Read-a-thon!

Here we go!  I'm going to put all of my updates into this one post to keep everything neat.  Most of the goodies are below the fold, so click through!

Goal: 1,000 pages
Books Completed:  4 - Crossed by Ally Condie, Dead Inside: Do Not Enter by Lost Zombies, A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant, How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen
Total Pages: 940 pages
Current Book:  Kiss of Crimson by Lara Adrian

Hours Twenty Three and Twenty Four

Oooo, the book I just finished made me mad!  It was short so it only took a little over an hour - How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen.   It felt like a missive from the past, hard to get into at first due to a generational gap, but I can deal with that.  She spends a good chunk of the essay deriding electronic books, quote, "no one wants to take a computer to bed at the end of a long day, to read a chapter or two before dropping off to sleep.  No one wants to take one out of a purse on the New York City subway to pass the time..."  This was written in 1998, but how short sighted she was!  I wonder if her views have evolved.

Personally, I feel that paper books are best but at times impractical.  Take my own situation - half a world away from my native country, in a land where one pays fifteen, twenty dollars or more for an imported paperback marked $8.99 on the cover.  The ebook collection at my hometown library allows me to access the world no matter where I am.  What would she say to this?  Funny also, that I read her book on my ipad.

Pages Read Since Last Update: 96 pages
Books Finished Since Last Update:  How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen
Total Pages Read: 940 pages
Thought of the Moment: Almost there!

 

Hours Twenty-Twenty Two

My 1,000 page goal is kinda in jeopardy now, but I'm going to soldier on!  I started Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy #3) but it's so meh I think I'm going to drop the series as a whole.

Pages Read Since Last Update: 81 pages
Books Read Since Last Update  Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy #3)
Total Pages Read: 844 pages
Thought of the Moment:  Focus!

Hour Nineteen

Another book down!  Six hours to see if I can knock out another... it may just happen.

Pages Read This Hour: 31 screens
Book Finished This Hour:  A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
Total Pages Read: 763 pages
Dilemma of the Last Hour:  Should the next book be a vampire novel, or non-fiction? Hmmm....

Hours Seventeen and Eighteen

Only a little bit more to go and I'll be done with this book, yea!  I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, but that's what virtual libraries are for.  ^_^

Pages Read Since Last Update: 102 screens
Books Read Since Last Update  A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
Total Pages Read: 417 pages + 340 screens
Thought of the Moment:  Snack!  Snacksnacksnack....

Hours Fourteen-Sixteen

I'm liking this regency tale - it swept me away!  Hopefully I'll be able to finish it in the next hour or two.

Pages Read Since Last Update: 148 screens
Books Read Since Last Update  A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
Total Pages Read: 417 pages + 238 screens
Joy of the Last Hour:  lying on my stomach in bed, ipad propped against the wall, lost in my book

Hour Thirteen

Halfway there!  And I dare say I'm kinda sorta on track for 1000 pages.

Mid-Event Survey

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?
I'm feeling better after my three hour nap but still a bit sluggish... I should probably break out some caffeine.  It's 9 am here, though, so things are looking up!

2) What have you finished reading?
Two books - Crossed by Ally Condie and Dead Inside by Lost Zombies

3) What is your favorite read so far?
Probably Dead Inside - I love how it unfolded via "found" notes.

4) What about your favorite snacks?
I've been strong and haven't dug into the curry senbei yet.  Maybe I should steal some now....

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love!
 To be honest I've been reading more than blog hopping, but I hope to get to it later in the day.


Pages Read This Hour: 66 screens
Books Read This Hour:  A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
Total Pages Read: 417 pages + 90 screens
Disappointment of the Last Hour:  The "healthy" crackers my fiance got for me - while multi-grain they're as hard as tack and full of sugar besides.  Booo.

Hour Twelve

After some ginger tea and breakfast I'm back in the saddle again.  This time I'm going with a regency romance - my first!  As much as I love paranormal stuff I want to branch out some, for variety if nothing else.  Oooo, I should keep my eye out for a Western romance too... if you have any recommendations I'd love to hear them!

Pages Read This Hour: 24 screens
Books Read This Hour:  A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
Total Pages Read: 417 pages + 24 screens
Temptation of the moment: My snack stash.

Hours Eight-Eleven

I slept for three hours or so.  Still woke up at my usual 7am, bless my internal clock. -_^  This upcoming hour will be more about catching up than reading - I should be back in full force by Hour Twelve.

