Another 6 months, another readathon. I was debating whether I was really going to do this, but I haven’t missed one in a while, so even if I’m only going to read for a bit (and my max stay up time is 2am, because I can’t do all-nighters), I always have fun. These are my possible reads. This readathon will be all about the library books:

Unearthly is the next pick for my readalong group (man, we’re doing these readathons on a regular basis now — I love it).

And then I have a couple of books on my Netgalley pile:

Then there is of course, the huge, huge, huge, TBR pile with plenty of books I could be reading.

This post is going to get updated all day, so check back here if you are interested in seeing how I fare throughout today’s Readathon. I’ll also be on twitter as @janicu.

8:00 am (Hour 0) – I am going to start off with Ben Loory’s Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day. I read until page 129 last night. This is a series of very short short stories which are a mix of the slightly horrific (because they end in a uncertain, but ominous way), or sweet, or just strange. I have hit a pocket of the stranger ones. And I have my coffee. Not really awake yet.

Introduction Meme
1)Where are you reading from today? Westchester County, NY
2)Three random facts about me…

• Since about 3 years ago, I watch the Tour de France every year because my husband is big into cycling (he’s working on his bike as we speak). My favorite cyclists are Thor Hushovd, Fabian Cancellara, and Jens Voight.
• I’ve never eaten a Twinkie. They look really unappealing. *makes face*.
• I first read Jane Austen after overhearing my (female) English teacher arguing  with my other (male) English teacher whether Austen was a great writer or not. I had to read this Austen myself and decide. Spoiler: Jane Austen is awesome, I don’t understand how Mr. Adams could say she isn’t!
  

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? A couple. I have a big TBR and the plan is to just stare at it and let my choice come to me.
4)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)? Nope, winging it as usual.
5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time? Take plenty of breaks and go outside at least once today. It will refresh you.

9:00 am (Hour 1) – now on page 170, but I really didn’t start reading till 8:45 since I was pottering with the blog and checking the readathon website. See how fast a read this is? Crazy fast.

11:00 am (Hour 3) – Finished Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (last page – pg 210), spent some time figuring out what to read next and settled on A Kiss In Time by Alex Flinn, which is a Sleeping Beauty retelling. I’m on page 66 of that. So in the past 2 hours I read 106 pages. Brings the running total up to 147.  Also – I took a break for food (2 samosas), but I think I’m still hungry. 🙂

1:00pm (Hour 5) – On page 212 of A Kiss In Time. Took a shower, and now in another pajama & T-shirt (Thundercats, FYI) outfit. And the awesome husband is bringing me food! A Kiss In Time is getting more interesting now that the story is past the set up stage and into the main characters spending time with one another. Running total this readathon is now @ 293 pages.

4:00pm (Hour 8 ) – Took an hour off for lunch. And just finished A Kiss in Time. Running total is now @ 453 pages.

7:00pm (Hour 11) – I have been taking a break for a bit – checking mail, doing dishes, eating dinner. So in the past three hours, I’ve started a new book but only gotten 50 pages into it. It’s straight fantasy but pretty fast moving.

9:00pm (Hour 13) – So I sort of spent more time reading Sword of Fire and Sea by Erin Hoffman, but my reading speed has sloooowwwed.  On page 88. So 30 pages in 2 hours. I don’t think it’s because I’m tired (I am a little, but not that much), but because this book has a smaller font, bigger pages, and I think that the writing is a little confusing. The world building in this one happens as you go along, and there’s a lot of me saying “what the hell does that mean?”. I also spent a bit of time just going to blogs to cheer.

11:00 pm (Hour 15) – I think I’ve entered official Procrastination Territory. I’ve watched tivo’ed shows (After the Runway) and just surfed the web. Tucked the Husband into bed (he’s waking up at 5am for a bike ride in MA). Read 26 pages. On page 114 of Sword of Fire and Sea. Maybe I need to switch books for a bit?

