#20booksofsummer (in winter) Challenge

The 20 Books of Summer challenge is being hosted by Cathy over at 746 Books. Check out her blog, and join in if you so wish! I’m a little late to this party, but I’ve been undecided about what books I’m going to commit to. As always, these choices might get changed as I go, but I’m going to try and stick to this list as much as possible.

I’ve selected 10 books from my Classics Club list – in an attempt at making a serious dent in that challenge too. It means that quite a few of my books won’t be ‘easy’ reading, but I find I read more classics in winter anyway.

I’ve also made sure 10 of the books are by female authors (and I almost had 9, plus Evelyn Waugh! Oooops.) I’m trying to balance out the male/female issue I have, but then it just pained me to notice my Classics Club list is a sausage fest.

Anyway, onto the list.

#	Title	Author	Pages	Y.O.P	M/F
1	Deathlist	Chris Ryan	309	2016	M
2	The Innocents	Ace Atkins	384	2016	M
3	This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen	Tadeusz Borowski	278	2015	M
4	White Fang	Jack London	155	1906	M
5	Blackout	Chris Ryan	432	2006	M
6	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	141	1962	M
7	Tristram Shandy	Laurence Sterne	630	1759	M
8	State of Emergency	Andy McNab	350	2015	M
9	Fire Point	Sean Black	424	2014	M
10	The Edge of Alone	Sean Black	269	2016	M
11	Iron Lake	William Kent Krueger	330	1998	M
12	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	268	1931	M
13	The House of Mirth	Edith Wharton	416	1905	F
14	Dark Forces	Stephen Leather	432	2016	M
15	Ghost Sniper	Scott McEwen	416	2016	M
16	The Awakening	Kate Chopin	195	1899	F
17	The Fighting Season	Bram Connolly	336	2016	M
18	Journey to the Center of the Earth	Jules Verne	240	1864	M
19	Bad Soldier	Chris Ryan	375	2016	M
20	The Pigeon	Patrick Suskind	77	1988	M

It is in no particular order, and includes 8 books off my shelves that I haven’t gotten to yet (hello Read My Books challenge), and a couple new releases I’m looking forward to during winter. Also included Tristram Shandy, my Classics Club spin, and Middlemarch for the Eliot-Along (which you should all join, btw. Details here.)

Extra brownie points will be awarded if I can manage to review them all.

Anyone else participating? Did you theme/restrict your lists like I did? Anyone else freaking out about all the guys hanging out on their Classics TBR lists?

2016 Read My Books Challenge

I’m taking part in the 2016 Read My Books Challenge hosted by Maren at The Worn Bookmark. The goal of the challenge is to spend 2016 reading our own books. If you have heaps of books that you already own and want to read some – come and join us! It is super low pressure and you set your own goals.

I haven’t set a goal of a specific number of books – because I’m a compulsive shopper who thinks that by reading a book means I can buy another book because I am contributing to the challenge by reading. To combat the book buying I have set the following goals:

By the end of 2016 my to read bookshelf will consist of (at maximum):

10 Novels (Currently 25)

5 Classics (Currently 17)

2 Nonfiction (Currently 4)

That is a current goal of 29 books. However, as I will most likely get more books over the Christmas period, and buy a couple of new releases during the year, It will mean I will read more than 29 books. I’m going to update the count at the end of each month, in my Ranty Roundup