My greatest year abroad challenge is to catch up on almost a decade of reading. For somebody bent on becoming a writer, I’ve been dreadfully neglectful of the essence of my craft for too long. So it’s time I put my nose to the grindstone and got reading, if I’m ever to get to the stage where I can be happy with any novel of my own. Here’s my list for the year. I’ll tick them off as I go along:

1. King Solomon’s Mines
2. The Wizard
3. The Lost World
4. The Ghost Kings
5. Montezuma’s Daughter
6. Too Few for Drums
7. Rebel
8. The Virgin and the Gypsy
9. Flashman
10. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
11. Moby Dick
12. Sergeant Verity and the Imperial Diamond
13. Marie
14. My Zulu, Myself
15. Treasure Island 
16. The Viking
17. Things Fall Apart
18. White Fang
19. Child of Storm
20. Allan’s Wife
21. The Boy Slaves
22. Mughal
23. Shadow of the Moon
24. Dominion
25. Maiwa’s Revenge
26. The People of the Mist
27. The Outrun
28. Dirty Havana Trilogy
29. American Gods
30. Carribee
31. The Last Horseman
32. She
33. Segu
34. Americanah
35. Prisoner of Paradise
36. The Tea Planter’s Wife
37. Finished
38. Flashman’s Lady
39. Flashman and the Great Game
40. Copperhead
41. Indalo
42. Cry, the Beloved Country
43. Allan Quatermain
44. For the Term of His Natural Life
45. Heart of Darkness
46. The Cossack
47. Three Sisters
48. King of the Khyber Rifles
49. Trade Wind
50. Bayonets along the Border
51. The Knife of Never Letting Go
52. My Driver
53. Zemindar
54. Cutting for Stone
55. Seven Days for an Eternity
56. Confessions of a War Child
57. The Pharaoh’s Daughter
58. The Crescent Moon Kingdoms
59. The Last Armada
60. Saladin
61. Last of the Mohicans
62. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
63. Lady of Skye
64. Full Tilt
65. The Man in the High Castle
66. The Winter King