12:00 pm (Hour 16) – Ahhhhh!!! I’ve totally been procrastinating! Lollygagging on twitter.. staring at the TBR trying to figure out what book would be lighter fare. Also the kitty, who has slept for most of the day, has reached his peak awake time and has been .. well… bouncing off the walls and being a furry jackass. But I’ve chosen A Weekend with Mr Darcy by Victoria Connelly to read for the next bit.  It seems lighter reading that Sword of Fire and Sea at the moment, and the font is nice and big, and my eyes need big right now.

2:00 am (Hour 18) – Shockingly, I’m still awake. I’ve read another 106 pages. Switching to something lighter was a good idea. A Weekend with Mr. Darcy is set at a small Jane Austen convention, and there’s a lot of general Austen gushing amongst the characters. I think it would appeal to people who love being unabashed fans of Jane Austen (and of romance in general), because this book is very enthusiastic about defending these things. I’m digging the booknerdery. Running total = 673 pages.. Feeling tired though.

Pet Love mini-challenge

OK, I’m about to call it a night but then I saw the Pet Love minichallenge post on A Buckeye Girl reads. She asks if my pet has been a help or a hindrance. Um.. well most of the day, the cat has been sleeping next to me, but he has periodically woken up and wanted my attention and this required stabbing with claws and pulling things down and driving me slowly insane. So I can’t decide what to call this. Help? Hindrance? He’s a very complex.

He likes to get into my pictures when I try to take pictures of books. Also he HAS bitten my book covers. This does not please me.

This post is going to get updated all day, so check back here if you are interested in seeing how I fare throughout today’s Readathon.

470 pages read

8:00am (Hour 0) – Here we go again. I have coffee in hand and I have 20 pages to go to finish Patricia Brigg’s Wolfsbane which I started last week.

I’m already procrastinating and joining in a mini-challenge for hour 1.

1)Where are you reading from today? Westchester county, NY
2)Three random facts about me…

1. When I was a kid we had pet chipmunks (they were called squirrels where I was, but in the US, they look like what are called chipmunks here)
2. I have a scar on my forehead from balancing on some bricks around a garden bed and falling when I was 4 years old.
3. My favorite color is blue.
   

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? At least 10
4)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)? Nah, I’m going to take it easy this time.
5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time? Just have fun!

9:00 (Hour 1) – I’ve read 30 pages and finished Wolfsbane by Patricia Briggs. I’ve updated goodreads and paperbackswap and I’ve been playing with html so I can get a progress bar (see above). Now I have to go find my copy of  The Thief so I can start that next.

10:00 (Hour 2) – Um.. I was on twitter, then replied to comments, found The Thief, but for reading – I have actually been researching something for work. 😛 I suppose rereading the same 15-20 pages in a reference book may count as reading? I’m also watching The Husband run around as he’s getting ready to drive up to Vermont for The Tour of the Battenkill and ‘helpfully’ asking if he packed this or that.

12:00 (Hour 4) – I took a break to eat something, say good-bye to The Husband, more tweeting. Read 50 pages of The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. Liking it you guys.

2:00 (Hour 6) – Had some lunch, took a shower, had tea and biscuits, read 75 more pages of The Thief. I really am taking it easy this time. Am considering doing laundry..

3:00 (Hour 7) – Not really sure where the time goes. I only read 20 more pages. I guess I was cleaning up the apartment a little bit and checking if the laundry room is free (it’s not).

5:00 (Hour 9) – Well I’m on page 178 of The Thief, so I’ve read uh, 33 more pages in 2 hours. This is pretty bad eh. I don’t know what it is, but I’m SO ANTSY this readathon! I have done my laundry. Folded. Had dinner. Talked to the husband on the phone (he reached Vermont fine). Cleaned the bathroom some more. Feeling a bit more like I can sit and read now though. Maybe.

7:00 (Hour 11) – Is it seriously 7? Yikes. So… I vacuumed. I know, there is something wrong with me! I need to stop cleaning and read! *slaps self*. In other news, the sister called so that was a good half hour taken away from reading time. And I watched an episode of Empty Nest. Another half hour. I read 30 more pages of the book.

9:00 (Hour 13) – Just past halfway! I have finished The Thief! I guessed part of the ending but I still liked how it went. And I read the 16 pages of extras in my copy (loving the book recommendations by the author!) So now I’ve read 88 more pages, for a total of 326. Hey, getting better there.

