The Christmas period never really ends for me until twelfth night – I’m a bit attached to this concept and I’m not sure why. From a Christian perspective I believe it is when the Magi are said to have arrived in Bethlehem, but personally, I feel more in tune with pre-Christian rituals, to do with celebrations of the solstice and the importance of honouring the human instinct for quiet and a slower pace at this time of year, so I am very protective of the ‘downtime’ that follows the hectic Christmas preparations. For me it means time for reflection and, since I am fortunate to have a family, time together to relax and have fun.
So, I make no apology for launching my 2020 Reading Challenge one week into the new year, and here it is!
This is my fourth reading challenge and it has been hard to come up with new genres, so if my themes this year seem rather random, it’s because I was having to think outside the usual boxes.
I’m starting the year, the new decade, with a look back at the 2010s and have chosen what was one of the biggest selling books of the decade, and which became an international phenomenon – Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It was also critically acclaimed, although being at the more ‘popular’ end of the market, it wasn’t nominated for the usual high-profile literary awards. Published in 2014, I’m afraid I never read it; I confess I got it mixed up with Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train so for years I thought I had in fact read it! I’ve decided to do this one on an audiobook as it’s quite long and I have some car journeys coming up this month.
The book that closed off the 2019 Reading Challenge (a novella), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, was very short so I don’t feel too guilty about setting a long one for this month. Look out for my review of that book in the coming days.
I hope you will join me at some point on the Reading Challenge this year – why not start this month and pick up a copy of Gone Girl. I am sure there will be plenty of copies knocking around in charity shops – it sold 20 million after all! If you’d like to join us, why not hop over to the Facebook Reading Challenge Group now.
Enjoy your reading year – there are some exciting titles due to be published this year. More of that in another blog!
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Julia's books 
I don’t think I have the capacity to take on another challenge but this one definitely sounds like a lot of fun! I might have to keep an eye for 2021. Good luck with everything!
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Thank you, you too! 🙂
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That looks like a good reading challenge! I will stick with my local book club, we read some interesting books and try to be diverse in our choices. We actually read Gone Girl for our very first book club back when it was first published, and I really enjoyed it, considering it is not my preferred genre. I hope you enjoy it too 🙂
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I wasn’t expecting to like it too much but I’m absolutely gripped!
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