Armchair Traveler ~ reading challenge ~ COMPLETED

Oops! Instead of six months, I finished this challenge in six weeks!

The Armchair Traveler runs from July 1 through December 31, giving us six months to read six books that fall under the "armchair traveling" theme, fiction or nonfiction as long as the location is an actual place you could visit. Books may be cross-posted to other challenges, but we cannot count any books read prior to July 1st. And one more thing ... because our host likes to have a little wiggle room, she said we can opt to switch out books throughout the challenge. I substituted two books.

1. Adios Hemingway ~ by Leonardo Padura Fuentes ~ Cuba
2. Beneath a Marble Sky ~ by John Shors ~ India
3. Language of Threads ~ by Gail Tsukiyama ~ Hong Kong
4. Latitudes of Melt ~ by Joan Clark ~ Newfoundland
5. Place Last Seen ~ by Charlotte Freeman ~ Sierra Nevadas
6. Shadows on the Rocks ~ by Willa Cather ~ Quebec

I still have three alternates:
7. Brazzaville Beach ~ by William Boyd ~ Republic of the Congo
8. Secret River ~ by Kate Grenville ~ Australia
9. With Their Backs to the World: Portraits of Serbia ~ by Asne Seierstad ~ Serbia

Originally my list included Her Fork in the Road: Women Celebrate Food and Travel edited by Lisa Bach and Italian Neighbors: or A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona by Tim Parks. However, I couldn't really get into either and returned them to the friend who suggested them. I replaced them with the two books about Cuba and Hong Kong, and I will probably continue adding to my list of "armchair travel" books through the end of this year. Watch the sidebar.