European Reading Challenge Wrapup 2025

 

I read my last European book a while ago as it turned out, but you never know...

I visited nine countries by review this year, over the five I pledged for the challenge, but not all the countries I did visit--some reviews never got written. But here's the ones that did:

1.) Anabel Loyd/The Dervish Bowl (Slovakia)

2.) Volker Weidermann/Ostend (Belgium)

3.) Angus Wilson/Hemlock & After (U.K.)

4.) Janwillem van de Wetering/Tumbleweed (Netherlands)

5.) Rüdiger Safranski/Goethe: Life as a Work of Art (Germany)

6.) Tim Blanning/Augustus the Strong (Poland)

7.) Ford Madox Ford/Parade's End (France)

8.) Patricia Moyes/Death on the Agenda (Switzerland)

9.) Cesare Pavese/The Moon and the Bonfires (Italy)

 

No new countries visited this year.  The standout visits this year were Germany and France.

 

Now to post the signup for the new year! 

  

European Reading Challenge Wrapup 2024

 

 

Another ERC wrapped. I signed up for the Jet Setter level of five books, and once again surpassed that. Here's the final list:

1.) Stephen Budiansky/Journey to the Edge of Reason  (Austria)

2.) Goethe/Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (Germany)

3.) Konstantin Stanislavski/My Life in Art (Russia)

4.) Virginia Woolf/The Waves (U.K.)

5.) Carlo Levi/Christ Stopped at Eboli (Italy)

6.) Serhiy Zhadan/The Orphanage (Ukraine)

7.) Ana Blandiana/The Architecture of Waves (Romania)

8.) Josef Skvoreçky/The End of Lieutenant Boruvka (Czech Republic)

9.) James Baldwin/Giovanni's Room (France)

10.) Kurban Said/Ali and Nino (Azerbaijan)

11.) Sholem Aleichem/Wandering Stars (Moldova)

12.) J. G. Farrell/Troubles (Ireland)

13.) Kurban Said/The Girl from the Golden Horn (Bosnia)

14.) Tom Reiss/The Orientalist (Turkey)

15.) Henrik Ibsen/Rosmerholm (Norway)

The best countries this year for me were Azerbaijan and Ireland, with Ali and Nino in particular being a real surprise and delight. Troubles was a reread, so I knew the fun I was letting myself in for with that one. This is the first year since I've been doing this challenge (that's since 2018) that there's not a new country on the list, which is a little disappointing, especially since I've got a book set in Slovenia on my reading stack. 

Thanks again to Gilion for hosting! The signup for the new year is here.

European Reading Challenge Wrapup 2023

 

Well, I squeezed in one last book review just yesterday, but there will be no more squeezing in, and my bookish travels in Europe are done for the year. The final list:

1.) Henry James/The Wings of the Dove (Italy)

2.) Robert Gerwarth/November 1918 (Germany)

3.) Eric Ambler/The Levanter (Cyprus)

4.) Samuel Butler/The Way of All Flesh (UK)

5.) Victor Gruen/Shopping Town (Austria)

6.) Honoré de Balzac/Cousin Bette (France)

7.) Georgi Gospodinov/Time Shelter (Bulgaria)

8.) Robert Aickman/Go Back At Once (Croatia)

9.) Olga Tokarczuk/The Books of Jacob (Poland)

10.) Ivo Andrić/Omer Pasha Latas (Bosnia)

11.) Owen Matthews/Overreach (Russia)

12.) Anna Comnena/The Alexiad (Turkey)

13.) Josef Škvorecky/Sins For Father Knox (Czech Republic)

14.) Janwillem van de Wetering/Outsider in Amsterdam (Netherlands)

15.) Homer/The Iliad (tr. Emily Wilson) (Greece)

16.) Leah Horlick/Moldovan Hotel (Moldova)

17.) Herta Müller/The Fox Was Ever the Hunter (Romania)

Seventeen isn't my best ever number for this challenge, but is pretty good for me, and is in any case well over the five I pledged for. 

