A beautiful beach at Armacao de Pera

Armacao de Pera 

I'm linking up with The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.

We've actually been camped up in two places this week: Camperstop Messines at Sao Bartolomeu de Messines and Armacao de Pera, but we're intending to return to Messines for eight nights over Christmas so I'll talk about Armacao de Pera today. It's a seaside town with a gorgeous long sandy beach and our campsite, Camping Canelas, is just a little inland. It's about a 2km walk or cycle along the Ecovia from the campsite to get to the edge of the white painted town with its smattering of cafes and restaurants. So far we've explored on foot in one direction and by bicycle in the other. Sitting with tea at a cafe while gazing out at a sea sunset is bliss!

Away from the town, there's a long wooden boardwalk above the dunes which we cycled this afternoon. It was tricky because, being a sunny Sunday, there were quite a few pedestrians and the boardwalk was only just wide enough for them and wobbly me. Sometimes I really do wish I'd learned to ride a bike as a child rather than having done so as an adult. Dave is a far more fearless cyclist than I am and I know my insistence on slowing right down for anything other than smooth tarmac road surfaces is annoying. He's very patient about it though!

In bookish news, I'm currently reading the new C H Clepitt novella, My Dream Woman. It's feisty diverse urban fantasy with fun characters that I'm enjoying spending time with. My review should appear before Christmas.

Giveaways closing soon
19th Dec: Unexpected America by Wanjiru Warama ebook
20th Dec: $50 Amazon gift card
(All current giveaways here)

On my blogs this week were:

Stephanie Jane
I complete my 2018 Alphabet Soup Challenge!
Stephanie Jane's #Giveaway #Linkup

Literary Flits
Song of Sacrifice by Janell Rhiannon + #Giveaway + Excerpt
Watching Aliens by Elancharan Gunasekaran review + #FreeBook
Rust Is A Form Of Fire by Joe Fiorito review
The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga review
Dickensen Academy by Christine Grabowski spotlight
Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher audiobook review
Lindisfarne by Terry Tyler review

Airing Out
Campsite - Camperstop Messines - Algarve - Portugal

Stephanie Jane's #Giveaway #Linkup

Welcome to my Giveaway Linkup. Below are all the Giveaways I am currently running or hosting, plus those that are scheduled to start soon(ish).

I've rejigged this linkup for December to do away with the Free Books links because these weren't getting many click throughs compared to the Giveaways. You can still see them by clicking This Link Here!!

To promote your own Giveaways here, just pop the link into the Comments at any time during each month and I'll add them to the list. Remember, Giveaways also get an Ending Soon reminder in my Sunday wrapup posts and are always visible on This Literary Flits Page :-)

	Unexpected America by Wanjiru Warama - 1 ebook gifted via Smashwords Open Internationally from the 5th until the 19th December 2018.
	To celebrate the Song Of Sacrifice tour, win a $50 Amazon gift card Open Internationally from the 10th until the 20th December 2018.
	Literary Flits Spotlight Post. One book chosen each month for a free promo post! Open Internationally. Next draw: 31st December 2018.
	Win ebook copies of Derrick by Russell Open internationally from the 17th Dec to the 6th Jan.
	Win copies of Melding Spirits by Michael E Burge and $20 Amazon gift cards Open to the US and Canada from the 30th Jan to the 7th Feb.

Good luck!

I complete my 2018 Alphabet Soup Challenge!