12:00 (Hour 16) – Finished Calamity Jack, a graphic novel by Shannon & Deal Hale, illustrated by Nathan Hale. 144 pages, so still going.

1:00 (Hour 17) – I’ve been having cuddle time with the cat. He’s on top of me right now, with his face in my neck. Luckily I have a laptop and don’t need to see the keys to type. For the past hour I’ve just been surfing the net. I’m tired and I have to get up tomorrow and work. I think the idea of that has made my mind not fully engaged in the readathon this time. Oh well. I’m off to bed!

The 24-hour readathon is upon us again. I’ve signed up at the readathon website, and I’m mentally preparing myself to stay up, although my goal is going to be something like 2am. Anyone else signed up for this thing? (I made a new badge for it!)

Possible books to read (unless I read them before April 9th):

8:00 Here we go again. I’m up and I have my coffee. This is all I can say for now.

9:06 I’m about 56 pages into GLIMMERGLASS by Jenna Black. It’s about a girl who is fed up with her alcoholic mother so decides to go live with her long lost father – who is a Fae that lives in Avalon, in England. The first chapter was OK, but after that, I noticed how dense the heroine, Dana is. She’s the narrator and her first reaction to adverse change  is deny it. Hey someone seems to be kidnapping me, but let’s reason why this can’t be so. Or I should scream now, but I’ll momentarily hesitate because I noticed my captor is hot.

Meanwhile I’ve been entertaining the cat who is in the NOTICE ME HUMAN phase of the day. And my husband came out and got his birthday present (which fits his proclivity for bikes and the color black).

10:13 The heroine is still annoying me. Page 116. She’s being hidden in some underground room and because there’s chamber pots and candles instead of electricity and facilities, she is overwhelmed and begins to cry. Young good looking guy is comforting her. My eyes are rolling all over the place.

10:29 Breaking for a bit. I went to write comments on other people’s posts and update twitter.

Also Mini-challenge for hour 3 – a “creative a six-word celebration of Dewey’s Read-a-Thon”. I’m going to go with:

“Booknerds of the world, read on!”

11:11 am Still on GLIMMERGLASS, but on page 134 now. I took a long break in the last hour so I’ve been reading for about 2 hours and 10 minutes out of the past 3 hours I think. Still think the heroine is TSTL. The Mister made pancakes out of this mix (mo’s bacon chocolate chip). It was most excellent. The bacon is in very small pieces in the chocolate chips and just add a bit of saltiness to it. It doesn’t overwhelm the pancakes with bacon. I think my husband is all kinds of fantastic for making breakfast on HIS birthday.

1:00pm Page 234 of GLIMMERGLASS. Glad to say that the heroine has gotten a lot better. I think in the past 100 pages she started to act less foolish so I haven’t felt annoyed. Wish the book had started out that way. I also like the secondary characters around her a lot more. There’s also a scene where she’s talking to her alcoholic mother which I felt was true to life (her mom sounds normal, maybe a little sleepy, but she’s really drunk).  I’d say in the past 5 hours I’ve been reading for.. 4 hours maybe? Sounds about right.

Wearing my Pulp t-shirt to go along with my reading.. cat is quietly sleeping next to me on the couch.

2:25pm Finished GLIMMERGLASS! Overall I think I found it OK. The second half was much better than the first, although there was a evil villain scene in there that was sort of predictable. Feels very much like a set up book overall. I’ve been thinking about how her mom’s alcoholism was portrayed. I think there are parts that I could agree with but also parts that I didn’t think got it quite right. I’ll save it for the review. In the meantime, I guess I’ve been reading for 5 hours now. Total – 294 pages.

4:00pm I took a bit of a break after finishing GLIMMERGLASS to get my mind ready for another book. And I checked my mail and a chapbook of the first three chapters of The Heir of Night that I won from the author, Helen Lowe had arrived. It’s a fantasy story that I was eying. I started reading it. I’m about 50 pages (these are mini pages) in. I’m liking it so far, and the Robin Hobb blurb on the chapbook’s cover is a plus. It’s set in a fantasy-type world with what seems to be a bunch of Houses who have a history of warfare against what they call The Swarm. This book centers on a young girl named Malian, the heir to the house of Night. It’s interesting what’s being dropped as hints – seems like these people didn’t really originate from this world (called the Haarth) – they fled there. Also there seems to be an equality in the sexes – heroes of legend are both male and female. Must go buy this book..