There are two new countries I haven't previously visited for this challenge: Cyprus and Moldova. There continue to be six I've visited every year: Italy, Germany, the UK, Austria, France, and Romania. This year's best visits were Poland and Italy, though Croatia was fun and quirky, too.

Thanks again to Gilion for hosting!

European Reading Challenge Wrapup for 2022

And...it's a wrap!

2022 is now over and so are my travels by book to Europe. This is one of the best challenges going as far as I'm concerned and I had a great time again with it this year. Here's my final list of books and countries:

1.) Andrey Kurkov/Death and the Penguin (Ukraine)

2.) Kate O'Brien/Farewell Spain (Spain)

3.) Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun/Memoirs (France)

4.) Charles King/The Black Sea: A History (Romania)

5.) Thomas Pynchon/V. (Malta)

6.) Marc David Baer/The Ottomans (Turkey)

7.) Douglas Dunn/The Donkey's Ears (Russia)

8.) Charles King/The Ghost of Freedom (Azerbaijan)

9.) Heimito von Doderer/The Strudlhof Steps (Austria)

10.) Gershom Scholem/Sabbatai Sevi (Montenegro)

11.) Oliver Goldsmith/The Vicar of Wakefield (U.K.)

12.) Vicki Baum/Grand Hotel (Germany)

13.) Shirley Hazzard/Greene on Capri (Italy)

Over the years I've done this, thirteen is not my best number, and nor is it my worst, but in any case it is well over the five to meet the challenge. These were my first challenge visits to Malta and Azerbaijan, and there continue to be six countries I've visited every year: France, Germany, Austria, U.K., Italy, and Romania. My favorite visits this year were Malta (well, a reread for me), Austria, the U.K., and Italy.

Thanks to Gilion for hosting once again!

Are you visiting in 2023?

European Reading Challenge 2021 Wrapup

 

Well, another year is done and that means I'm done going over the top on another European Reading Challenge. It turned out to be a very good year for traveling...by book. Here's my final list:

1.) Helen MacInnes' North From Rome. Italy

2.) Howard Pyle's Men of Iron. UK

3.) Georgi Gospodinov's The Physics of Sorrow. Bulgaria

4.) Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters Written in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Sweden

5.) Alex Ross' Wagnerism. Germany

6.) R. L. Stevenson's Travels With a Donkey. France

7.) Robert Kanigel's Hearing Homer's Song. Montenegro

8.) Ivo Andrić' The Bridge on the Drina. Bosnia

9.) Patricia Moyes' Death on the Night Ferry. Netherlands

10.) Halldór Laxness' Independent People. Iceland

11.) Tacitus' Annals. Armenia

12.) Amélie Nothomb's Tokyo Fiancée. Belgium

13.) Sholem Aleichem's In The Storm. Ukraine

14.) Josef Skvorecky's Lieutenant Boruvka. Czechia

15.) Mateiu Caragiale's Rakes of the Old Court. Romania

16.) Eça de Queirós' The City and the Mountains. Portugal

17.) Longus' Daphnis and Chloe. Greece

18.) Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days. Austria

19.) Emma Lathen's Double, Double, Oil and Trouble. Switzerland

If I'd written about just one more, I could have gotten it up to a round 20. Oh, well...

This is one of the best challenges going for me. Thanks again to Gilion for hosting. The signup for the new version is out. I need to do it!

European Reading Challenge 2020 Wrapup

 

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts a challenge to visit European countries by reading books set in them; this is one of the funnest challenges going as far as I'm concerned. My evidence this is true? It's the one I go the most over the top with and this year has been no different. And it was the only form of travel possible for most of this year.

The Deluxe tour is five countries. I visited a few more than that...

