Hour 7

And I have yet to touch a page! I'm nearly done with "Stiff", which, though incredibly interesting and funny, is more stomach-turning than I expected. Yuck.

Pages read: 0

Time reading: 2 hours (all in “Stiff” by Mary Roach)

Books completed: 0

Blogs visited: 1

Mini-challenges completed: 0

Total pages: 0

Total time reading: 3 hr 58 min

Total books completed: 0

Total blogs visited: 2

Total challenges completed: 1 (Intro)

Hour 4

Still stuck on audio, but I'm feeling the need to run an errand, so I'm stuck listening to cadaver stories for a while yet.

Pages read: 0

Time reading: 1 hr 58 min (all audio). I'm listening to "Bet Me" by Jennifer Crusie and "Stiff" by Mary Roach

Books completed: 0

Blogs visited: 1

Mini-challenges completed: 1(“Intro”)

Total pages: 0

Total time reading: 1 hr 58 min

Total books completed: 0

Total blogs visited: 1

Total challenges completed: 1

Good Morning (Or, Hour 1)

Well, I overslept by a half hour, so yay Read-a-thon! I'm trying to catch up on my missed morning jobs while listening to an audiobook so it still counts as reading time.

Hour 1 Meme

1) Where are you reading from today?

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

2) Three random facts about me...

Skip-Bo is one of my favorite games, I own enough essential oils to practically open my own shop, and a giant snake has peed on me.

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

28, according to my earlier post, but there are a couple of books that I'm thinking of starting today, so - 30.

4) Do you have any goals for the Read-a-thon?

I'd like to read 6 books, whether from start to finish or not. Really, I just need to thin out my TBR books, so I'll probably be reading faster today than I would normally. Well, until I get too tired, that is. :)

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

Have fun, and take a break if you need to! Sometimes you just need to not be sitting down with a book in your hand, and that's okay.

Alright, off to it!

It's almost time...

Here's a quick shot of my TBR stack for tomorrow's read-a-thon. From Left to Right, Top to Bottom, they are:

"Moomin, The Complete Comic Strip, Vol. 2" by Tove Jansson

"Britten and Brulightly" by Hannah Berry

"Alice in Sunderland" by Bryan Talbot

"Radioactive" by Lauren Redniss

"Asterios Polyp" by David Mazzucchelli

"Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel

"The Pagan Stone" by Nora Roberts

"Deadly Desire" by Keri Arthur (already started)

"Summer" by Edith Wharton (already started)

"I.O.U." by Nicholas Adams

"Camera" by Jean-Philipe Toussaint

"Savage" by Jacques Jouet

"My Paris" by Gail Scott

"Henrietta's War" by Joyce Dennys

"Sizeable Reflections" ed. by Shelley Bovey

"The Family Under the Bridge" by Natalie Savage Carlson

"The Vampyre" by John William Polidori

"A House to Let" by Charles Dickens

"The Pedant and the Shuffly" by John Bellairs

"Radiator Days" by Lucy Knisley

"Griffin & Sabine", "Sabine's Notebook", "The Golden Mean" and "The Venetian's Wife" all by Nick Bantock

"Dracula's Heir" by Sam Stall

Plus, I'm listening to two more on my iPod - "Stiff" by Mary Roach and "Bet Me" by Jennifer Crusie.

Of course, I'd like to read all of them tomorrow, and while they're all short (and most have pictures) I don't know if that's really feasible. That's still a lot of pages to get through. Okie dokie, I'm going to turn this computer off and head to bedfordshire. See you all in about 8 hours!

It's Alive!

Photo credit: crazy-frankenstein.com

Helloooo there! Yes, I am alive, despite my overly-long absence of six months. I apologize to the few hangers-on that are still here. But what can I say? Life just got in the way, and each time I thought to come back and update here, some kind of shiny object popped up in front of me and I quickly forgot.

To update you, I still have Job #1 and #2, with the addition of Job #3, still doing #1 but renting a room from an established MT closer to my house. It's going okay, but it's not what I thought it would be, and it's not going to change (the issue is with the owner - nothing hairy, but we just have very different ideas as to how an MT business should be run) so I'm on the lookout for another room to rent in the same area. I have to say, doing this just a few miles from my house has made my life a heck of a lot easier and I look forward to going to work again. There are still one to three days a week that I'm back at my old place, and that's just fine, but my concentration is on my new business. Please cross your fingers that I'll find somewhere else nearby to rent before the snow flies!

