Ooh wow...an apology is clearly in order.

It's pretty clear that this blog has been on extreme hiatus for the past 4 months or so. There have been reasons for that, although perhaps not very good ones.

I've been working towards my teaching certificate this year, which has led to me a) reading a lot of education books. Not something that was on this year's literary challenge list.

It's also led to b) a state of exhaustion, which doesn't leave much energy to tackle the heavyweights on my list.

This means that when I have been reading, it's mainly been c) the weekly papers, which are quick and easy to read bits of, and d) total junk that's basically marshmallows for the brain, like the typical 'Brits in the shit' stories of Little-Englanders packing up and moving to France...mainly so I can have a laugh at their stupidity without concentrating too hard myself.

I've therefore rather neglected this year's challenge, having not picked the best year to embark on it.

But now it's August, I've qualified as a teacher, and I'm finally beginning to slip into holiday mode. So I'll be catching up on the reviews of the books I did manage to read off my initial list, and making time to read the rest as 2014 marches on. There's still 150 days to go of the year, and I reckon I can make a pretty big dent in the rest of my list in that time. Thanks for reading this far, if there's anyone still out there :)