It was touch and go whether I’d manage to complete #10booksofsummer this year. I got bogged down by two of my choices — The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley and Antonio by Beatriz Bacher. Though they were shortish novels, they took me an age to read. Luckily my final book (My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante) was a breeze in comparison . So I managed to reach the August 31 deadline with 30 minutes to spare.

My original plan for #10booksofsummer was to tick off some of the books on my Classics Club list, read a couple of novels by African authors and delve into my TBR shelves.

Usually my “plan” ends up being more like “good intentions” than a definitive plan. Surprisingly i pretty stuck to my original intentions. All but one of the books I read came from my TBR shelves — the exception was The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley which was a library reservation.

I might have included two other Booker Prize longlisted titles in my list of ten books but neither The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams nor The End of Everything by M. John Harrison were to my taste so were returned unfinished to the library.

Here’s what I did read. Links will take you to my reviews.

1. Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah — Africa. TBR shelves
2. Winter People by Grainne Murphy—TBR shelves
3. Quartet by Jean Rhys — TBR shelves and classics club spin book 
4. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz — TBR shelves
5. The Conquest of Plassans by Émile Zola — Classics club list and #Paris in July 
6. The Body by Hanif Kureishi  — TBR shelves
7. The Cafe with No Name by Robert Seethaler —TBR shelves
8. The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley — Booker prize longlist. Library reservation
9. Antonio by Beatriz Bracher —TBR book jar pick for August & Women in Translation month .
10. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante — TBR shelves & Women in Translation month . Review coming shortly.

If I had to pick a favourite it would be a toss up between My Brilliant Friend and The Cafe with No Name.

Future Plans??

I started reading Land by Maggie O’Farrell but had to put it on hold while another library reservation materialised. Why do they always come in batches?? So now I’m reading London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe. Keefe unravels a web of deceit and half truths surrounding the death of a 19-year-old boy whose secret life drew him into a dangerous criminal underworld in London. The extent of Keefe’s research is phenomenal.

I’m also taking part in #ShortStorySeptember hosted this year by Rebecca (aka BookishBeck) by dipping into a collection of short stories by Welsh authors . The Book of Cardiff was published in July as part of the Reading the City series from Comma Press. .

After that, I might return to Land or I might switch to my classic club spin book, The Birds by the Norwegian author Tarjei Vesaas.