reading challenges

The weather remains consistently dismal at the moment. By my reckoning it's rained for at least 48 days straight this month, and we've still got a week of wet weather ahead of us, according to forecasters.


I have managed to get outside, despite the rain, for walks around the block, along the seafront, into town, any walk that gives me exercise and gets me some fresh air is good in my book. And speaking of books, what this weather is perfect for is staying indoors, on the sofa, nose buried in a good read.

I noticed this poster, below, on a visit to my favourite second-hand bookshop in town - Oxfam Books. I don't know if this is a new initiative from them, I've not been aware of it before, but I'm definitely here for it. Love Stories is the theme for this month. I don't generally go for romance as a genre, but I'm happy if a book I'm reading contains a love story, as long as it's not the main focus of the plot. Yesterday, I finished Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which tells the story (spoiler alert) of a love that starts all starry eyed and passionate, and sours into betrayal and madness. It's a short read; 150 pages. And it's a prequel, of sorts, to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, telling the story of a young Rochester marrying a young Antoinette, in Jamaica, and how they get from that situation to her being locked in the attic at Thornfield Hall. The book has a great cast of memorable characters and some wonderfully descriptive writing. But I didn't read this deliberately to fit Oxfam's theme of the month, that was a happy accident.

I've written before about how I try to be steered by #booktube recommendations, especially during monthly themed reads on there. And during the month of March, one of the more popular events on BookTube is March of the Mammoths. A 'Mammoth' for this event is defined as a book of 800 pages or more, fiction or non. Last year, for this event, I read The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantell. This year I have chosen to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. My copy is 806 pages long, so it just squeaks into the category of Mammoth. Also, I already own a copy of this book, the Wordsworth Classic version, which is great because I am still invested in the BookTube Read What You Own challenge (as discussed in my December '23 post) and I don't have to go out and purchase a copy. Also, again by happenstance, my choice of a book where the central protagonist is a woman will fit neatly into Oxfam's chosen category for March; International Women's Day.



Photo is the author's own

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