Summer Book Challenge Update

katejones73

Jul 24

Well, it's been a short while since I posted, but as I said in this post, I am busy writing my Masters dissertation over the summer, leaving me little time to think about anything else!

But I have taken a break for a couple of days to take a breathe and thought I would post a quick update on my reading challenge. As I have been pretty busy with writing rather than reading, I haven't read as much as I would have liked, but I'm happy to say that I have still tried to at least continue to read a page or two of a book every day!

Book 21 of the reading challenge is a non-fiction: Joanna Hall's Walk Active Programme by Joanna Hall. I wrote a post a short while ago about taking up a walking challenge, and I ordered this book from my local library to read up on tips to make my walks more beneficial.

I had heard Joanna Hall speaking on a podcast recently and she has some good, short YouTube clips on walking for fitness. I found the book a little dull and out of date, however. Although I am sure that her walking methods work - she has a programme you can join on her website and many positive testimonials throughout the book - I just found the process of repeating exercises before even starting a walking routine too slow for me. Perhaps this is partly because I already walk regularly and do a regular Yoga practice, but maybe if someone was just starting a walking challenge it would be more beneficial.

Book 22 was The Forbidden Zone by Mary Borden This is a slight cheat as it is the book I am writing about for my dissertation! But I needed to re-read it all the way through in order to make notes for my research and it struck me (as it has before when studying literature) that reading for pleasure and reading to analyse a text is such a different skill. Although I liked the book the first time around (otherwise I wouldn't have committed to writing 12,000 words about it!) I found that taking the sentences apart for analysis and finding themes and evidence to support my arguments really illuminating. It gave me even more of an appreciation for the skill and craft of the prose, as well as a new understanding of life during WW1.

This isn't a light read by any stretch, being written by a nurse on the front line during WW1. I would highly recommend it however if you are at all interested in history or modernist literature.

Book 23 I have included the book I am currently reading as I have read it before and it is a light, summer read! It is More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. I have written many times about my infatuation with Maupin's series of books set in San Francisco and running from the 1970's to 2015. I don't know about you, but I always tend to return to familiar, easy to read books around the summer holidays. I find them relaxing and I know I am sure to enjoy them. This book is definitely getting stuffed into my rucksack as I head off to the coast this week : )

Hope you are having a great summer and are enjoying some good reading! : )