#20BooksofSummer2025 – My Summary

As before, Emma has created a questionnaire for us to help share our experience of this summer challenge. You can find the link HERE.

The August linky oost will stay open for another full week so you can add any late reviews. Find that HERE.

Now for the questionnaire – here are my answers:

1. Did you manage to finish all 10/15/20 books? If not, what kept you from completing the challenge? Yes I did – the full 20! I actually read 34 books over the three months, but only 20 of those matched my personal criteria for the challenge – to only read books I owned before the start of the year.
2. Of all the books you read this summer, which one(s) was/were your favorite and why? I’d be lying if I didn’t say I loved the two Mick Herron novels I read from the Slough House series (Nos 7 & 8), and I adored the spoof on gentlemen explorers in the The Ascent of Rum Doodle, and the Western romance of The Heart in Winter. Spies, explorers and westerns – what’s not to like?
   Did you DNF any? Why?
3. Which book surprised you the most, either by being better or worse than you expected? I had been longing to read The Time of Cherries by Montserrat Roig – but I just didn’t gel with the Catalan family in it.
4. Did you notice any patterns in the genres you chose or enjoyed this summer? No change to my normal contemporary lit and crime/thrillers + a sprinkling of others really. But I did make a special effort to read 5 novels by women in translation for August.
5. Which one had the best cover? Lost in the Garden by Adam Leslie without a doubt – those colours and the implied folk horror trope.
6. Which one was the longest? And the shortest? The longest was Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making it so at 469 pages, the shortest was (thankfully) only 151 pages – Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.
7. Did you read them mostly in print? ebook? audio? All in print – never an e-book for me.
8. Imagine you’re hosting a “20 Books of Summer” book club wrap party. Which book would you nominate as the guest of honor, and what kind of toast or speech would you give celebrating it? With this challenge coexisting with Paris in July and Women in Translation Month in August, my guest of honour would be Inspector Maigret who featured a lot in people’s Paris in July posts, and together we would toast reading in translation and those books by women in translation in particular.
9. Looking back at all the characters you met over the summer, which one would you want as a summer buddy for a weekend getaway, and what activity would you do together? Possibly Alice and Sam from Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow and maybe we’d return to 1996 a; together if we could for a party!
10. Any other comments you want to add. Be creative as you like! Only to say that it has been a pleasure co-hosting with Emma – and we’re planning to do it again next year. I’ve loved getting around as many of your posts as I can and making some new blog friends.