Reading update

At the beginning of the vacation I published the Not my Summer reading list,  a list of books with plenty of choices, that I might read, or not read during the Summer vacation. Being a teacher, I have six weeks, so there is plenty of time to read, but I do not like the idea of a fixed list, hence the choices.

So how did I do, and what did I read?

In total I read 27 books this vacation, which is not bad at all. But did I read the books from my reading list? Well, yes and no. There were 19 books on that list, and I read 10 of them.  

I read: Katherine of Aragon by Alison Weir, The Romanovs by Simon Montefiore, What are you looking at by Will Gompertz, The plague by Albert Camus, Venice by Jan Morris, The Dutch travelguide about Venice, Everybody behaves badly, Lesley MM Blume, The novel by Cesare Pavese, The stories by Anton Chekhov, Gertrude Bell, desert queen by Janet Wallach

So as you can see I read a book from almost all categories on my list, except for the Southern Literature, I did not read one of the books by Flannery O’Connor or William Faulkner. Somehow I was not in the mood for either, but I think I will read one of these books somewhere during the autumn-months.

Other great books

I read many more great books during the vacation and last week, but these three deserve a special mention.

11-22-63 by Stephen King is a huge book, it has 870 pages. And I read those in 1 ½ days. If you talk about books you cannot put down and are real page-turners, this is one of them. 
It is the story of a teacher who travels back in time to the year 1958 and tries to stop the murder of President Kennedy. I will not post a review, but I can tell you it is one of King’s best books in my opinion!

Augustus by John Williams is a beautiful novel about emperor Augustus. John Williams only wrote three books, and all of them are absolutely beautiful. I will post a review of this book later.

The last book I really want to recommend is the newest novel by French author Delphine de Vigan. The French title is D’après une histoire vraie and I do not think it has been translated into English yet. The moment there is an English translation, I will review it, because it is a beautiful book. Delphine de Vigan is an amazing writer and I just could not put this book down this weekend.

What am I reading now?

Yesterday I started in My cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier. I am reading this book with Lark and we will post a review of it on the 21th of September! I am looking forward to reading this book together, especially since we both love Rebecca very much. 

And I also started in The sealed letter by Emma Donoghue. Previously I read Slammerkin by her and I liked that book. 

This is also a historical novel and I hope I will enjoy it. I bought this book for just 3 euro’s in the Supermarket, how about that!