Last year I tried something new – I started a second Instagram account purely dedicated to reading. Mid year I had joined a reading challenge and, finding my main account being increasingly taken over by books and reading, I decided I wanted a dedicated space where I could talk about books and reading, and engage with others doing the same.

It has been a wonderful experience, quite transformative, and so this year with social media platforms becoming increasingly problematic, I decided to share more book related chat here on the blog and website. The ‘Book Corner’ will a new addition to the menu bar and will be the place to go to find all things bookish.

One of the main benefits of joining this community and joining an in-person book group that ran for part of the year, was being reminded of just how wonderful it is to talk about books and hear other peoples’ perspectives. More than that though, it reminded me of the excitement of sharing one’s unbounded passion for books with people who actually get it.

Another benefit was that the more I thought more about my own reading choices and read other peoples’ reviews and recommendations, I made much better choices about what to read, and so I enjoyed it so much more. It created a virtuous circle of choosing better, enjoying it more, sharing the experience and being exposed to more, and relevant recommendations for subsequent reads.

The Challenge I joined mid way through the year was the #EuropeanReadingChallenge hosted by @GilioncDumas of Rose City Reader on both their website and instagram.

Despite starting late I did meet the 5 or more books for the 5 star deluxe entourage level, however, I had started the challenge with aspirations to read much more European literature than these 6 titles suggest. Especially when I kicked off the challenge with the wonderful ‘The Door’ by Magda Szabo which I absolutely loved.

While I had feared that by the very act of signing a challenge might introduce a little bit of a hurdle, taking away spontaneity and resisting the structure, even I was a little surprised at the different ways I failed to meet my own stretch goals!

1.) I ended up reading multiple books from the same countries rather than moving on 
2.) I ended up being distracted by recommendations and reading groups 
3.) Geopolitical developments led me to read books from around the world to better understand them

So these are the 6 books I did finish, representing Germany, Bosnia Herzegovina, Poland, Scotland, Hungary and Italy:

In this small selection of 6 books, 4 were 5 star reads for me and all have left a mark. As I said, the more I thought about what to read next, the better decisions I made. 

This may seem obvious but during the extended period of moving house, moving overseas, building work, settling in, and wrestling a garden into some sort of shape, I just reached for the nearest detective fiction and being a finisher, finished some books that left me resenting the time I’d invested in them… I still love detective fiction but with this genre, as with all my reading, I’m a lot pickier now and I’m reaping the rewards.

So having benefited so greatly from the 2024 #EuropeanReadingChallenge I thought I’d add a couple more challenges for 2025.

My Italian Literature Challenge

This year I want to read more Italian fiction and authors – most will be in translation but I have a few to read primarily in Italian with a back up translated version to draw on when I get stuck or think I’m missing something.

This has been prompted by my library volunteering. As I’ve been cataloguing our book donations, a large proportion of which are not surprisingly by Italian authors, I’ve realised how little Italian literature I’ve read! So I’ve come up with my own challenge and hashtag #Read_IT_2025 :

I intended to kick off with Tim Parks ‘A Literary Tour of Italy’. I saw this online and thought it may provide context. It’s chunky, small type, starts way earlier than I’m planning and of the 24 writers included, only two are women; Elsa Morante and Natalia Ginzburg.

I have to say I’ve found this heavy going. Whilst Park writes in the introduction of starting his language and literature learning journey with more recent writers and working back to earlier Italian authors, the book starts the other way round, deep in the past and works forward. I’ll maybe review this more if I ever reach the more recent writers included but I fear it will require some deep breaths and a stern talking to, to pick this back up.

Thankfully my stack has a few more enticing reads and more women including:

Jhumpa Lahiri’s, ‘In Other Words’ – an autobiographical work written in Italian and English investigating the process of learning to express oneself in another language. This dual language format means I can work between the two languages. 

Accabadora by Michaela Murgia was reviewed by one of our interns for the library Instagram account. It sounded so interesting that I was really keen to get a copy in translation and came across this while Christmas shopping in the local indie bookstore.

So as of April, with Parks having derailed me I think perhaps I need to re-think my strategy here and just pick something on mood to get me started.

#TBR25in25

This, my second challenge, is also hosted by Gilion of Rose City Readers. At the beginning of the year when I committed to the challenge I found it really hard to narrow down my ‘to be read’ list to just 25 books.

Every time I looked at this stack I thought of other books that could be in it, and indeed I have read a fair few books already that aren’t in this stack…

This pile wasn’t meant to be limiting or exclusive. The idea of having this pile was that I should ever get to that point when I want something to read, but wasn’t what, I’d have a pile of books I know that I want to read.

So far I’m reading books 3 and 4 of this pile. One is a collection of short stories, the other a novel. So far, despite tangents, this pile is a winner.

If you want to know what I thought of them, short reviews are on my Bookstagram and I’ll do a round up once I’ve read 5 from here.

In this #TBR25in25 and my #Read_IT_2025, I have the books to fulfil the #EuropeanReadingChallenge and most of the books for my final challenge.

#Reading the World 2025

This challenge is hosted by Audrey, aka Hook.Me.a.Book , on Instagram where there is a really energetic chat group full of recommendations. As a result I fear my ‘To Be Read’ list will get longer rather than shorter no matter how much I read!

The aim of this challenge is to read 24 books in the year, each from a different country. The idea to broaden our horizons through literature is one I love, and I picked my #TBR25in25 pile with this in mind.

Of the 12 books I’ve read this year, I’ve been to Algeria, Japan and France and I’m currently dividing my time between Poland and Bosnia Herzegovina. I have read other books that could represent other countries, but for this challenge I wanted the place to be more than just a backdrop so I only include books where I feel that either, the place is almost a character itself, or that I learn something significant about the place as a result of reading the book.

So now we’re in April I’m feeling that a few of these challenges may be a bit of a stretch. Once again I’m being derailed all too easily and reading based on mood rather than plans, but I’m still really enjoying it, and that’s what really matters.

As I’ve said, I will be sharing more about books and reading here but in the meantime, do feel free to follow me on Instagram or on Bluesky where I will try to share book posts too.

If you’re interest in my best reads from last year, I have a list of my 2024 5 star reads in my Uk.bookshop.org store.

Here I include my reviews so you can see why I think they’re so good and maybe get a sense whether they’re your cup of tea.

From my storefront you can also see my list of fiction favourites – just click on ‘View all’ and you can see the reviews there too.

I am an affiliate of Uk.bookshop so if you buy from here I do get a small commission, but I really want to promote this site and its American counterpart because they also support small independent bookshops, so if you don’t have a bookstore in your area, they’re a great online alternative. If you’d prefer to shop second hand, World of Books may be a suitable alternative and they post worldwide.

Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy the Booktalk and join in. If there’s anything in my various stacks that you’ve read, I’d love to know what you thought. I happy for various titles to move up the lists. Also, if you take on these challenges: How do you find them? Are they motivating or do you find yourself rebelling against yourself? Do let me know.

Until next time,

Happy knitting, crafting and reading.

Txxx