Tag: 20 Books of Summer Page 4 of 5

Well, that’s a wrap on the 2020 20 Books of Summer. You may accuse me of playing fast and loose with the challenge (and you’d be right!), but this seems like a casual enough thing that I really don’t care (and I can’t imagine anyone else does, either). As I mentioned last month, I did a lousy job of taking into account new releases, review copies, and life when I made the original list. I made a valient effort, but I just couldn’t post about all these books by September 1 (I did read all of them by the end of August, I note only semi-defensively), but in that last week, it hit me, June 1-August 31 isn’t really “Summer.” It works as a rough designation, but June solstice to the September equinox is a better definition. I’m not that pedantic though (well, about seasons). But here in the States, “Summer” also is defined as the period from Memorial Day through Labor Day, which was just the time I needed to get everything posted.

So I’m calling this a win. I liked the focus this gave me for the last couple of months, and I know I read some things I’ve been meaning to read for months because they were on this list and I couldn’t make (yet another) excuse to put it off. I think next year I’ll do a better job of taking into account New Releases when I make my list (how Peace Talks wasn’t the first book I put down I’ll never know) to make life easier for me–I also think I’ll put down more of the books I own, but keep delaying on. I really like freeing up space on my (literal) TBR shelf.

I had a lot of fun doing this and looking at others working their way through the challenge. Congrats to the winners.

So, I did a lousy job of taking into account new releases, review copies, and life when I made the original list. I only read 4 of the remaining 13 books in July, which doesn’t bode well for August. I think I can still pull this off, but I’m going to have to make a couple of more substitutions, based on how long it took me to read Winslow’s The Cartel and Hearne’s A Plague of Giants, I’m not going to be able to tackle their follow-ups in August (which annoys me greatly, I was counting on this challenge to help force my hand with these). So I’m substituting Hearne’s next book, the launch of a new series, Ink & Sigil (there’s a balance to that) and The Revelators by Ace Atkins (not as epic in scope as Winslow, but … it’s the best I can realistically do).

Here we are at the end of June, one-third of the way through the summer, and I’m roughly one-third of the way through the challenge. That worked out nicely. I’ve made one substitute because I had some trouble getting my hands on the one non-fiction book that was on the list. And, hey, I just read a non-fiction book, so might as well put that one in. Otherwise, I’m on track for finishing the list as originally conceived.