Update on 9th Canadian Book Challenge

On a quiet Saskatchewan March evening with winter starting to wind down I am taking a look at my progress in the 9th Canadian Book Challenge which runs from July 1 to June 30 with the reader striving to read 13 Canadian authored books for the 10 Canadian provinces and 3 territories. The Challenge is hosted at the fine Book Mine Set blog of John Mutford. It happens that I have now read 9 books for the 9th Challenge.

They are:

     1.) No Known Grave by Maureen Jennings;

     2.) Plague by C.C. Humphreys;

     3.) Booked for Trouble by Eva Gates;

     4.) Another Margaret by Janice MacDonald;

     5.) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley;

     6.) The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny - Part I and Part II;

     7.) Tropéano’s Gun by John Brooke;

     8.) The Women of Skawa Island by Anthony Bidulka; and,

     9.) The Night Bell by Inger Ash Wolfe.

I have 5 more Canadian books already lined up for reading:

     1.) The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley;

     2.) A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley;

     3.) The Heart of Hell by Alen Mattich;

     4.) The Scottish Banker of Surabaya by Ian Hamilton; and,

     5.) The Wail of the Wendigo by Steve Pitt (An Early Adventure
     of Pierre Trudeau).

There is a 6th I will be reading for the Challenge which is the book I am most anxious to read. It is What's Left Behind by Gail Bowen which was just released on Monday. It will be the 16th Joanne Kilbourn mystery. I will buy a copy on my next trip to a city with a bookstore. 

Of the books already read my favourite new character is 11 year old Flavia de Luce in the series by Alan Bradley. I will have read 3 of the books in the series during the current Challenge. I am reading them both for pleasure and to give me information for the article I am writing on Saskatchewan mysteries for the third volume of The Saskatchewan Literary History.

I try not to forecast the future but I am optimistic I will complete the 9th Canadian Book Challenge.