Woo hoo! Challenge completed!
The Alphabet Soup Challenge is hosted at fuonlyknew

26 books, all of whose titles begin with a different letter of the alphabet. Here they all are:

A Dip In My Ocean by A G Stranger
Breathe Breathe by Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi
Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie
Dilemma by Baheya Zeitoun
Elza: The Girl by Sergio Rodrigues
Frankenstein In Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
Giant by Richard Georges
Hero by Boyd Taylor
Ibn Fadlan And The Land Of Darkness
Just Simple Little Cruelties by Osman Welela
Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
Lies Of Silence by Brian Moore
My Name Is Salma by Fadia Faqir
Necessities by Boyd Taylor
On The Cold Coasts by Vilborg Davidsdottir
Pigeon Street by Mark Fieldsend
Quatre Moi En Mer by Said
Resin by Ane Riel
Stray by Bernard Farai Matambo
The Souls Of Black Folk by W E B Du Bois
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Venetia by Georgette Heyer
Whispers Of The Beloved by Rumi
Xingu by Edith Wharton
Yellow Sun by Stiofan O Nuallain
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

I'll be restarting my Alphabet Soup Challenge on the 1st January - if you'd like to join me?

Sunny cycling & a vegan lunch in Vilamoura

Vegan Cataplana at Raizes 

I'm linking up with The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.

We've moved further into Portugal from Tavira (did you see my Christmas lights post?) to Vilamoura which is further along the coast. I previously knew of Vilamoura for its marina where one of Dave's old friends had often kept his boat, but we hadn't visited before. We found a little campsite - Vilamoura Rustic - within cycling distance of the seafront and had a lovely day pottering along the promenade in the sunshine. The marina itself is much like any other Mediterranean marina, but the promenade is great with plenty of space and views out to sea. We went into the ajoining town, Quarteira, where I was delighted to spot a board advertising vegan restaurant Raizes. That was lunch sorted! Dave enjoyed his black bean burger and I loved the generous portion of Cataplana stew I was served.

All isn't great though. Getting our boiler seen to cost a pretty penny though it does seem to be working more smoothly now (fingers crossed). Then we discovered that the Spanish Repsol gas bottle that we thought we would be easily able to exchange when it was empty is going to be more difficult. There are seemingly identical Repsol fuel stations in Portugal, but apparently something about the bottle itself is different and the staff turned us away. We have been told of a gas bottle refilling place in Boliqueime. They were closed on Saturday when we drove past, but hopefully will be open later this week so we can get our English Calor and Spanish Repsol bottles topped up. Fingers crossed because otherwise we'll need to be heading back to Spain sharpish and I'm starting to like the idea of Christmas in Portugal!

In bookish news, I won a book this week! Huge thanks to author Liza Perrat and blogger Jo at Jaffa Reads Too for my copy of The Swooping Magpie. I'm looking forward to reading it soon :-)

You might have spotted my review of The Diary by Vikki Patis being enthusiastically shared all over Twitter yesterday? It was my turn as @TheWriteReads blog of the day and I loved being the centre of attention!!

The blog of the day is run by @Stephanie_Jne and she’s reviewing a book that hooked her from the first page to the last- ‘The Diary’ by @PatisVikki Just one cracking review among the loads on Stephanie's site. Check her out!#thewritereads #blogofthedayhttps://t.co/9uO9k3hQL0

— TheWriteReads (@The_WriteReads) December 8, 2018

Giveaways closing soon
9th Dec: $25 Amazon GC or Paypal
11th Dec: The Blogger Trailmap by Chivi Frost ebook
(All current giveaways here)

On my blogs this week were:

Stephanie Jane
November Challenges Wrap-Up: Bookish Bingo and Goodreads
#WorldReads - Five Books From Switzerland
Christmas lights at Tavira
Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019 signup

Literary Flits
The Storm by Tomas Gonzalez review
Nutcracker Sweets at Moonglow by Deborah Garner review + Giveaway
Unexpected America by Wanjiru Warama review + #Giveaway
The Darkness That Divides Us by Renate Dorrestein review
Tangled Vines by Megan Mayfair spotlight
The Light Of The Fireflies by Paul Pen review
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm review

Airing Out
Campsite - Vilamoura Rustic - Algarve - Portugal

Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019 signup

OK, I think the Mount TBR Reading Challenge for 2019 is going to be my final signup (or I am going to be spending so much time challenging next year that I won't actually have enough left for the reading!) I first saw this challenge mentioned on Jovita's Inky Impressions blog and it is hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block.

