20 Books of Summer 2025
A refreshed 20 Books of Summer challenge is upon us! Unlike last year, I do have 20 books to choose from, but it’s more realistic for me to commit to ten. My most successful 20 Books of Summer was my first, in 2019, when I read and reviewed 14 books, but I’ve never come close to that again. I join this challenge as an intention: to read these books (eventually) and to spend time writing reviews during the summer.
This year, new hosts have taken over for Cathy. I for one welcome our new overlords, AnnaBookBel and Words and Peace.
My list is another random assortment of books in my house or that could be in my house soon:
- Less by Andrew Sean Greer (cheating because I’m halfway through it now)
- The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen (carry over from last year)
- Athena by John Banville (the last in the Book of Evidence series)
- Small Boat by Vincent Delacroix tr. Helen Stevenson (an IBP shortlister)
- There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem tr. Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert (an IBP longlister)
- Playing Hard by Peter Unwin (a review copy, a collection of essays about games and sports)
- Don Quixote by Cervantes tr. Edith Grossman (I thought about doing a read along but I’m too lazy)
- Mornings Without Mii by Mayumi Inaba tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori (cover buy!)
- Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère tr. John Lambert (been on my TBR since I read this review)
- On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle tr. Barbara Haveland (next in the septology)
Join in and let’s review some books! I promise to comment on yours if you promise to comment on mine.
Reading in Bed 
A good-looking stack! The only one I’ve read is Don Quixote, which I see you’ve smartly balanced out with short books. DQ is pretty great but very odd and quite unlike the normal experience of reading a novel, so I’ll be very interested to hear what you make of it.
I am most excited for that one! Going in pretty much blind.
That looks like a great list! I have been meaning to try John Banville for a while, so I will be interested to know what you make of the book. I wasn’t going to join in with 20 Books of Summer this year (part of my blog scaling back), but you’ve inspired me with the way you put it – joining in as an intention to read the books eventually, and to review some of them over the summer.
That’s great! Yes, never take a book challenge too seriously. Banville is so good, this is the third in a series that starts with The Book of Evidence, I would highly recommend it.
I like the combo of long (and massively long) and short reads in your Summer10, but I bet those seemingly shorter books are actually the sort that LOOK short but actually take as much concentration as some doorstoppers. It’s been ages since I officially made any kind of list like this, but I think I always have one in the back of my mind that’s ticking away (and I have a couple lists like it, that I recently unearthed, thinking I might tidy up those unread residents therein). But either way, I love looking at other people’s plans for this event: what’s more fun than a booklist, after all.
Yeah I could probably draw Don Quixote out over the whole summer if I wanted to! I’m going to try and tackle it in August.
The Cervantes classic is one that, despite owning a copy to read for a couple of decades, I foolishly seem to have discarded in some house move – it was possibly falling apart. But I think Rabelais is calling me more strongly, and I do know I haven’t disposed of my 17C ‘translation’ of that yet!
Have you read Don Quixote? I read Gargantua and Pantagruel a couple years ago and it was tough going for me. I had a group reading it and they were all smarter than me, thank goodness, I needed the help!! You never know with books from that long ago, sometimes they’re easy to read, and sometimes you REALLY feel the time and distance.
I’ve read extracts from Cervantes — which is to say, No, I haven’t read Don Quixote! I’ve got the 17C Thomas Urquhart and Peter Motteaux ‘translation’ of the four books which, for all its free adaptation of Rabelais’s text, I’ve dipped into extensively and enjoyed. I’ve even got the ‘Fifth Book’ in a French edition, not by Rabelais, because of its seeming parody of the holy grail quest! Sometime I’ll give it a proper go, even if it – as with you – proves to be tough going.
I’m reading Mornings without Mii at the moment! A great choice and it will tie in with Reading the Meow next week should you so choose :))
Oh good call. I am a little wary of it to be honest, I’m still grieving my cat and I’m sure you are too. The title is suggestive of loss. It would be nice to have some other cat-oriented readers to commiserate with!
I’m at 45% and Mii is still alive and well … but I certainly have come to expect that stories of life with a beloved pet will involve a decline and a goodbye. To balance it out, I have a bunch of other potential cat-themed reads.
P.S. Confusingly, the UK publication chose the title “Mornings with My Cat Mii.”
Lovely list, even though I have only read your #7.A few if your titles quality also for #ParisinJUl2025, so maybe read these in July?Here is for more fun: https://wordsandpeace.com/2025/05/16/paris-in-july-2025/
Oh good call! I just finished Less, and he spends some time in Paris. On The Calculation of Volume probably qualifies too, and maybe Small Boat? And I just started Yoga, technically he’s outside of Paris at a retreat but I feel like we will head back there soon 🙂
Yes, French authors do qualify for #ParisinJuly2025
I’m hoping I rescued my Cervantes from a house we just sold. Worryingly, I can see it on the shelf in that house but can’t find it now. But I’ve not yet succeeded in reading it.
A nice pile with some shorter books (how I wish I’d made a pile with some shorter books!). Enjoy!
I like your list! Except maybe Don Quixote (not that I’ve read it). I’ve just bought the second instalment in the Calculation of Volume on Kindle, be interested to see what you make of it.
Ha ha! I hope I didn’t over egg Yoga, though I did love it (and Emmanuel Carrère in general). Very interested to hear what you make of it.
The bad news is, I didn’t like it. The good news is, I’m not sorry I read it and have lots of thoughts. Working on my review now!
That’s a great selection of books, especially Don Quixote and I am curious about There’s a Monster Behind the Door. I have a gorgeous edition of Don Quixote, which I want to read and always put it off (it’s huge, perhaps any readathon would have promoted me!), though I read the story before. I read Less, but though there are things I liked, overall it did not quite work for me, and the fact that I don’t remember much now means that nothing stayed with me.