August was another good month for me - the highlight being our extreme day trip to Valladolid in Spain to see the total eclipse. This was our fifth eclipse, making us true umbraphiles I think, and it was certainly special as it came shortly before sunset giving many new colours and experiences. Full photos of the experience can be found on my Flickr page and as Valladolid was the birth place of Cervantes I think that a forthcoming reading project should be for me to read Don Quixote.
Reading wise I did spend a lot of time reading for the excellent Women In Translation month and will round up my full thoughts in a separate post soon. I missed the Reading Around the World book group as I was eclipse chasing but by all accounts they all enjoyed visiting Scotland and at our September meeting we'll be visiting Italy.
As for me I visited 16 countries (if you include the UK and USA) by book and 7 were new for my map - Central African Republic, Mauretania, Bahrain, Gabon, DRC, Moldova, and Thailand. The books set in the USA were mainly ones for a reading project and so didn't add any new states to my list sadly.
Top reads of the month definitely Nicola Chester's Ghosts of the Farm, which I talked about earlier and The Man Who Read Books by Rachid Benzine (tr. Sam Taylor). Honourable mention to the Booker longlisted May We Feed The King by Rebecca Perry which I found fun and also recognised myself in - as when I start researching something I'm interested in I can easily fall down rabbit holes...
Thoughts on more of the translations soon!
