grabbed what caught my eye.

LEFT STACK: NONFICTION

Hiroshima (1946) by John Hersey

Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter (1982) by Christopher Buckley

Rereadings (1995) by Anne Fadiman

A Walk in the Woods (1998) by Bill Bryson

Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor (2009) by Tad Friend

Overdrive: A Personal Tour of American Politics (1983) by William F. Buckley Jr.

Discovering Main Street: Travel Adventures in Small Towns of the Northwest (2010) by Foster Church

Curriculum Vitae (1982) by Muriel Spark

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage (2013) by Nicholas Wapshott

The Merry Heart (1959) by Robertson Davies

A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters (2016) by Penelope Rowlands

A Cook’s Tour of San Francisco (1983) by Doris Muscatine

The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard (2017) by John Birdsall

RIGHT STACK: FICTION

A Severed Wasp (1970) by Madeleine L’Engle

Showing the Flag (1999) by Jane Gardam

Homecomings (1956) by C. P. Snow

The Last September (1929) by Elizabeth Bowen

The Boss Dog (1949) by M. F. K. Fisher

The New York Trilogy (1985) by Paul Auster

Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream (2005) by John Derbyshire

The Paris Directive (2000) by Gerald Jay

The Food of Love (2001) by Anthony Capella

Chocolat (1999) by Joanne Harris

Women Like Us (1999) by Erica Abeel

The Wonder Worker (2002) by Susan Howatch

My plan is to start strong in January so I have momentum to read these and then move on to my Mt. TBR books.


MT. TBR

I don't know which books I'll read for Bev’s Mt. TBR Challenge. I decided to push myself and signed up for the Mt. Olympus level to read 150 books off my TBR shelves. That means I need 124 in addition to the 26 listed above. I'm ready to climb!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on this Friday after Christmas. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

-- from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Until about five minutes ago, I didn't know that the full title is A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. That's pretty cool. 

I know people who read A Christmas Carol every year but I am not one of them. I've only read it two or three times in my whole life and the last time was at least ten years ago. But the whole novella is included in A Christmas Treasury of Yuletide Stories & Poems (1994), edited by James Charlton and Barbara Gilson, that I'm reading this Christmas week. So I reread Dickens's classic and loved it all over agin. 

Did you read anything Christmassy this year?  

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from A Christmas Carol:

Awakening in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention.

 

FROM THE WIKIPEDIA DESCRIPTION

A Christmas Carol is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London's street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this is a fully secular story or a Christian allegory.