Dear Reader, it has been a month!

Together we have made it through 22 books. 22!!  I need to read 21 per month to be on track with this challenge, so numerically we are storming!  However,  I must admit that three ‘bonus books’ have snuck in.  These books were not on my shelves at the start of the year, so don’t technically count towards my total, but I hope you’ll forgive me.  I have read a LOT of geology books and I needed something to console me!

So how was it for you? Here are my highlights and lowlights.

Honourable mention to this jewel of a book too.

The delectable pile

These books are so delicious you should run and read them as soon as you can.

• Lamentation: a great historical murder mystery that was so twisty and turny I felt like a corkscrew by the end
• Evidence In Camera: a cracking history of the development of aerial photography that is so eccentric that reading it was like drinking tea from the mad hatter’s teapot
• A Passage to India:  this is a beautifully told story beautifully conjures the era and  I’ve found myself referring back to this book in conversation and thought several times since reading it.

The defenstration pile

These are books that I would recommend you not even bothering to open. Use them as doorstops or to wedge under wobbly table legs or something. Or send them to your nemesis with a ‘read me’ label on them.

• Wings of the Dove: I hated this so much I can’t even bring myself to tell you how awful it was.
• The Children’s Book: this was, essentially, about 400 pages too long. And contained too much pottery.
• Murder at Deviation Junction: if you are a steam train enthusiast then this is the murder mystery for you! If not, then it really, really isn’t.

A good month’s reading.

Beyond that I have enjoyed learning so much about the geology of the world that we live in.  And then there have been our explorations of distant worlds through our exploration of Star Trek books…but the least said about that the better!

It has also been great getting to know some of you. We’ve had readers from the UK, USA, Papua New Guinea,  Denmark, South Africa, Iceland, Canada, Russia, Germany, Australia, Romania, Hungary, France, Austria, The Netherlands, Ireland, and Norway! I have really enjoyed reading your comments and my list of books you’ve recommended for next year is growing longer by the day.

We’ve also run our first competition.  Don’t forget you still have time to enter!

I can’t wait to see what the next month holds!