To be honest, I’m not exactly sure which months constitute summer nowadays in our damaged climate; but I always consider the end of that season to be the time when I go back to work after the long mid-year break, and despite having to do that, I am fond of autumn… I generally try to fit in more reading during August while I don’t have the daily distraction of the paying job, traditionally including at least one chunkster, and I’m pleased that this year was no different.

For once, I actually made (modest!) reading plans and actually stuck to them! Admittedly, I was pretty sure I wanted to read the books in question, and they fitted in with a couple of reading challenges. So in the spirit of Andy Miller (!) here is an image of what I read during August (and bear in mind that there still may be reviews to follow as I’m always a bit behind):

I was particularly pleased (as I made fairly obvious!) to read Victor Serge’s Notebooks – strongly tipped for my read of the year. But there wasn’t really a dud amongst them; even the one that made me pause a bit (“The Marquise of O-“) was strange and interesting, and very cleverly written. And I was really happy about getting back to reading so many women writers, especially Women in Translation; this is a wonderful initiative, set up and championed by Meytal Radzinski, and I hope to keep taking part.

So – onward into September and autumn. Do I have plans? Maybe – above are some possibles…  I’m continuing to make a dent in the review pile (all of which are books I actually *want* to read); and I have amassed quite a selection of non-fiction works I hope to get to soon-ish as well (including all the pretty Fitzcarraldo editions which may have made their way into the house after their recent sale – here they are…)

Plus there’s an awful lot of classic crime lurking and any number of charity shop finds, as well as some interesting Russians from Glagoslav. I’m not going to make any specific plans, however, because with work pressures I want to leave myself as free as possible to follow the reading muse. I’m currently in the middle of the wonderful book below by Ian Penman from Fitzcarraldo Editions, but after that who knows? Watch this space!! 😀