2020 Read Your Shelves Book Challenge

I am taking a short break from the Sicilian travel writing that has been posted lately to add this years 2020 Read Your Shelves book challenge. This is the third year of that particular challenge and before too much of the new year passes by, I'd like to post it. Much of this blog is book related, so here it goes- with the posting of this years challenge! There's more travel writing to follow in the coming months and other intriguing and interesting subjects just waiting to be explored this year!

Read Your Bookshelves Challenge 2020

Introduction: Read books you already have on your bookshelves! Tackle a goal that is not meant to overwhelm you-with 12 books already sitting in your house! Choose those 12 books however you want, and set yourself up for success -select your 12 books and just go for it! If you happen to not have 12 books, yet unread, in your house it's a perfect opportunity to get to know your local library or perhaps use a gift card you received as a Christmas present to get some books you have been wanting, but, you might want to change the title of the challenge to fit your circumstances though!

This is my third year doing the 'read your shelves challenge' and it has become one of my favorites because I generally always read more than 12 books a year, so I can realistically do it and I get to enjoy the books I've already collected but have not read yet.

2020 List: This year instead of just randomly taking books off shelves, I put a book I did not get to from last years challenge first on my list and then chose books I was most interested in from the shelves. Here's the list...

1. The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. I've been wanting to read something by this author ever since I picked up a few books by him at the thrift shop. This was on my challenge list last year but I did not put too much effort into actually trying to read it. I read many other books but this one slipped by me, so I have made it a priority this year. 
2. Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver. I enjoyed The Bean Trees by this author and had picked up some other titles by her on one of my haunts at the thrift shop.
3. Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre. This was on some 'best of genre' lists, an older title I had acquired from a desire to read more classic SF. It might not enjoy present popularity but is supposedly a 'classic' SF book (from 1978).
4. The Medical Detectives by Berton Roueche. A Non-fiction title related to my profession.
5. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Collection of Ghost Stories from 1898, satisfies my interest in Gothic Literature.
6. Adrift on the Haunted Seas by W. Hope Hodgson. Collection of classic sea stories by an acknowledged master of the genre.
   
   
   
   
   
7. Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. A YA offering that has been sitting on my shelf and I wanted to preview it for some tweens I know.
8. Vampire Knight vol.1 by Matsuri Hino. Part of an ongoing interest in exploring graphic novels.
9. Thunderhead by Richard Preston and Lincoln Child. I am a fan of this pairs Agent Pendergast novels so when I find other works by them at the used book shop I snap them up.
10. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, one that has been sitting on my shelf for a few years with supposedly good reviews, but I don't know much about it.
11. The Woman Who Walked in the Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith. A continuation of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Over the years I have been slowly reading through the series.
12. The Changeling Sea by Patricia McKillip. Fantasy work by an author that was recommended to me in a Library Thing book exchange.
    
    

Other reading goals for this year: Most of these I don't already own so they could not be part of the above mentioned challenge. 1.Read the newest Preston and Child Agent Pendergast book when it is released. 2.Read one or some Hamish MacBeth cozy detective novels (by M.C. Beaton) as a preview to visiting Scotland. 3.Read an Elizabeth Peters novel since I picked up several of them at the thrift shop, but already had my 12 challenge books picked. 4. Read the next installment of the Expanse series (SF) by James S.A. Corey.