I remember summers, when I would read something like fourteen or fifteen books during August, no work, and perhaps less money than I have now, meaning I stayed at home and read and read. This year – with ten and a half books read – I realise I will never get back to those reading rates – I obviously have too many other things in my life now, I think I’m glad to have that balance though. I think I can blame the Olympics a little too – goodness it was so marvellous and I lost hours and hours of my life to it.
August has all been about juggling – I juggled three reading challenges – finishing #20booksofsummer, and reading things for #WITmonth and #Woolfalong. Today 1st September will be all about finishing that orange spine penguin – Recollections of Virginia Woolf – which I have been reading for my #Woolfalong.
August started with a lovely Peirene press book, The Murder of Halland, I enjoyed the taut atmosphere of a novel which is not a traditional crime story despite its title. Read for #WITmonth it reminded me what a superb publisher Peirene are, I do have three others tbr which I must read soon. My second read unfortunately was bit of a duffer – Challenge by Vita Sackville West is fairly unremittingly dull – read for my very small book group – my suggestion – I was the only one of us to read it. The Green Road was the book I was reading when I went away on holiday – I was away ten days, one night in Somerset, seven in Devon, and one night in Cornwall with friends it was a lovely hot, sunny but busy holiday – which went far too fast. I loved The Green Road, and I am determined to read more Enright. The World my Wilderness is a great coming of age type novel, written by a woman I want to know more about and read more by, it recreates the post war period in London and France beautifully. Desperate Characters by Paula Fox was the novel with which I completed my #20booksofsummer, a novel of a complacent New York couple, shaken out of their complacency over one eventful weekend.
As I travelled from Devon to Cornwall for a party, I was reading The Door by Magda Szabo on my Kindle, by the time I finally arrived home late the following day – I had nearly finished – thanks mainly to the hours of travel from Devon to Cornwall and then from Cornwall to Birmingham across one weekend. I remember a nice polite young man on the train, (oh god I sound about 400 years old) asking me what I was reading, and telling me how he got back into reading with the Millennium trilogy. The Door is a wonderful novel, which has stayed with me – well Emerence the central character has stayed with me – and I look forward to reading my other book by Szabo soon. The Winged Horse by Pamela Frankau reminded me how I had once been determined to track down all Pamela Frankau books – well I now have two others waiting. It would be hard to sum up that book in a sentence, but it was one of my highlights of the month. The Grand Hotel my third read for #WITmonth was another superb novel – one I had seen lots of love for on other blogs – such an array of fascinating characters against the backdrop of Berlin of the 1920’s I loved every page. Blue Skies and Jack and Jill are two short novels published together in my Virago edition, I had seen fairly low ratings of it on Goodreads, thankfully I didn’t allow it to put me off. I thought the novels, although unusual in tone were very good indeed, Hodgman surprises her readers, which is something I like. With the end of August and the end of phase 4 of #Woolfalong looming I rushed to read two more books – and only managed one and a half. Winifred Holtby’s A Critical Memoir which I still need to review and Recollections of Virginia Woolf edited by Joan Russell Noble, which I hope to finish today.
September means back to work – I know I shouldn’t complain – but oh my those 6.00 am starts hurt, and I am always shocked by how little reading time I have when I am back in my usual term time routine. I am also busy with a few other things happening – an event I have been helping to organise is just three weeks away – and I will have things to do for that too. So September will be about finding the right books for the right time – some comfort reads perhaps. I am aware that phase 5 of #Woolfalong starts today – non-fiction written by Virginia Woolf. Having now read two non-fiction books in a row – and being famously bad at reading non-fiction it may be a few weeks before I get anything read for #Woolfalong, but I am looking forward to those diaries when the time is right. I am enjoying being able to read whatever I like after finishing #20booksofsummer – although I’m looking forward to #ReadingRhys – I have two Jean Rhys books set aside for that. Phew! All these challenges! 
The other thing about holidays is that being out of my usual routine means I keep publishing blog posts at odd times – I don’t suppose it matters – but a normal-ish service will be resumed soon.
What are you all planning for September? – do tell.