The Challenge runs from January 1 to December 31, 2019 and the idea is to read as many owned-but-as-yet-unread books as possible. To count for the challenge, books must be owned by me prior to January 1, 2019. A few days ago I actually typed myself out a list of (nearly) all the non-ARC books I have awaiting reading and there's rather more than I thought I had so this challenge is perfect!

Challenge Levels:
Pike's Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile/s
Mount Blanc: Read 24 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Vancouver: Read 36 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Ararat: Read 48 books from your TBR piles/s
Mt. Kilimanjaro: Read 60 books from your TBR pile/s
El Toro: Read 75 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Everest: Read 100 books from your TBR pile/s
Mount Olympus (Mars): Read 150+ books from your TBR pile/s

I'm going to aspire to Mt. Ararat level and here's that list I hope to seriously prune through the year:

UK2 by Terry Tyler

Storms Of Lazarus by Karen Kincy

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Escaping Psychiatry by Olga Mira Nunez

From Ritual To Romance by Jessie Weston

The History Of Mary Prince

Seeing Red by Lina Meruane

Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai

Demian by Hermann Hesse

Circe by Madeleine Miller

The Judgement Of Richard Richter by Igor Stiks

Above The Bridge by Deborah Garner

Fate by Mary Corran

Heroes Or Thieves by J J Sherwood

Skye City by R D Hale

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

Incident At Diamond Springs by Kendall Hansen

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe

Gaston De Blondeville by Ann Radcliffe

The Castles Of Athlin And Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe

The Italian, Or The Confessional Of The Black Penitents by Ann Radcliffe

The Mysteries Of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

The Romance Of The Forest by Ann Radcliffe

Tahrir by Vladimir Volya

Whitewalls and Straitjackets by David Owain Hughes

Agrippina by Emma Southon

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Music And Silence by Rose Tremain
The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain

Minaret by Leila Aboulela

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Windward Heights by Maryse Conde

The Book Of Fathers by Miklos Vamos

Rupert Brooke poetry

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

Four Feet Under by Tamsen Courtenay

Force Of Nature by Jane Harper

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles

The Keepers Of Truth by Michael Collins

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

The Muse by Jessie Burton

Ice by Ulla-Lena Lundberg

The Dry by Jane Harper

Barkskins by Annie Proulx

Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

The Good People by Hannah Kent

The Words In My Hand by Guinevere Glasfurd

Le Brave Soldat Chveik by Jaroslav Hasek
The Golden Shadow by Leon Garfield

Phew!

Christmas lights at Tavira

We took an evening walk into Tavira last week. It's pretty rare for us to go out after dark, but we fancied a curry from one of the several Indian restaurants in the town and we wanted to admire Tavira's Christmas lights when they were all lit up. There's a blue and white theme which is particularly effective and I loved how the lights had been strung around the bandstand, plus the town has done a great job of decorating the old Roman bridge.

My phone hasn't really done the lights justice, but hopefully you get the idea!

#WorldReads - Five Books From Switzerland

If this is your first visit to my WorldReads blog series, the idea of the posts is to encourage and promote the reading of global literature. On the 5th of each month I highlight five books I have read from a particular country and you can see links to previous countries' posts at the end of this post as well as finding out how to join in the challenge.

Click the book titles or cover images to visit their Literary Flits book review pages. Or click the bookshop names to buy your own copy. (Bookshop links are affiliate links so I would earn a small commission from your purchase.)

This month we are going to Switzerland!
Enjoy!


