April, the Ban, and In Praise of Challenges

I have to say I was a little bit sceptical about Reading Challenges. Something didn't feel quite right.

Then again, I set myself challenges in other things, and I do like to have structure to reading, so why not?

It has turned out to be a very good decision indeed. Shortly I will try and deliver on my commitment to the Eastern Europe Challenge (this won't be too hard as I regularly read novels by Eastern Europeans) and the Argentina Challenge (I am going ot go there eventually).

I have been concentrating on Dorte's 2011 'Seven Continents' Global Challenge, three books from each of seven continents, with a couple of extra rules of my own just to spice it up. I am going on author's nationality rather than setting and I am only allowing writers I am reading for the first time. (The nationality criteria wasn't well thought through - I had also decided that science fiction might be the springboard for the seventh continent section so I am nominally committed to read three books written by extra-terrestrials....).

The Global Challenge was worth doing if only for the enjoyment of hunting down possible titles; I must have spent hours combing reviews, following Amazon "Customers who bought..." and checking Wikipedia entries for country of birth etc.

And I have read some splendid books. Thanks Dorte!

The best book I read in April was In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar's insightful and moving story of a boy growing up in post revolutionary Libya. Review to follow, five stars and already a strong contender for my favourite read of 2011.

I was also much impressed by Red April, by Santiago Roncagliolo - not everyone's cup of tea, apparently, but strongly recommended, and a book purchased, rather perversely, by a negative mention on Petrona, Splinter by Sebastian Fitzek (four star review to follow, Maxine!).

I also read Stratton's War, by Laura Wilson (and would probably read more by her if I wasn't so strongly drawn to John Lawton), and Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet, which is a guilty pleasure partly driven by my PR in Fiction project...

I suppose I could include Asa Larsson's Savage Altar in a challenge, but including Sweden would be like including England... 

   

Comments

[Dorte H]

You´re welcome!

And it is quite funny that even participants who are ´sceptical about reading challenges´ love to make their own, strict rules :D

[Maxine]

Hee hee! Even when being negative, I see I am still able to be evil (ie persuade people to obtain/read even more books!). There's a good new review of Red April here: http://www.crimesegments.com/2011/05/red-april-by-santiago-roncagliolo.html .

I guess we all have our idiosyncrasies and hence our own personal reading challenges - I am much less keen on "three shell-shocking twists per page" books (eg Splinter) these days, and similarly I find it hard to contemplate books with ritualised violence, or that dwell unnecessarily on pain.

On the crime fiction front, I enjoyed Thursday Night Widows and Nobody Loves a Policeman as examples of Argentinian crime. I also enjoyed the film The Secrets in their Eyes recently, and see that the novel is out (in translation) later this year.

[Philip]

Maxine, the thing that distinguishes a good reviewer is that you not only know when to go with her enthusiasms but you also know where your own taste diverges - Faber, Birkegaard etc. I bought the Secret in their Eyes on DVD following your mention, too...

I certainly don't regard violence as a selling point, but am more discouraged by low-key casual inclusion than more explicit description when it reflects a legitimate take on reality, as with Red April and, I suppose, In The Country of Men.

[Bernadette]

I did last year's global challenge using all new to me authors and it was fun tracking them all down. This year I am attempting to read more from my ridiculous amount of books I already own so I didn't add any extra restrictions but I still find the global challenge, and a few others, worth doing for prompting me to switch my reading around a bit.