In 2025, I am again participating in the 52 Week Book Challenge. The Challenge is to read one book each week, to a particular prompt. The thing I most enjoy about this challenge, apart from reading the books, is matching books to the prompts. Its a fun thing to do, and I often end up choosing a book that I may not have otherwise read. That is always a positive. Quite often the prompts have me scratching my head for a while. I do enjoy the hunt for a book to fit a prompt. Reviews for these books will be appearing shortly. I’d love to hear if you’re doing this reading challenge in 2025.
52 Week Book Challenge Books
Other Books Read in April
Book of The Month
The Dig Tree
A True Story of Bravery, Insanity, and the Race to Discover Australia’s Wild Frontier
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The harrowing true story of the Burke and Willis expedition team who took on the Australian wilds 150 years ago–and lost.
They departed Melbourne’s Royal Park in the summer of 1860, a misfit party of eighteen amateur explorers cheered on by thousands of well-wishers. Their mission: to chart a course across the vast unmapped interior of Australia, from Melbourne to the northern coast. Months later, only one man returned alive–with tales of heroism, hardships, and lost opportunities that were by turns terrifying and darkly comic.
Drawing its title from one of the few remaining traces of the expedition, The Dig Tree combines the danger of Sebastian Junger with the irony of Bill Bryson to relive the tragic journey of these completely initiated adventurers. The cast of characters includes the expeditionleader; a reckless, charming Irish policeman known for getting lost on his way home from the pub; an eccentric nature enthusiast from Germany; an alcoholic camel handler; and a rogue American horse-breaker who is just in it for the money. For nine harrowing months, their quest for glory shifts from idiocy to perseverance and then inexorably toward tragedy. The nightmare culminates in a last haunting message left behind a group of desperate and dying men–the word DIG carved into what is now Australia’s most famous tree.
The Dig Tree follows this compelling journey through a forgotten corner of history to examine a daring expedition that came unbelievably close to success only to let it slip away.” – Goodreads
This book is exactly the sort of book that I would love. As most Australians would, I know the story of Burke and Wills well, having been taught about them at school and also having read many books about their adventure over the years. This book is a stand-out with it’s really great research and detail, that I hadn’t previously heard. Those who aren’t familiar with the story of Burke and Wills, would think that it must be a novel, and a very far fetched novel at that. But no, this is a true story of the exploration of the centre of Australia, including all that went wrong on that journey.
Star Rating
Please note that my star rating system isn’t at all based on literary merit, but is based on my enjoyment for the book.
For me a book that gets five stars, is a book that I really enjoyed, and found difficult to put down.