Wasp Days by Erhard von Buren

	The Book Depository
	Wordery
	Waterstones
	Amazon US / Amazon UK

"Summertime. While his wife and daughters are away on holiday, the husband – a librarian by profession – back home at work in the stultifying heat of a provincial Swiss town, indulges in reminiscence. With light amusement he recalls old love affairs. Memories come back of student days in Zurich and academic research in Paris, of starting family life, of trifling matters and crucial turning-points. But again and again the narrator also returns to the present; he describes his work at the library, life in his small town, acquaintances old and new and finally, in the autumn, a journey with his wife to China.
The author's ironic but amiable look at life in all its diversity, the combination of laconic recounting and academic recollection, day-dreaming sequences and conscious remembering make for an enjoyable and intellectually stimulating read."


Sweet Days Of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy

	The Book Depository
	Wordery
	Waterstones
	Amazon US / Amazon UK

Set in postwar Switzerland, Fleur Jaeggy's eerily beautiful novel begins simply and innocently enough: "At fourteen I was a boarder in a school in the Appenzell". But there is nothing truly simple or innocent here. With the off-handed knowingness of a remorseless young Eve, the narrator describes life as a captive of the school and her designs to win the affections of the seemingly perfect new girl, Frederique. As she broods over her schemes as well as on the nature of control and madness, the novel gathers a suspended, unsettling energy.


Cow by Beat Sterchi

	The Book Depository
	Wordery
	Waterstones
	Amazon US / Amazon UK

Cow is the story of a Spanish agricultural labourer, Ambrosio, who goes to Switzerland as a Gastarbeiter. He is bound for Innenwald, a village in the Swiss highlands, and the novel begins as he is about to spend a summer working for Farmer Knuchel. It ends in the abattoir of the neighbouring city, at the end of the seven hard years of labour that have destroyed him. There he sees Blosch, the once magnificent lead cow on Knuchel's farm, now a sad, condemned creature in the abattoir.

Cow was acclaimed as a contemporary classic on its first 1980s publication. Now more than ever it must be read as a book of archaic power about man, his work and his food and, most importantly, as a damning indictment of the relationship between man and the animal world.


The Art Of Travel by Alain De Botton

	The Book Depository
	Wordery
	Waterstones
	Amazon US / Amazon UK

Few activities seem to promise is as much happiness as going travelling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel to, we seldom ask why we go and how we might become more fulfilled by doing so.

With the help of a selection of writers, artists and thinkers - including Flaubert, Edward Hopper, Wordsworth and Van Gogh - Alain de Botton's bestselling The Art of Travel provides invaluable insights into everything from holiday romance to hotel minibars, airports to sightseeing.

The perfect antidote to those guides that tell us what to do when we get there, The Art of Travel tries to explain why we really went in the first place - and helpfully suggest how we might be happier on our journeys.

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

	The Book Depository
	Wordery
	Waterstones
	Amazon US / Amazon UK

A young girl's idyllic mountain life in the Swiss Alps Heidi is only five when she goes to live with her grandfather in his hut in the Swiss Alps. Up in the high pastures, she befriends the goatherd Peter and delights in the company of the gentle goats. Everyone is sad when Heidi is taken away to live with a family in Frankfurt. But Heidi's courage and good spirit charm all who meet her. Soon she is able to return to her beloved mountains, sharing her happiness, health and home with all her new-found friends. Heidi was first published in 1881. A classic tale of childhood joys and friendships, it has delighted and inspired generations of children.


That's it for December's WorldReads from Switzerland. I hope I have tempted you to try reading a book from this country and if you want more suggestions, click through to see all my Literary Flits reviews of Swiss-authored books! If you fancy buying any of the five I have suggested, clicking through the links from this blog to do so would mean I earn a small commission payment.

You can join in my WorldReads Challenge at any time! Simply read 1 or more books from a different country each month, write a post about it/them, grab the button below and add it to your post. Don't forget to pop back here and Comment your link so I can visit!

Stephanie Jane

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If you missed any earlier WorldReads posts, I have already 'visited' America, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iraq, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Russia, Scotland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and Zimbabwe.

In January I will be highlighting five books by Argentine authors. See you on the 5th to find out which ones!