In book news, I'm clipping right along. As of this morning I've read 117 books, which is probably the most I've read in one year in my adult life. This is mostly due to the fact that I am not working a ton, and it's also due to my love of audio books. Each time I drive I've got a book playing, it's hardly ever music. That alone ups me at least 2 books a month. The realization that not every book I read will be The Book I Adore also helps. Every time I picked up a new title, I'd think "Okay, here we go, new favorite book", and really? That never happens, especially when you're hoping that it will. Instead, I've given myself permission to skim-read if something isn't really grabbing me. It may sound trivial, but it's helped for sure.

My new reading goal for the year is to complete my LibraryThing 11-11 Challenge before next week Saturday (only 4 more books to go, shouldn't be much of a problem) so that I can read guilt-free for both Dewey's Read-a-Thon next weekend and for the rest of the year. There are a lot of books that I've owned for years and that while I'd still like to read them I know I'm not going to want to keep them. I'm hoping to get through a fair chunk of them before 2012 starts.

Otherwise, to quote Peter Gabriel, "same as it ever was". I'm still working on de-papering my house (an on-going battle to be sure) and letting things go. My sentimental soul wants to keep everything in some kind of a preserved "Laura Museum" which is ridiculous and doesn't let me fully live my life, so culling what goes and what stays has become a new priority. Parents are good, the cats are doing well (and are, unbelievably, 8 years old) and things just keep on rolling here in Wisconsin. I'll do my best to keep up with Ye Olde Blog in the future, and you can certainly expect a flurry of posts next weekend.

Take care until next time!

Hello again, people

Well, I've slept for a whopping 4 hours, I'm still deeply tired and feel some residual "crazy" lurking around here, but hey - I'm awake and it's extremely sunshine-y outside. Ignoring my vampiric tendencies today, I'm going to try and stay up for at least a couple of hours before crashing again. Yeah, that may not happen.

Final numbers

Pages read: 432 (yay for pictures!)

Total: 1,664

Time reading: 1 hr 38 min

Total: 14 hrs 8 min (3 hr 40 min audiobooks)

Books completed: 7

Blogs visited: 0

Total: 4

Mini-challenges completed: 2 (“Collaborative Fiction” and “In Other Words”)

Final Meme

1) Which hour was most daunting for you?

They were both near the end, but between 3 and 4 am was pretty bad (and unintentionally funny), and the last hour between 6 and 7 am. Focusing was something I had to really concentrate one.

2) Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

The Hex Hall series by Rachel Dawkins really worked for me this time around. Previously though, I've had a lot of luck with books by Rhys Bowen, Shirley Jackson, and the Womens Murder Club series by James Patterson.

3) Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

The only thing that I enjoyed the previous time was having a list of all of the mini-challenges posted at the beginning. That way I could plan on having some breaks ahead of time.

4) What do you think worked really well in this year's Read-a-thon?

Everything else! I eagerly wait for this event every 6 months - any way to make October happen any sooner?

5) How many books did you read?

I finished 7 and read from 3 more.

6) What were the names of the books you read?

I read from and didn't finish "Eat, Pray, Love", "Matched" by Ally Condie, and "The Royals" by Kitty Kelley.

I finished "The Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries" by Emily Brightwell

"Feng Sh*t" by Anna Crosbie

"Henrietta Sees It Through" by Joyce Dennys

"Daddy Long-Legs" by Jean Webster

"Demonglass" by Rachel Hawkins

"Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights" by Sophie Dahl

"Amphigorey Also" by Edward Gorey

7) Which book did you enjoy most?

Demonglass, for sure. The wait for book number 3 is already driving me crazy, and this one was just published!

8) Which did you enjoy least?

Of the ones I finished, "Feng Sh*t". The ones I didn't finish, "The Royals". It was just too much of the same thing after 2 hours to keep hacking away at.

9) If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year's Cheerleaders?

N/A

10) How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

A Reader, for sure. I'd think about being a Cheerleader, but I so enjoy that long (usually) uninterrupted stretch of reading time that right now it's hard to think about breaking it up at all.

Alright, I think it's time to make some breakfast (at 12:30 in the afternoon), watch some mindless TV and take another nap or two. See you all later!

Ugh

Well, I made it 'til the end, but I'm so exhausted that I'm heading straight to bed. I'll be back here later on for a final update and things.

Thanks to everyone for hanging in there with me!