Project Read the World: September Update

It's the beginning of October. There are 3 months left in 2020, and I'm only 13 books away from hitting my yearly goal of reading 100 books. I set that goal every year, but I never actually read that many books. Even though I'm reading significantly more than I normally do, I still feel like I'm not spending enough time reading. Which makes zero sense.

This month, 3 of the books that I read counted towards my project to read a book from every country in the world. I keep thinking that I'll have a month where I read more than 3 books for this project, but that hasn't happened yet. I literally finished reading the 3rd book for September on the 30th.

September books for Project RW: 3

Total books: 11/195

The Books

Norway - The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen

Ingrid Barroy lives on an island inhabited only by her family members. Her parents work hard to make life survivable on a tiny amount of land located in Norway's harsh climate. The book shouldn't be as captivating as it is. It's full of long, detailed descriptions and very little action, but there's something fascinating about following the life of this family. This book is the first in a series, and while I don't think that I will read any more of the series, I did enjoy the book.

Haiti - Pride by Ibi Zoboi

When I borrowed this book from the library, I thought that I was just checking out a fun, YA retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Zuri Benitez lives in Brooklyn with her four sisters. The neighborhood is gentrifying, and the rich Darcy family moves in next door. The plot continues in the satisfying manner you would expect given the source material. As I was reading, I noticed that the Benitez family had a Haitian-Dominican background, and when I read the author notes, I realized that the author, Ibi Zoboi, was born in Haiti. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I was happy to find out that it would count towards this project. This version of Pride and Prejudice stayed true to the spirit of the story while addressing modern issues. It's a great read for fans of the original.

Lebanon - One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan Al-Shaykh

Al-Shaykh's One Thousand and One Nights is an edited retelling of the collection of Middle Eastern folktales that are commonly known as Arabian Nights. The frame of the story involves a king who marries a new bride each night and has her killed in the morning. His newest wife comes up with a plan to tell him stories at night, and he allows her to live through the next day in order to continue the tales. In her version, Al-Shaykh chose to include 19 stories, all of which focus on relationship tension between men and women. When reading, the stories felt a bit like Grimm's fairy tales, fantastical, improbable, and often disturbing. I wouldn't describe the book as fun to read. The stories often have unhappy endings, but it was interesting to read folktales that I had never heard before.

What's Next

I have 3 books lined up to read for October already. I've just finished 1 of them so far. Two of them have been checked out of the library for several weeks now, so I'm hoping that the deadline of needing to turn them back in soon will prompt me to start and finish them in a timely manner.

Last month I mentioned that I was not going to be requesting any more books from the library until I finished the books I already had checked out as well as some of the books that I already own. There are 12 books, including the 3 that I mentioned in the previous paragraph, that I need to read before I get more library books.

As much as I'd like to finally read more than 3 books a month for this project, I just don't know if that's going to happen in October. I have been an extremely moody reader lately. I do have a list of ebooks that I'd like to begin reading after I get done with the ones I have, so at least I'll have some books ready to go if I do manage to finish 12 books before the end of October.

Feel free to follow along on Instagram or on Goodreads for more frequent updates. If I start to get overwhelmed with updating here, I'm more likely to still keep updating on those two sites.