Whew! More than halfway through the summer already? Let’s just say, I’m not quite where I expected to be with my reading. A five week vacation in Canada, plus the added stress of finding and renting a new place to live in Edinburgh while traveling through Canada has not done good things to my reading. And the coming weeks do not look much brighter, with packing and moving filling most of the next week or so.
Here’s my original list, with comments about my progress.
- Girl Up by Laura Bates – It’s Laura Bates, so it’s pretty much required reading. Seriously? At this point the only thing that is required reading is lease agreements and moving contracts!
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark – This has been on my TBR since we moved to Edinburgh 4.5 years ago! Time to get it read. Short and sweet. Can i do it? I think so.
- The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam – Already on my ereader. Read but not yet reviewed. To be honest I can’t remember the details of it, but i know that I liked it.
- The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick (Aug 25) – Hopefully this will be on sale in advance at #edbookfest.
- A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee – Looks like a quick read to help me along.
- The Trouble With Sheeps and Goats by Joanna Cannon – Can’t wait to get to this one. Done! And I liked it. Review to follow at some point.
- This Must Be The Place by Maggie O’Farrell – She lives in my neighbourhood, so who knows, maybe she’ll leave a copy on my doorstep. She has not left a book for me. Sigh. Maybe she’ll leave it as a house warming gift at our new place?
- The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan – Loved The Panopticon, so this is a must! Done! A dystopian novel that was good, but not as good as The Panopticon.
- Cauliflower by Nicola Barker – Saving this for one of my many summer plane journeys. Plane journeys are over, but I’m still meaning to get to this.
- The Life Project by Helen Pearson – A little non-fiction to keep my reading well rounded.
- Vaseline Buddha by Jung Young Moon – Because so far this list really lacks diversity. Yeah, it added diversity to my list, but also put me to sleep. It was a DNF.
- Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar
- The Man Who Built The Sierra Club by Robert Wyss – I’ve actually started this one already. But didn’t finish it. Oops.
- The Yoga of Max’s Discontent by Karan Bajaj – Downloaded today!
And other randoms that I picked up along the way:
15. The Wangs Vs. The World by Jade Chang. Not a mentally taxing book, but it was the balm i needed.
16. Chronicles of a Last Summer by Yasmine El Rashidi. A short novel that reminded me a little of Persepolis without the pictures.
17. May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Holmes. It’s been on my TBR list forever, but when i actually got around to reading it, i found it dragged a little.
18. This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman. Another title that’s been on my TBR forever and this one i found much more enjoyable.
19. Sweet Caress by William Boyd. A life saver! Just before boarding a trans-Atlantic flight, I realized my ebooks hadn’t loaded onto my ereader. Last minute airport purchase.
So more than halfway through summer and only eight books read. Can it be done? Can i plow through 12 books with everything else i have to do in the coming weeks? We shall see.
52 books or bust 
You’re on about par with me and with my daughter’s wedding in two weeks time I’m not going to finish but I’m keen to see how many I get to.
Glad I’m not alone in slipping behind on my goals.
I’m behind on my goal for the year and was hoping the summer would get me back on track. Still 10 books behind though. For some reason I didn’t get as much reading done on my vacation as I hoped I would! Best of luck to you!
Yeah, I’m behind on my year too. Maybe the fall will bring lots of reading?
I’ve still got 6 books to go, including a couple of longer ones (and Goats & Sheep). I’ll probably just squeeze in.
Goats and Sheep is a fast read considering its length. Good luck.
Nice annotations! Hope you enjoyed your Canadian break. I can see that Sweet Caress is just the thing to sink into and shut out the misery of a transatlantic flight.
I’d say you’ve done pretty well, considering! How was your trip??
Trip was great, but 5 weeks is too long to be away from home!
Yes, I can imagine…
Sounds like you need to go a bit easier on yourself! You’ve got some challenging books on this list. I couldn’t get through May We Be Forgiven. Good luck with the moving and enjoy the rest of your summer. I enjoyed Sunlight Pilgrims as well and can’t wait to read the new O’Farrell. Lucky you to be her neighbor!
Can’t wait to read the O’farrell! Saving it for a special moment.
So glad you enjoyed Goats and Sheep! Can’t wait to see that review and the one for Last Summer.
Good luck with the move!
I just requested The Wangs vs. The World and glad to hear it’s not too mentally taxing…those have been the only books working for me the past few months! Have no idea why…this was not the case last year.
hahahaha your update comments made me laugh! Sounds like a crazy summer! I wouldn’t stress too much about the reading – you have more than enough other stuff to think about. At the end of the day, you read 8 books this summer while dealing with all that. I would hazard a guess that most people haven’t read that many books this YEAR.
5 weeks in Canada? where? That’s a lot of travel. Hope your move to the near place goes well. Take a load off & don’t stress on the reading
Great update! I recently read and enjoyed The Sunrise Pilgrims too, but I haven’t yet read The Panopticon. I’ve been a bit worried it would be too dark and/or violent for me! After reading this though, I’m considering giving it a chance.