One week and two read-a-thons later, I am quite proud of the reading progress I have been able to make. All the reading happened, and although I hit some speed bumps mid-thon, the weekend more than made up for it.
Category: read-a-thon
Read-A-Thons
This week there are two big read-a-thons going on – the Booktube-a-thon and 24-in-48. Now I don’t have a Booktube channel, but it’s not like the book police are going to come and tell me I’m not allowed to read this week. And plus, I’ve thought about making a channel, so the intent is there.
I decided to participate in both of these ‘thons because A) I’m going to read anyway, B) after Thursday I’ll have a month(ish) off, and C) I like the way that read-a-thon challenges make me create a TBR of books that I might have forgotten about otherwise (which is easy to do when your TBR is pushing 500 books).
Booktube-a-thon is July 18th-24th, and 24-in-48 is July 23rd and 24th. Here are the challenges for the Booktube-a-thon and the books I chose for them, which will overlap with the other ‘thon:
Another read-a-thon completed
This recent read-a-thon challenge was based on the Booktube-a-thon. It required reading a book a day for a week, which I surprised myself by accomplishing.
As a reminder:
1) Read a book with blue on the cover – The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma
2) Read a book whose author shares the same last initial as you – Saint Anything, Sarah Dessen
3) Read someone else’s favorite book – The Giver, Lois Lowry
4) Read a book without letting go of it – The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
5) Read the book you most recently acquired – The Green Road, Anne Enright
6) Read a book you want to read – Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
7) Read 7 books – Everything, Everything, Nicola Yoon
Luckily three of my books were really quick reads, and all of them were good so I never got stuck because of not enjoying a book. In fact, I finished this read-a-thon with about 14 hours to spare!
My favorite was a tie between The Fishermen and The Green Road, which isn’t surprising. If I were to pick one up to read again I would probably pick up The Green Road for slightly more entertainment value, and lower chance of heart ripping-outage. But they were both superb. (Reviews coming later this week!) Northanger Abbey was clearly Jane Austen’s first novel, as it lacked something that I love in her later work. It was the equivalent of a summer read, Jane Austen-style. Entertaining and funny, but not much substance.
I hadn’t read The Giver since I was in junior high, and I remember loving it then as well. Now I’ll finally watch the movie version. I just finished Saint Anything, so I’m still deciding how I felt about it. Right now I’m thinking 7/10, but I might write a review to help me figure out my thoughts.
Reading The House on Mango Street was interesting because I wasn’t supposed to put it down. It is barely 100 pages, and many pages aren’t even half covered, so it was not a difficult challenge. It was recommended to me by a friend, and I had heard a lot of good things about it, but I was a bit underwhelmed. Maybe it was the fact that I was rushing through it a bit, but it’s not like I wasn’t paying attention. Maybe another time I’ll like it more.
Today is National Book Day or something like that, so armed with that excuse (like I need one) I’ll be heading to the local bookstore soon. Clearly, having brought 10 books with me on a 7-day vacation was not enough. Happy vacation to me!
-Leslie
P.S. – I keep revising this even though I published it already, I should pay more attention before I hit that button. Sorry.
To book tube-a-thon or not to book tube-a-thon
Today is the start of the Booktube-a-thon, and in trying to decide if I wanted to participate, I decided that yes I will, just in a half-assed way. I just barely finished my TBR Takedown read-a-thon a week ago, and this week is the last week that I have of work for the summer. I also have family coming into town on Friday and will be traveling a bit on Saturday, but…
I think read-a-thons are a good way to get books off the shelf that I might not have picked up, and when you have such a formidable TBR list, a read-a-thon with pre-determined categories can be a good way to prioritize. It can also make you feel like you have accomplished something when you set reading goals for yourself.
TBR takedown
This read-a-thon is hosted by Shannon @ Leaning Lights.
I have no idea how well I will do with this read-a-thon, I have never set myself any goals between “finish this book in the next day or two” and “read these 150 books sometime before I die”. So this should be interesting. This begins tomorrow, July 25th, and goes through Friday the 31st. I really need to finish reading The Casualties today! I really feel like slacking off today though so it might not happen.
1) First book in a series: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
2) Sequel in a series: Hollow City, Ransom Riggs
3) Over a year on my TBR: The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
4) Outside of my comfort zone: The Enchanted, Rene Denfield
5) Most recent haul: Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, Salman Rushdie
I had a really hard time picking which book from my recent haul to chose, because I’ve received some books in the last couple of days that either need to go back to the library soon or need to be reviewed soon, but I’ve also bought some books which I sort-of want to read more. All of the other categories were fairly easy though.
P.S. – the longlist for the Man Booker Prize will be announced this coming Wednesday, July 29th!
Books, in other words 