That’s a wrap! It was my seventh year in a row participating. I managed to read and review all 20 books by yesterday. Only eight of the books I earmarked in my plans (plus two more that were DNFs) made it into my final stacks, but I don’t really consider that a problem.
With what I substituted in, I ended up achieving 1 reread and getting through 7 review copies, 3 of which had been languishing in my set-aside piles for a long time. I stuck to my pledge to read only a) books that I owned in hardback and b) books by women. I read roughly half and half fiction and non- (11 vs. 9).
Unfortunately, a lot of my selections this year happened to be lackluster: there were 5 books that I rated at 2.5 stars or below, and another 6 that merited 3 stars. Those 11 make for a pretty low average rating across the 20.
By contrast, I had a few 4-star highlights: Company by Shannon Sanders, Sleeping with Cats by Marge Piercy, and My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss (if anyone in the UK would like my proof copy of this last one, let me know and I’ll post it to you).
It was also fun tying into the Reading the Meow week and connecting reviews with events such as an online conference about Vita Sackville-West and the new album by the Bookshop Band.
I’ve cleared 16 of 23 (including the several DNFs) books from my shelves by reselling them or donating them to my neighbourhood Little Free Library. I’ll surely appreciate that extra space to accommodate the constant stream of incomers.
Next year I think I need to make the challenge even more open, because it seems that as soon as I ‘assign’ myself 20 books, I lose interest in most of them. Again, I want to limit myself to books from my shelves, but I won’t specify anything else. I’ll just let myself pick up whatever interests me at the time – bearing in mind that in the summers I like to indulge in juicy fiction that’s toward the popular end of literary.
How did your summer reading go?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Congratulations!! Roll on next Summer!!
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Congratulations on getting thrugh so many!
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It’s great seeing how everyone has done with the challenge this year! The flexibility really helps, and it sounds like you found that valuable. Nice to have a bit more space on the shelves for incoming books, too. I’ll be posting my wrap-up tomorrow or Tuesday, depending.
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It’s so satisfying to clear space on the shelf! Well done!
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I only assign half and this year managed to read all but one, so happy with that result.
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Now that sounds like a good compromise: set out about 10 that I’d like to get to, and fill the rest of the list with whatever I want as I go along. I’ll keep it in mind!
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Good work, Rebecca, though I’m sorry you had such a disappointing set. I also love reading more popular litfic during the summer – ideally readable doorstoppers!
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I need a mix of lengths including novellas and poetry, probably; otherwise I’d find even readable doorstoppers too overwhelming.
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Sounds like a win all round!
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I’ve always preferred to see this as a reviewing challenge rather than a TBR-reduction challenge. Either way, I failed as usual 🙂
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It was a scramble at the end to get all the books reviewed. I usually don’t struggle with that part. You don’t have any TBR to lose at the moment, I expect!
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Really well done Rebecca, I didn’t quite make it but did OK all things considered!
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Don’t be too hard on yourself! You read more than 20 books and that’s a huge achievement given all you have going on.
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I know parts of it felt like a grind, but surely it feels good to have come out the other side of it with plans to slightly revise for future, so that one’s selections don’t become too burdensome. The idea of half selections and half whimsy sounds good to me too. When you were in the thick of Piercy’s memoir, I couldn’t put hands on it, but I just noticed it this week (#niceproblemstohave): just looking at it makes me sad. Congrats on anonther finished project.
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Well done! I read and enjoyed 19 of the 20 books my husband selected for me and swapped out one when I was panicking about getting everything read. So did my 20 and got them reviewed just in time. Naturally, I actually read 43 books over the three months … It was very nice not having a plan at all and just going with what I was given (even the order) so I might do that again next time or I might just go with the oldest 20 books on the TBR.
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