I took a 20 minute nap. Between not sleeping well the night before, getting up earlier than usual, and being used to going to bed at midnight, I was yawning too much to continue reading. I finished The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein, and started The Nightingale Bones by Ariel Swan. The Nightingale Bones is perfect for October since it involves witches and a haunted house. My next update will be at 4:00 am.
Books Finished: 2
Total Pages Read: 229
I didn’t get much reading done, not only because of the dinner party, but also because my dishwasher decided to flood my kitchen! I’m still full from the dinner party, so I haven’t snacked on anything. I’ve only got 26 pages left of The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein. After that, I’m going to read The Nightingale Bones by Ariel Swan. My next update will be at 1:00 am.
Books Finished: 1
Total Pages Read: 179
Dinner with my friends ended much earlier than I expected. I had a good time. Now it’s time to get back to the thon. I’ll be playing catch-up with the hourly posts over at Dewey’s, but once that’s done, I’m hitting the books! I’m still going to do an update post at 10:00 pm.
1. What are you reading right now? The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein
2. How many books have you read so far? 1
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? I’ve had several interruptions today, but they were “planned”. At one point I got a little cranky, but I managed to keep my cool.
5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? How little I’ve managed to read in 12 hours. Even with knowing ahead of time that there would be unavoidable interruptions, I still thought I would’ve gotten more pages read.
9 hours down, 15 to go. My reading is continuing to slow. Partly because I had to stop to make sangria for the dinner I’m having with friends tonight, and partly because I had to get the laundry done. My next update isn’t going to be until 10:00 pm, since I’m going to be busy with the dinner. That also means I probably won’t get much reading done. I’m about halfway through The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein. I might have it finished by midnight, if I’m lucky. Unless I’m able to pick up speed, I think I’ll only be able to finish one more book after that.
Books Finished: 1
Total Pages Read: 153
6 hours down, 18 to go. I’ve had pumpkin seeds and a chocolate coconut granola bar for snacks, and vegetarian corn dogs for lunch. My boyfriend brought home guava pastries, so I’m looking forward to eating those later tonight with some more coffee. Somehow, I managed to read even less than during the first 3 hours. Hopefully I’ll get more read between now and my next update at 4:00 pm. I finished Chimera: Book Three by Phil Gomm, and started The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein. I still haven’t listened to any music, but only because I don’t have anything that fits with The Red Magician.
Books Finished: 1
Total Pages Read: 111
Challenges: Name Your Read-a-Thon
3 hours down, 21 to go. I’ve had coffee and cherry turnovers for breakfast, but it’s been a slow start. I’ve only got 20 pages left of Chimera: Book Three by Phil Gomm, and after that I think I’ll move on to The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein. I haven’t listened to any music yet, but I’m sure that will change shortly. My next update will be at 1:00 pm.
Total Pages Read: 58
Challenges: Coffee or Tea?
I got up at 6:30 am, to be ready to start reading by 7:00 (which is a bit of a miracle, and only an awesome read-a-thon like Dewey’s can make me do that voluntarily). I’m having cherry turnovers and coffee for breakfast to get me going. Once I’m fully animated, I’ll switch to tea and water. I’m starting off my reading with Chimera: Book Three by Phil Gomm, since it’s a short, fast, and fun read, and I need to have a sense of accomplishment right now. Also, I’m about halfway through it already. My first update will be at 10:00 am.
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Austin, TX
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? The cherry turnovers I’m about to eat for breakfast, even though I guess that’s not really a snack.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I’m also geeky about music, so I might share what I’m listening to in my updates.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? I will do my best to drink more water. Supposedly staying hydrated works better than coffee. We shall see….
Tomorrow, Oct. 18th, at 7 am, I will be starting Dewey’s 24-hour Read-a-Thon. Last time, I got a bit punchy around 2 am, so I’m not sure if I’ll be staying up the entire 24 hours, but I will try. However, I invited some friends over for dinner before I remembered the read-a-thon, so I’ll be taking a break from reading while they’re here. I’ll be listening to an audio-book while I’m cooking, though. My updates will consist of what I’ve read, the total number of pages, and which mini-challenges I’ve participated in.
My Goals:
Even though I’m in the middle of reading 7 other books, I decided to start reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I missed reading about vampires. Also, I wanted to read something that had nothing to do with any challenges or read-alongs, wasn’t for one of my classes, and wasn’t an ARC. Besides all that, The Historian has been on my TBR shelf for far too long.
12 pages in, and I’ve already bookmarked 2 quotes. One concerns traveling, and the other is about books.
“A train carried us to Vienna; my father hated planes, which he said took the travel out of traveling.”
Sadly, I’ve never traveled long distance by train. However, I have traveled quite a bit throughout my life. I hate planes. I’m not afraid of flying. I just feel the same way as her father. Unfortunately, they’re a necessary evil, and one I couldn’t stand long before all of the added security that makes the experience even worse. The only consolation for flying is getting time to read, which leads me to the other quote.
“I flipped through the rest of the pages – when you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.”
This sums up my life. It’s how I feel when I’m in the book store and the library, and when I’m looking at all the potentially good books on Netgalley. Reading, writing, critiquing, and editing books are the activities that keep me up into the night, wake me before the sun comes up, and make me forgetful of everything else. I’ve never felt about any other job or career I’ve had as I do about books. It’s a shame that I spent most of my life listening to people who told me I needed to be practical, that I couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t work in the publishing industry for so many reasons. I’m grateful to the people who have come into my life in the past couple years who have encouraged and supported me. Most of all, they made me realize that, while being able to pay the bills is important, it’s more important to do what I’m truly passionate about. Otherwise, the hard work and the long hours aren’t worth it.
Currently Reading: Chimera: Book Two by Phil Gomm, a review book, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, for the read-along, and Bliss by Kathryn Littlewood, what I read when I’m out and about.
DNF: The Time Roads by Beth Bernobich. This book is so horrible, I reviewed it to warn everyone.
Finished: The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet, which I reviewed Oct. 12th, and Chimera: Book One by Phil Gomm, which I’ll be reviewing sometime before the end of the month. If you love Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, you’ll love the Chimera books!
Total pages read for the week: 502
Total number of books for the year: 46. I’m only 4 books away from my goal, and I’ll probably reach it by the end of next week. Depending on how many more books I finish by the end of the year, I’ll be adjusting my goal for next year. I’m hoping to be able to raise it to 75.
