Our leap-year #readindies event went swimmingly. While there might have been an extra day, there still wasn’t enough time to read everything I wanted, and I was a little paralysed by choice … until I came up with the idea of orbiting the globe westwards. After that the books chose themselves and I read and reviewed 11 books, 10 in translation from 8 countries. With the event focusing on micro-publishers, I’m pleased that I featured publications from 5 members of the Indie Press Network.

These were the books I read and reviewed for #ReadIndies 2024:

This was the travel itinerary. Started in London with an interview with Will Dady of Renard Press before jetting off to Spain, Argentina 2x, Japan, Syria, Hungary, Austria, Germany and France 2x before taking the return flight home to London.

Book of the month? Tough decision as I enjoyed everything with just one exception, and that was purely a matter of taste. Initial thoughts produce a three-way tie: Karmele Jaio’s My Father’s House, Selva Almada’s Brickmakers, Ernst Toller’s The Swallow Book. Let me push myself and ask the deciding question: which one am I likely to re-read the soonest, or even most frequently? That would be The Swallow Book.

I enjoyed my world tour so much, I’m going to repeat the exercise. This time leisurely, going any which way my whim takes me and not restricting choices to Indie Presses or existing TBR. I will start and end in Edinburgh, hopefully arriving back just in time for the Edinburgh Book Festival. Though now I’ve seen the list of authors attending the upcoming European Writers’ Festival in May (which I am planning to visit), I suspect that my spring//summer touring will turn into a European Grand Tour. Though wherever I may wander, my reading must reach Croatia mid-June to coincide with real-life travels.

The 90+ titles from 60 indie presses reviewed for #ReadIndies 2024 fills me with delight! Thank you to the 25 bloggers who participated, with especial thanks to my co-hostess Karen. The full* story is told in the event index, now available at the new site www.readindiesreviews.blogspot.com, where the 2024 index is joined by the indices from previous years. If you’re ever stuck for your next indie read, there is now a one-stop shop to help you.

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• This was the first year compiling the index using only the hashtag #ReadIndies as a pointer. Not foolproof by any means. If any reviews are missing from the 2024 index, just let me know in comments below.