Getting ready for Read-A-Thon

The books are stacked. The cabinet is full of snacks. I’ve got things ready for my mini-challenge (one of the first ones, so drop by early in the morning on Saturday to join in). And for the first time, I’m going to attempt a full 24 hours. In the past I think I’ve aimed for maybe 12 and usually end up around that much or a little over. The thing is, I have church the next morning so I end up going to bed instead of staying up overnight.

So I’m doing things a little differently. I will be starting sometime on Friday evening (hour TBD), reading through the night and into the morning, possibly grabbing a nap around 10am CST, and continuing on with the Read-A-Thon into the evening. Then, of course, I’ll be tuning in on Sunday morning to cheer on the people who have been awake for more than 24 hours at this point.

Since I’ve never done the full amount of time before, I really have no idea what those last few hours are going to be like. Possibly like the time my dad decided we were going to drive straight through from Oklahoma to Las Vegas in one day and I was so afraid that I was going to die in a fiery crash in the middle of the Nevada desert that I wouldn’t go to sleep. This fear did have some basis — I was the last person in the vehicle who was awake other than the driver and it was 2am. There’s usually some reason behind my seemingly insane decisions.

Anyway, here are my books!

my Read-A-Thon stack

I’ll go into more detail about why I chose them and explain why there are so many of them later!

PaperBackSwap Has Me Reading Again

Sometime last year I promised myself that I was going to get back into reading again. Wedding planning is a black hole, a vortex that sucks out all your energy and all the room your brain has for fun things. And for me that was reading. Lately I have been back at it and one of the things that has helped my transition back into “Reader” has been PaperBackSwap.com. This place is a wonder. A miracle. And I’m so sad I wasn’t introduced to it until a few months ago. But I jumped right in and started posting and receiving books. Let me tell you what I’ve received so far.

  • The Birth House by Ami McKay
  • The River Wife by Jonis Agee
  • The End of Alice by A.M. Homes
  • Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan
  • Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving from a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse by Michael Korda
  • Sarum by Edward Rutherford
  • The Forest by Edward Rutherford
  • The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga by Edward Rutherford
  • A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
  • The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
  • And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer
  • The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

A few of those are epic sized. No idea when I will get to them, but I am slowly working my way through. During NaBloPoMo I will post my review of The End of Alice, but as we speak it is on its way to the next reader.

What are you reading lately? Are you a member of PaperBackSwap.com? If so, add me as a friend.

TOMORROW: Starting a series of posts covering our honeymoon trip up to Maine and Prince Edward Island, Canada. Long overdue, but I hope you’ll stop by. Lots and lots (and lots!) of pictures.

Readathon – October 2009

Decided (a bit last minute) to take part in this year’s Readathon. Want more info? Click here. Twenty-four hours of reading starts…NOW! (3:30 4:00 pm CST, delayed by phone call)

And because now does seem like the appropriate time to revisit that fateful day…enjoy.

me & nicholas sparks!

And do you know who this author is? (awful, very late night picture of me :/)
Me and Pat Conroy

Kicking things off with some intense determination to finish The Unbearable Lightness of Being (which I really don’t like that much).

My stack of books:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The End of Alice by A.M. Homes

Friday, October 23, 2009
5:00PM
– Read for almost one hour, completed 37 pages. Need to pick it up. All these #readathon tweets are distracting me!

(Breaking for dinner and some quality time with Kevin.)

Saturday, October 24, 2009
9:58AM
– Slept late. Starting at 10:30am.

11:31AM – Woohoo! 67 pages in 50 minutes. Book is picking up and I’m almost done. Taking a quick break to make some tea.

11:40AM – Back to reading. Going to finish The Unbearable Lightness of Being and then onto A.M. Homes. Will probably need to escape to Avonlea some time today as well.

12:30PMThe End of Alice is Weird. Pretty quick read though. Twenty-eight pages in 25 minutes. Making some snacks right now for me and for Kevin, who is sitting in a pile of papers that he’s grading. Still suffering a pretty bad backache. I don’t know if this is at all related to the illness that’s been plaguing me over the past few days or if it’s the result of being in bed all day yesterday. Ouch.

1:40PM – Yeah, good writer, not so sure I recommend this book to anyone though. I may have to review this when we’re all done. 32pgs/30mins

3:30PM – Pace of the book is picking up. I think I have something figured out about the plot and where it’s going, but we’ll see. Taking a break from this to start New Moon. Need a refresher before the movie. 70pgs/60mins

5:00PM – Got in a little of New Moon. 22pgs/20mins

7:40PM – Finished The End of Alice. Weird. 132pgs/120mins

(Breaking for some lasagna and catching up on mini-challenges)

11:45PM – Packed it up for the night. When the next one rolls around I will plan a little better and be prepared. Finished up with 24 pages of The Birth House in 15 mins.

TOTALS
Time spent reading: 370 minutes
Pages read: 422
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