1.) Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. (UK)
2.) Henry James' The American. (France)
3.) Joan B. Flood's Left Unsaid. (Ireland)
4.) Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra. (Spain)
5.) Arthur Schnitzler's Late Fame. (Austria)
6.) Nino Haratischvili's The Eighth Life (For Brilka). (Georgia)
7.) Karel Čapek's R.U.R. (Czech Republic)
8.) Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. (Norway)
9.) I. B. Singer's In My Father's Court. (Poland)
10.) Henrik Pontoppidan's Lucky Per. (Denmark)
11.) Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. (Russia)
12.) Anna Seghers' Transit. (Germany)
13.) Amelie Nothomb's Life Form. (Belgium)
14.) Matei Calinescu's Zacharias Lichter. (Romania)
15.) Susan Sontag's The Volcano Lover. (Italy)

My favorite countries this year were Russia, Denmark, and France.

This was my third year taking part. No surprise, I guess, that I visited the UK, France, Germany, and Italy all three years. A little more surprising was that I got to Poland and Austria each year. (Well, Austria is not that surprising. I'm a big Vienna-ophile...) The real surprise was I've been to Romania all three years. Maybe it's a sign I need to go in person? 

Thanks to Gilion for hosting! The signup for the new year is available. I need to do it!

2019 European Reading Challenge Wrapup

It's been quite the European tour this year, but it's time to acknowledge it's over...I didn't go quite as over-the-top as I did last year, but I still passed the Five Star level and then some, for a final total of twelve countries. Still I wonder more at the ones I missed. (What? Nothing from Russia this year?)

Here's my final list:

1.) Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday. Austria.
2.) Robert Gerwarth's The Vanquished: Why The First World War Failed To End. Latvia.
3.) Boreslav Pekic' Houses. Serbia.
4.) Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Italy.
5.) Endre Farkas' Never, Again. Hungary.
6.) Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad. Poland.
7.) Eric Ambler's The Light of Day. Turkey.
8.) Mircea Cartarescu's Blinding. Romania.
9.) Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian. France.
10.) Hannah Arendt's Men in Dark Times. Germany
11.) George Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life. UK.
12.) Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. Monaco.

Thanks to Gilion for hosting and looking forward to the new edition!

2018 European Reading Challenge Wrapup

Well, it's time to accept I won't be reading any more books this year for Gilion's European Reading Challenge at her blog Rose City Reader. I completed this one at five books a while back, but I was having so much fun I just kept going, ending up with a total of 16 books. And I kept thinking I'd read just one more. There's Iceland (Laxness), Denmark (Nors), and Serbia or Montenegro (Pekič) piled up by my reading chair. And I can't believe I missed Ireland. But I guess those all remain for next year.

Here's my final list:

1.) The Odyssey. (tr. by Emily Wilson) Greece
2.) Arthur Schnitzler's Casanova's Return To Venice. Austria
3.) Jorge Carrión's Bookshops: A Reader's History. Spain
4.) Italo Calvino's The Baron In The Trees. Italy
5.) Amélie Nothomb's Pétronille. Belgium
6.) George Eliot's Silas Marner. UK
7.) Duc de la Rochefoucauld's Maxims. France
8.) Olga Tokarczuk's Flights. Poland
9.) Yevgeny Zamyatin's We. Russia
10.) Herta Müller's The Land Of Green Plums. Romania
11.) Ismail Kadare's Broken April. Albania
12.) Dubravka Ugresic' Fox. Croatia
13.) Romain Rolland's Jean-Christophe. Switzerland
14.) Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Monaco
15.) Jenny Erpenbeck's Go, Went, Gone. Germany
16.) Antonio Tabucchi's Time Ages In A Hurry. Hungary

For me, the best book on that list was probably the least exotic: George Eliot's Silas Marner. Maxims and The Baron In The Trees were rereads (so I must like them.) But there wasn't a bad book on it, and Ugresic' latest novel Fox was a real revelation, as was Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey. Hint: it's not too late to sign up for the new year.

Thanks to Gilion for hosting!