Having – somewhat to my surprise – filled an entire bingo card on the Indie Challenge last year, I had a vague idea of quitting while I was ahead, and not doing any reading challenges this year. Then I was messing around on Twitter and found a couple that looked a) interesting and b) manageable.
- The #EU27 project. This involves reading one book from each of the 27 EU countries that aren’t the UK. I’m late to the party on this one, as it began when Article 50 was triggered, and here we are over two years later. I’m going to miss being part of the European Union, and I rather like the idea of this challenge as a way to remain connected with the rest of Europe in at least a small way. I will write up books from this challenge on this blog. The majority will be translations: my French is good enough to read Jules Verne in the original, if not Colette (mind you, I get bogged down in Colette in English, too) but I don’t think I can say the same for my smattering of German and Spanish, let alone my opera fan Italian – and that’s as far as my languages go.
- #TBR20, which involves making one’s first twenty reads of the year books which one already possesses, and which appears to be a descendant of the TBR Dare (which involved reading only books that one already possessed for the first three months of the year). Since I’m likely moving house in March, this seems like a useful discipline, and I’m going to go for both goals: the first twenty and the first three months. I won’t be reporting back on these unless they also count towards #EU27.
The other thing I’m trying to do is use Goodreads and LibraryThing more. I don’t do star ratings, which in my experience are pretty much meaningless, but I will be posting text reviews. We’ll see how it goes…
#EU27project
Denmark: A Poet’s Bazaar (Hans Christian Andersen)
Germany: What Remains (Christa Wolf)
Italy: The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)
Ireland: Landing (Emma Donoghue)
Spain: Nada (Carmen Laforet)
Kathleen Jowitt 
Oh, I like the idea of the #EU27 project! How will you choose your books?
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I’ll start by seeing what I’ve got in the house – I found possibilities for Denmark and Germany without having to search too hard; I’ve got the Divine Comedy somewhere, for Italy, and I could do Finland, the Netherlands and Norway if I were to reread things. I think when I’ve exhausted those possibilities I’ll start asking for recommendations…!
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What did you find for Germany?
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What Remains and other stories – Christa Wolf
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Oh, yay, so pleased to hear you are taking part in the #EU27 project! I have been neglecting it lately, but I have a few countries (or quite a few, rather) still to go, and I intend to complete it by the end of the year.
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