20 Books of Summer 2024

Twenty books. It doesn't sound like a huge number, does it? And in theory I have three months in which to read (and review - always my stumbling block) them all. But then take out the whole of August, when I will be in Edinburgh, running from one show to another like a demented bluebottle, and the trams are so full that I can't even open a book as I sail up and down Leith Walk - and that leaves me with eight weeks, or 2-3 books per week. 

And I'll be away three times in June too.

Nevertheless she persevered (and indeed, 'persevere' is Leith's motto.) 

So here, in no particular order, are the twenty books I have chosen for this year's challenge, which is generously, not to say flexibly, managed by Cathy of 746Books. 

Fiction

Le Grand-Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun

Mrs Pargeter's Public Relations by Simon Brett

A Cornish Secret by Emma Burstall

In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick

Gilr, Woman, Other By Bernadine Evaristo

A Wedding in Provence by Katie Fforde

All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle

Monsieur de Brillancourt by Claire Harkness

The Call of the Cormorant by Donald S Murray

A Keeper by Graham Norton

The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh

Poison in the Pen by Patricia Wentworth

Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine by Georges Simenon

Non-Fiction

Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy by Chitra Ramaswamy

West End Girls by Barbara Tate

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr

Maeve's Times by Maeve Binchy

I'm involved in a few other challenges this year, so most of these books fit one or other of them - the preponderance of books set in France is driven by Paris in July, and the Lilian Jackson Braun by Reading the Meow Week. Some of the others work for various prompts in the 52 Book Club 2024 Reading Challenge. And an embarrassing trilogy on this list are books kindly sent to me for review - I have actually read all three of them before, but so long ago that I don't remember much about them, and of course I singularly failed to write reviews at the time, so now I need to start from the beginning, and serves me right too. 

In the past, 20 Books has helped me to get through long books that had been languishing on my shelves for far too long - Writing At The Kitchen Table, Artemis Cooper's biography of Elizabeth David, was a particular highlight, and I'm so glad I finally read this excellent book. This year, however, I am all too aware of my time constraints. I don't like feeling that I've failed so I've chosen mostly shorter, easier books - the Luke Barr is perhaps the exception, but this looks so interesting (it's about Julia Child, James Beard, MFK Fisher and a few other iconic culinary figures who all found themselves on the Cote D'Azur in the winter of 1970) that I couldn't resist. 

Seven days till we start. The books are ready, and so, I hope, am I.