Huh, I don’t remember ever doing this one in a readathon – how the heck did I miss it? Or maybe I didn’t and it was all a blur, which is possible after long hours of reading. Heh.
I’m currently reading Words in the Dust so …. I’ll leave out ‘in the’ … here’s my acrostic.
Worrying
Over
Relationships,
Daughters and
Sons.
Dangers
Untold,
Soldiers
Trust.
#readathon #minichallenge The Acrostic! Read More »
Hah. This is fun. (surfing the blogroll while I wait for my spring rolls to bake! Mmmm, spring rolls.)
B – A blogger you’ve never come across before – Wall-to-Wall Books, great blog, it’s nice to meet her.
I – A blogger whose blog name has the word ‘book’ in it – The Crazy Life of a Bookaholic Mom
N – A blogger who lives in Europe – Shirin (is in Sweden)
G – A male blogger – RobbFlynn!
O – A blogger whose read-a-thon pile has more than 5 books – Buried in Print (and one of those is Wilkie Collins, be still my heart!)
#readathon #minichallenge Book Blogger Bingo Read More »
Time for mini-challenge fun, turn to page 32 and… here’s what I’ve got, from Words in the Dust.
"If only you knew Anwar, you’d run screaming into the night!"
It’s an interesting sentence for this particular book. Zulaikha has a cleft palate and people are always bullying her and talking about her looks scaring people – so that would work for her, but obviously there’s more to her than her cleft.
Her brother is getting into trouble on this page and he’s turning into a mean boy, so I could easily insert Khalid into the sentence.
And, Anwar is obvious because he’s the biggest bully (so far) in the story and he’s on this page, too.
Or I could go with something a little different – it was a scary place for Khalid and Zulaikha to be:
"If only you knew a steep path within a crevasse, you’d run screaming into the night!"
#readathon #minichallenge Turn to Page …. Read More »
It’s early in the morning so there’s not been much snacking, at least by me. I had a slice of pumpkin bread and a slice of banana bread and a cup of coffee. I’ll be digging into cheese straws and some chocolate (Mexican guajillo chillies, organic pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate and caramel… fascinating, right?) TW started snacking right away – she had some sort of dehydrated okra thing and some sort of candy, grapefruit slices … which are sounding kind of yummy now that I think about it.
#minichallenge #readathon snacks Read More »
I don’t always love the easy readers from the Cybils short list. Some are just too – too – typical. So it is with much surprise that I’m here to report that I just finished four really excellent easy readers.
Have Fun, Anna Hibiscus – it was obvious that I was going to love that, because I’ve loved all of the Anna Hibiscus books. This one might be my favorite because Anna went to Canada and met Canadian kids and the Canadian kids met Anna, who is from Africa. Anna also met a dog – a Canadian dog, which is not like an African dog. I love this series and I loved this book.
I read Just Grace and the Double Surprise and I was probably most surprised by this book. I expected it to be… boring. It wasn’t. Just Grace got a puppy, which made me laugh because her puppy is like my puppy which is like every puppy. And Grace’s best friend got a baby brother, through adoption, which is not at all what she was hoping for. Many lessons were learned but the book wasn’t at all boring and I laughed out loud, several times.
Also surprising was my appreciation of The Trouble with Chickens. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t JJ the retired search and rescue dog, Vince the Funnel or the chicken family and their suspenseful mystery. An easy reader suspense drama – almost pulp fiction like in an easy reader animal story kind of way. Excellent.
And, the book with the best title – Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie. I know about bad months and about missing people who had to leave and about getting used to new people. Eleanor Abigail Kane knows this stuff too. Another good story with good characters. And now I’m going to think about sprinkling some pickle juice on a cookie… just to see what that’s like.
(Readathon count after two hours and four easy readers: 521 pages.)
Four Cybil Easy Readers (#readathon) Read More »
I’m not sure I’ve ever started exactly at the start time before. This is kind of nice – though I had to get up at 5:30am to make it happen, which was completely unintentional but hey, it’s working out nicely. Work is done and the pumpkin bread is calling my name.
Here are the answers to the traditional introductory questions:
1) I’m still reading from the suburbs of Chicago. (Looking forward to the day when I don’t say that… 4 more years…)
2) Tough question this time around – I’ll go with my friend “Bad Luck Detective’s” second book in the Fang Chronicles series.
3) Another tough question, but it always is since we stock up on snacks that we would not otherwise buy. The chocolate covered jerky, maybe?