Totals – 50 pages of Heir of Night chapbook.  344 pages all together today. 6 hours of reading (ish).

6:00pm In the past two hours I finished the chapbook (another 12 pages), and started Killbox by Ann Aguirre (6 pages in). But all the reading and staying in one place was getting to me and my husband wanted to go for a walk so we went out. To Barnes and Noble and then Target. I looked for The Heir of Night but they didn’t have it.   So total is 362 pages read and probably something like 6.5 hours of reading in .. what is this, hour 10? Yeah. And now I’m probably going to have dinner! 😀

8:00pm Still haven’t been reading. We decided to go out for food (curb side takeout from Outback). I think the Mister’s birthday trumps the readathon

Mid event survey!!

9:00pm OK back to reading. Read about 54 pages of Killbox now. Can’t discuss the plot since this is the 4th book of this series and I don’t want to spoil. So.. 7.5 hours of reading total. 416 pages read in all.

10:00 pm Now on page 86 of Killbox. 8 hours, 20 minutes of reading? 448 pages read.

11:00 pm Page 130 of Killbox. I may take another break, not sure. 9 hours, 10 minutes of reading altogether I think. 492 pages read.

12:12am Page 164 of Killbox. I read for half an hour, then went and commented on some book blogs, and then spent time with the cat and his game of “Throwing Ducky in the air and if it falls off the couch, stare at it until the human gets it for me.” I’m getting tired, but at least I’m not rereading pages because I’m too tired to figure out what the words mean. I’ve had half a bottle of Cherry Coca-Cola Zero.  526 pages read total. 9 hours, 40 minutes of reading all together.

2:00am Took another bit of a break there. Now on page 220 of Killbox. Still interested and not having a problem reading even though I’m getting tired. Not sure how long I’m going to last. 10 hours, 40 min of reading. 582 pages read in total.

My cat just bit through the cover of Killbox. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

3:30am Yep, still up! On page 285 now. So uh… 12 hours of reading? and 647 pages in total. I’m about 70 pages away from the end of the book. Debating if I want to stay up or just go to bed.. More because I don’t want to mess up my sleep schedule for Monday rather than feeling tired. Hmm. Ponder.

5:00am OK finished the book. 353 pages it was. SO: 13 and a half hours of reading, 715 pages read in total. 2 books finished, plus a chapbook. I think I’m going to bed now! 😀

Alright. The second 24-Hour readathon for this year is happening this weekend (October 9th). It’s also my husband’s birthday, but he understands. I’m letting him ride his bike all day, he’s letting me read. We may go out for cake and a movie in there, we’ll see.

But for the readathon (I’m excited. It’s like a holiday! for reading!), the plan is:

ONLINE LOCATIONS:

WORDPRESS & LIVEJOURNAL – One post with updates as I go along like I usually do. This will hopefully not irritate people on the RSS reader with many posts on one day.

TWITTER – @janicu

READING MATERIAL:

Scott Pilgrim graphic novels – I have all of them waiting for me. I think that they’ll be something lighter that I’ll be able to concentrate on even when tired, for when it’s 2am and I’m about to die. I am really not a all-nighter person.

Killbox by Ann Aguirre – I think it’s time I read this and I think it will be as exciting to read as I expect so that will keep me going.

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black and Firelight by Sophie Jordan – I’ve gotten smarter about readathons. YAs are the way to go so I have a couple that were on the TBR that are possibilities.

There are other possibilities. The TBR is a vast thing.

SUSTENENCE

Lots of tea. And coffee. Candy of some kind. Fruit. Meals to be determined.

ANNOYING CAT WHO WILL DRIVE ME CRAZY ALL DAY?

Check.

Anyone else planning to do this? If you can’t this weekend, there’s another one coming up – the Halloween Read-A-Thon hosted by  Lesley at Young Adult Books Reviewed. It’s on the weekend of October 15-17