The end! I did it! And it was the most fun. I’ll do a bit of a round up about the experience, but first – today’s book: Albert’s World Tour (1978) by Rosemary Weir.
I suspect it’s a coincidence that it’s as the 25 days finishes, but I’ve come down with a horrible cold today – and I couldn’t face reading anything more demanding than a children’s book. Growing up, I loved the Albert the Dragon stories – or, more particularly, Further Adventures of Albert the Dragon, which is the one we read most I think. We certainly didn’t have the third, fourth, and fifth in the series – and I decided to buy them up earlier this year. Though only found the fourth and fifth cheaply – and accidentally just read the fifth (for such is Albert’s World Tour) out of order.
Albert is a vegetarian dragon who, as the series starts, is rather feared by the community – but a little boy called Tony becomes friends with him, and the villagers soon realise that Albert only sets fire to things by accident. As the books continue, he has quickly-resolved but rather lovely adventures – and in this book, they decide to fly around the world. They visit Rome, China, and generic-Africa, so job done.
What I loved (and still love) about these books is Albert’s gentle, lovable character, and Weir’s way of putting slightly awkward conversation in the mouths of dragons, unicorns, wizards, and so forth. It’s all very charming, even without the nostalgia I have for the books. And I rather suspect seaweed-eating Albert is, deep down, the reason I’m vegetarian.
So, I haven’t finished on great literature, but it certainly worked with how grotty and tired I’m feeling…
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And the 25 Books in 25 Days project in general? I’ve loved it! It’s been surprisingly easy – I’ve been reading a bit before work, and while walking to and from the Park and Ride in Oxford (I walk for about half an hour after parking, for such is Oxford’s parking restrictions), and finding there is a lot more time for reading in the day (my day) than I usually allow.
I do recognise that only someone in my position – living alone, lots of free time – would be able to do this. Kudos to those with families and full-time jobs managing to read anything! But if you only have one or other of those, I think it’s very doable.
I deliberately didn’t plan out the books I was reading. Each night, I’d pick something for the next day that suited the sort of mood I was in – mixing up fiction and non-fiction, different periods, different genres. Similarly, I wasn’t tying it to my Century of Books intentionally – I thought it would be more fun just to see afterwards how many slots I filled, based on what I wanted to read. And it turns out that 14 of my books matched empty slots on A Century of Books – a happy bonus!
Would I do it again? Definitely – if I have enough short books left on my shelves. I had to pick a period when I didn’t have other reading demands, or an enormous amount of things going on. But maybe next year I’d give it a go. And one thing I’ve really enjoyed is writing short blog posts – perhaps not as useful a resource for my own memory, but getting my thoughts across concisely and quickly.
Anybody tempted to try a similar project??
