An update on the 52 book challenge 2/10/24

Firstly, thank you for all your kind words on my previous post, following the death of my SIL.  

Now, onto books:

Designed by Freepik

At the start of the year I mentioned that I was attempting the 52 book club challenge.

The aim of this challenge is to read 52 books over the year with each book matching a prompt provided by the club.

Well I've actually read 55 books already this year but only 42 matched to the challenge prompts which are these:

So 10 books to go by the end of the year.  Doesn't sound too hard does it?  Except that some of the books I've lined up for the remaining prompts are not easy reads.  For example I've just started David Copperfield for #22 and I have Demon Copperhead lined up for #23.  Over 1400 pages between the two books!

I've planned to read a chapter a day of David Copperfield so I should get through that by the end of this month while I carry on with reading other books too.  I'm not sure I can handle reading Dickens any other way.  I may be wrong but my only other experience of him is A Christmas Carol which is of course considerably shorter.  I'm making notes as I go so that hopefully it will be more committed to my memory.  Dickens does like to have a lot of characters in a book!

My September reads were:

The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain (4*)
I would put Chamberlain in the same mould as Picoult - she tends to write about a moral/ethical dilemma - but not to quite the same level as Picoult.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (5*)
I can't believe I didn't read this as a child.  Such a delightful book.

Grace after Henry by eithne shortall (4*)
An easy read about a woman grieving for her fiancé who meets his twin brother that no one knew about due to adoption.

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout (4*)
I love Strout's writing.  She captures the essence of her characters so well.

Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin (3*)
This was slightly disappointing.  Rankin has written many books about a detective (Rebus) based in Edinburgh but this one, set just after Rebus has retired didn't quite grab me the way some of his other books have done.  It also wouldn't work well if you hadn't read any of the other books in the series.

3 of the above fitted prompts and I'm currently reading Sweet Caress by William Boyd which has proved interesting so far.  Another reasonably long book at 450 pages though but it does fit a prompt! (#28 a yellow spine)

I certainly love a challenge!