The zombie book was pretty good - it was certainly a quick read!  Some pages only had three words on them so I'm going to count the 160 page book as 50 in my total.

Pages Read Since Last Update: Uh... some.
Books Finished This Hour: Dead Inside: Do Not Enter
Total Pages Read: 417 pages
Tea of the Moment: Ginger.  I can't catch the SO's cold!

Hour Seven

I finished Crossed, yea!  The Zombie book is perfect for late night as it's a collection of notes - a quick, easy read.  I don't think I'm going to make it through to the next hour without some sleep, though.

Pages Read This Hour: 30 or so pages plus a bunch of Dead Inside
Books Read This Hour:  Crossed by Ally Condie, Dead Inside: Do not Enter
Books Finished This Hour: Crossed by Ally Condie
Total Pages Read:  367 pages + most of Dead Inside... I'll calculate when I'm more awake
Thought of the Moment:  Zzzzzzzz.

Hour Six

I'm fading fast, booo.  I'm going to stick with Crossed until I finish (only 30 screens left!) and then I think I'll take a little nap.  If I miss an update or two (or four) you'll know why.

Pages Read This Hour: 75 screens
Books Read This Hour:  Crossed by Ally Condie
Total Pages Read:  327 screens
Thought of the Moment:  Eyes... heavy....

Hour Five

Maybe it was the senbei, maybe it's the tea I'm sipping, but my second wind has kicked in.  My fiance's also working on some paperwork - when you want a spousal visa you need to tell them your whole life story, down to the day!  Scary~

Didn't read as many pages as I wanted to this hour but I'm still feeling good.  I've taken to charging the ipad while I'm blogging - every little bit helps!

Pages Read This Hour: 52 screens
Books Read This Hour:  Crossed by Ally Condie
Total Pages Read:  252 screens
Thought of the Moment:  An hour is shorter than I realized!  Especially when you're reading. ^_^

Hour Four

 Midnight!  I'm going to try and stay up longer than my fiance, but he's such a night owl that's going to be hard.  Still worth a shot, though!

The fated lovers finally met, huzzah!  I was hoping that now they're together it would change from a first person narrator to a third but no such luck.  Sometimes I forget who's "speaking", but that may just be the late hour talking.  -_^

Pages Read This Hour: 70 screens
Books Read This Hour:  Crossed by Ally Condie
Total Pages Read:  200 screens
Snack of the moment: senbei

Hour Three

It's 11 pm.  The eyes are starting to get heavy.  I got sucked into a bunch of wonderful blogs last hour - not good for the page count but they were so fun to read!

Crossed is still okay, and now the fated lovers are threatening to meet at every turn. Maybe I'll try to put some extra pages in this hour so I can take a little break during hour four.

Pages Read This Hour: 58 screens
Books Read This Hour:  Crossed by Ally Condie
Total Pages Read:  130 screens
Tea of the moment:  black, with lots of sugar. Sugar!

Hour Two

So far so good!  I was silly and didn't make my tea before the start of the hour, but I got my first pages in while I waited for the water to come to a boil.

I upped the text size on my ereader - eye strain would be very bad today!  It also brought the screen count closer in line with the page count so I can't complain.  I'll convert screen into pages (using the info at Goodreads) at the end of each book.

Crossed is decent so far, but like Matched, not great.  The author used the first few pages to add some things she wish she wrote in the first book and there's a new poem that's going to be overused, sigh.  Not enough to make me stop reading though.

Pages Read This Hour: 72 screens
Books Read This Hour:  Crossed by Ally Condie
Total Pages Read:  72 screens
Tea of the moment:  black is up next - green is not cutting it

Hour Zero/One

I've showered, the snacks are squirreled safely away to make sure I don't break into them too early, the ipad is charged and I'm ready to go!  Starting at 9 pm is very very VERY weird but maybe I can use it to my advantage later.

Pages Read This Hour: 0
Books Read This Hour: none
Total Pages Read: 0
Tea of the moment: green

Intro Questionnaire Time!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Japan!
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Dead Inside: Do Not Enter looks like a wonderful graphic novel... I'm saving it for the wee hours, though!
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Curry senbei, yum.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm an American living in Japan, studying to be a Japanese <-> English interpreter.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I'm looking forward to devouring books whole, relatively guilt free.   I'm also looking forward to devouring snacks, though I strongly suspect there will be some guilt involved.