Mini-Challenges

Distracted from my reading by Sheery's Tile Word Scramble Mini Challenge. Apparently my brain is completely scrambled at this point because reading/unscrambling the puzzles felt waaay too easy. Maybe my normal reading would be easier if I mixed all the letters together...

1. Firefly Lane
2. Seat of Need
3. Water for Elephants
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. The Great Gatsby
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain
8. The Time Travelers Wife
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
11. The Polar Express
12. Love Walked In
13. Where the Wild Things Are
14. The Shining
15. Goodnight Moon
16. Interview with a Vampire
17. The Secret Life of Bees
18. The Search
19. The Help

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And now... a Wordle activity run by Reading Through Life!

Read-a-Thon Post 3

7 hours into my Read-a-Thon and I've just finished up my second book, Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun. It's funny, I read this book a couple years ago and had a very different response to it-- but perhaps I wasn't ready to understand how complicated and fraught 'loving' relationships can be? I don't know...

Anyway! I'm off to do a bit of 'real life' work and then I'll FINALLY start reading Hunger Games. I'm told that I ought to be ashamed of myself for not having read this series already. Hopefully by the end of the Read-a-thon I'll have made up for that horrible lapse of bibliophile etiquette!

Time reading (and or interwebbing!) 7 hours
Books read: 2 (The House of Mirth and The House Gun)
Pages read: 644
Mini-Challenges: Love to Hate, Back in the Day Children's Books

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Oooph! It's 1:15 in the morning and I'm getting verrrry sleepy! I was hoping to read through the night, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. I may just finish the last half of Hunger Games and call it a night. I honestly didn't think I was going to get all that into this book, but it's definitely engaging and well developed. I'm already a major Peeta fan!

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3am Update

I was hoping to read through the night but I'm crashing hardcore right now.. Just finished Hunger Games so it feels like a good place to stop.

On the day..
Hours read: 10
Books read: 3
Pages: 1028

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8am FINAL update!

I MEANT to go to bed at 3 when I finished the first Hunger Games book... but I found myself so excited about the characters that I pulled out the second book (Catching Fire) before jumping into bed and ended up reading for another hour and a half! I woke up a few hours later and got back to it :)

Final Stats:
Hours read: 13
Books read: 4
Pages: 1463

Thanks for a great readathon everybody! I had a blast :D

Now, in less happy news, I'm off to help a friend hunt down her runaway dogs. Wish us luck...

Read-a-Thon Updates

12pm Update!

I'm about 2 and a half hours into the Read-a-thon and I'm having a HORRIBLE time staying focused! It's just too tempting to hang out on twitter or to flip through other blogs to see what everybody's up to! I may need to close down the computer and spend some more time reading outside...

As far as my actual READING is concerned-- I'm still working on House of Mirth. It has some dry spots, but I'm really enjoying the relationship (if you can call it that...) between Lily and Selden. They totally have the star-crossed lovers thing going on and I can't help hoping Lily will get her head screwed on straight before the end of the book... not sure that's going to happen though.

Pages read: 116
Book read- still on numero uno

Also-- Looks like UGA remembered how to play football... it's about time!! Let's go DAWGS!

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3 pm Update:

Finished House of Mirth. I'll probably write a longer review on this later in the week, but I'm tentatively giving it 4 Smootches. I really enjoyed the characterizations (particularly Lily and Selden of course) and I was really broken up by the conclusion. It's not a terribly exciting read, but I found myself getting immersed in the story nonetheless (it felt kind of like slowly sinking into a pool of water).

Hours reading (while blogging/tweeting/interwebbing...): 4
Pages read:350
Books read: 1

Now off to grab some grub and pick out a new book!

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5pm Update and "Love to Hate Mini-Challenge"

Well, I'm chugging away at my second Readathon pick- The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer. I read this book a couple of years ago, but I KNOW it's going to show up on my grad comps next month so I figured I'd refresh my memory!

I'm about 115 pages in and in dire need of a break... SO! I'm going to join in with the '5 Characters you Love to Hate" Mini-challenge hosted by Blkosiner's Book Blog. 

My picks:
1. Serverus Snape from the Harry Potter series. Cause he's fabulously semi-evil. Also, in the movies he's played by Alan Rickman...nuff said!
2. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Crazy violent nutjob... but I can't help hoping he'll get the girl.
3.  Shiva of the Knees from Rushdie's Midnight's Children
4. Aunts Spiker and Sponge from James and The Giant Peach... they creep me out, but I love reading them :)
5. Rhea of the Coos from Stephen King's Wizard and Glass (of the Dark Tower series)

Read-a-Thon

I've been away from the blogging world for almost two weeks due to extreme CRAZINESS in my 'real life.'  I woke up this morning planning to do nothing but laze around on the couch or watch football... but then I logged into my blog and realized that today was Dewey's Read-a-Thon!! I can't imagine a better way to spend my day off : D

Granted I'm joining the party a little bit late.. we'll just pretend that I'm operating on Cape Verde time!

Where are you reading from today?

- I'm going to start with Edith Warton's House of Mirth then probably move on to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.. we'll see where it goes from there.

3 facts about me …

1. I teach freshman composition at a State University. I tend to focus my classes on things like pirates, zombies, or Law and Order characters..

2. I've recently developed bit of a southern accent. I'm not thrilled about this development and try to compensate by dropping my Rs and tossing around "wicked" adjectives like a good Bostonian.

3. I'm using this Read-a-Thon in part to justify massive coffee consumption..

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?

- I didn't really have a specific TBR pile for the day until 20 minutes ago... I may have to make a library run mid-afternoon!

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?

- I'd like to keep reading till the end. No napping!

If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?

-1st timer!!

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