4) I’m 49 and love #readathon more than Christmas. Well not more than Christmas because I like having most of my grown kids home for the holidays – but almost as much as Christmas. This year we’ve got a new puppy to deal with during #readathon. I hope she is cooperative and gets the hang of lying around with a book for a full day… And that’s enough about me, it’s time to read!
5) This year I’m starting with the easy readers rather than the tough stuff. I usually toss easy readers in when I’m tired – we’ll see how this plan works for me. It might be a bust, who knows…
Now on to the reading!
Good Morning #Readathon: The First Hour Read More »
I worked my butt off so I could finish work at a reasonable time and get stuff together for Dewey’s Readathon (we miss you, Dewey.) Yay, #readathon. I love #readathon!
The kitchen is clean and the dishwasher is running so the only dishes I’ll have to deal with tomorrow will be those we use tomorrow. Which probably won’t be many… see the #readathon food section below!
Laundry is in the washer and dryer and even if I don’t get it all folded tonight, it’s fine. That can wait until Sunday and I’ll have no laundry to feel guilty for not doing while I read. (I also won’t be tempted to do the laundry while I’m reading. Which I’ve totally done in the past.)
I’ve been to the library to return books and pick up the reserves + picked up a few other odds and ends for all of us to read tomorrow if we get bored with what we have. Yay for new library books.
I’ve downloaded a bunch of the apps from the Cybils shortlist list so that I can fiddle with those during reading breaks and I’ve double checked to be sure that I have some books downloaded to my iPad and iPhone, too.
I’ve set up bookmarks on my iPhone, iPad, and laptop so I can watch the #readathon stream and visit mini-challenges and other #readathon participants easily throughout the day.
I’ve got a stack of books on the cubby all ready to dive into tomorrow and I am planning on starting totally fresh by finishing the book I’m currently reading and NOT starting anything that I can’t finish tonight, either.
Here’s a photo of what I’m planning – you’ll notice I’m heavy on children’s fiction (catching up on my Cybils shortlist) and I got freaked out that I didn’t have enough non-fiction so I loaded up at the library. Now I’ve probably got too much non-fiction for the day. Oops. We shall see, eh? I’ve got some books on my shelf I can turn to if the non-fiction gets to me. And, you’ll notice there are no Nancy Drews in the plans. That’s sad. I might have to switch things up and toss one in at the end of the day.
We’ve been to Fresh Market and spent about three times as much money as I thought we would, (so much for me saying we generally spend less there than at Whole Foods, though more than at Trader Joe’s. Oy.) I think I spent $100 on chocolate, which is crazyness (though some of it is for a certain kid’s Christmas…) and TW bought BEER. (I know! Right?! It was actually the cheapest thing we bought lol) We’ve got cheese straws and two kinds of pimento cheese. We’ve got mini lemon bundt cakes, pumpkin bread, banana bread and blueberry cornbread. There’s edamame salad and two kinds of pasta salad. Some sort of quiche and twice baked potatoes for TW’s mom. Veggie spring rolls. A couple kinds of cheese. Crackers, crackers and garlic tortilla chips. And… I don’t even know what else. Yum! I love #readathon snacks, heh.
Yum. I can hardly wait to eat and read!
Prepping for the #Readathon Read More »
I started at 7:30am and it’s 12:30am – I’m toast. My eyes are burning and my back is tired and there’s no way I can read another one.
So… here’s my final.
5 books finished (3 non-fiction, 2 fiction.)
I’ve read about thirty pages of a Frommer’s travel guide which brings my total pages to 1,168 pages.
I never did eat any tortilla chips and black bean salsa – I did, however have a Magnum ice cream bar that was pretty tasty a couple of hours ago.
Thanks to all of the readathon cheerleaders, mini-challenge hosts and everyone else who was in some way involved in or participated in the readathon – so you in the fall!
I normally do a re-read during the #readathon but since I’m planning on a re-read next month, I held off.
I do have some favorite re-reads…
The Woman in White – I love this book. I’ve re-read it more times than I can tell you.
Fluke – My favorite Christopher Moore book, and I’ll be re-reading it next month while I’m in Hawaii.
The Red Tent – I used to re-read this quite a lot but haven’t done it in a couple of years, I should go back to it again – maybe this summer?
#Readathon Mini-Challenge – Re-reads Read More »
310 pages.
I’ve been looking forward to reading Nie Nie’s book, Heaven is Here – but I did not expect to be moved quite so strongly. I’ve read every blog post she’s written since 2009 and a good many before that. her story isn’t new to me. But there you have it… moving, inspirational, funny, sweet, and heartbreaking. Great book for the readathon. Great book in general.
#Readathon Book 4 – Heaven is Here Read More »