#readathon update — 8 hours

2013, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon /

I’m coming up on my eight hour mark so I thought it might be time for an update, particularly since I won a door prize. How awesome is that? Totally awesome.

I did take a nap for just about an hour, I didn’t want to but the long work week and late night last night caught up with me. And, I had a snack. Some sort of cookie things that TW bought — Laura’s Wholesome Junk Food or something. Now I’m back in the game.

125 pages of “Lake Geneva: Life at the Water’s Edge” and working on the first story (by Patricia Highsmith, which means it’s awesome) of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives.

Total page count: 477 (and an hour of an audio book)

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#Readathon: 5 Hours In

2013, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon /

I started at 7:30am, so am right at the 5 hour mark.

I read 83 pages of Astronauts Wives Club.
An hour of listening to Dexter’s Final Cut, on audio.
Am 162 pages into The Daylight Gate (and it is excellent.)

I’ve eaten a pumpkin cream cheese muffin, 2 Parmesan crips and just warmed up a squash/apple/onion galette.

We drove the boy to his dad’s and stopped for Starbucks,too.

I might need a nap… I’m tired and it’s too early to be tired. Ugh.

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#Readathon: 1st Hour

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon /

Gah, late start! I’ve never gotten up so late on a #readathon day before so I’m not ready to actually start reading. This is not a good way to start the day. Poop. Oh well, I’m gonna rush through work and hopefully be ready to start by 7:30am CT… fingers crossed.

And here’s the first meme of the day. The intro survey, (same questions as always and I’ll be honest and say I started to pre-write this post last night but didn’t because I figured the way things were gong they’d change the survey and I’d be scrambling to start over, lol.)

1) I’m still stuck in Chicagoland and will be reading, primarily, from my bed — with TW and three puppies.
2) Tough question for me this year, which is not a good indicator of how things are going to go today… I think, maybe Jeanette Winterson’s “The Daily Gate”
3) Even harder question since none of our snacks are really calling to me (yet) — I guess the mango lime pear salsa.
4) I’m really tired. Last week was rough and I didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night. Darn it.
5) I have participated many times before and the one thing I’d LIKE to do over again is that whole taking the day (or half day) before #readathon off of work. It didn’t happen again this year. IT MUST HAPPEN IN APRIL when we do it again!

Now, on to work so that I can get on to reading … and pumpkin cream cheese muffins for breakfast.

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#Readathon: Ready, Not Ready, Ready!

2013, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon /

Oh boy, what a day (week?). Totally not ready for Dewey’s Readathon tomorrow but also very ready for the #readathon because I really enjoy it so darn much.

We have snacks, even though we aren’t super excited about any of them.

We have books, though I don’t seem to have any YA or any graphic novels. And, I don’t have anything downloaded to Kindle that I plan on reading tomorrow, either. Oops.

I do have a lot of children’s fiction, non-fiction and poetry and some travel guides, so that will save me when I’m starting to get tired. I’ve also got a lot of adult non-fiction and that might be a problem unless they’re really interesting. We shall see.

First up, in the morning — finishing the last 100 pages of The Astronaut Wives’ Club. (We also have to drive the boy across town so we’ll get an hour of listening to Dexter’s Final Cut, so that will be a nice morning break from print.

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Prepping for #Readathon

2013, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon /

Every time a #readathon ends, I say “I’m going to take the day before #readathon off of work, so I can prepare (or at least a HALF DAY.)” and I never seem to be able to do it. Something always comes up and I just can’t take the day (or a half day) off.

This year it’s even worse because TW has to drive to Wisconsin tomorrow to pick Prince J up from school which means our normal after work shopping for #readathon snacks was a bit of a bust. We went to Whole Foods tonight and spent a ton of money on nothing that really looks all that fun, to me. I’m sure it will be fine but I’m just not excited about most of it. Tomorrow we’ll run into TJ’s before we grab our Starbucks and maybe I’ll find something more interesting?

Ho hum. I think we’ll go to Fresh Market before the spring #readathon — I think they have better #readathon snack food….

And, someone has to run to the library tomorrow to pick up a whole bunch of holds — otherwise my plans for #readathon books will be shot and I’ll have to re-think the whole day (and TW’s mom probably won’t have enough books to make it through the day, either.)

So yea, totally unprepared and I sure wish I’d been able to take the day (or half of the day) off. I’m still looking forward to it, though. I do love #readathon.

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The Goddess Chronicle

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

I ran to the library one morning, by myself, to pick up some holds and pluck some books off of the shelf for TW because she was OUT of BOOKS. The Goddess Chronicle was one of those books. I really thought she’d probably already read it. But she hadn’t — thank goodness.

It was a good pick because not only is it a great feminist creation story, we discovered it’s part of a series so now we have another handful of books to look forward to reading.

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Five Children’s Non-Fiction Books

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction /

I’m finally getting to the stack of Cybils non-fiction books that have been sitting on my library cart since JMP was here. I’m fairly indifferent about most of them but I was pleasantly surprised by one…

When I have a stack of these, I usually read them in a very specific order — the ones I suspect I’ll like least, I read first. The one I have the most hope for, I will save for last. This is usually a good strategy because I’m not comparing books I’m inclined to not like with books I was pretty sure I would like. But, sometimes none of the books turns out to be what I’d expected. This was one of those times.

I started with Dolphin Baby because I don’t usually like sea creature books, particularly about dolphins. Too cute. They’re cute enough without any forced prose to try and make them cuter. This one — pretty much perfect. Nice illustrations. Information about dolphins was presented well. Not a lot of cute mommy baby, look how adorable they are stuff. This ended up being my favorite of the batch.

Next, Nic Bishop’s Snakes. I like Nic Biship but his books are all pretty much the same — great photos, basic info, same ole, same ole. That’s not a bad thing, but I do not like snakes at all. I made it through without looking too closely at the photos, a hard thing to do with a Nic Bishop book, and I don’t think I’ll have snake-like nightmares. If you need a book with great snake photos, this is your book. I don’t need that. Hope never to see it again, but I heartily recommend it to you if your kids are snake-crazy.

Then I read Island: A Story of Galapagos because I expected to find it ok but nothing to get excited about and that’s pretty much what happened. It does a nice job of explaining how species’ adapt to their surroundings. Finches with small beaks didn’t live long enough to pass that trait along, finches with larger beaks survived so they passed that trait along. Insect eating iguanas evolved to eat algae. Cormorants don’t need to fly so their wings are underdeveloped. Nicely done. I’d have liked it more with stronger illustrations, I think.

Then there’s Looking at Lincoln. How can you not like a book about Lincoln? That’s why I saved it for the end. But this one — gah. Throwing in things like Did Mr & Mrs Lincoln call each other cutesy names? Really? Was that necessary? Also, do children understand why people say “I could have stared at his picture all day.” I do not understand why so many children’s books about Lincoln include that tidbit. (Someone remind me to ask some kids about this the next time I’m in a room of 5-8 year olds.)

Last but not least, sigh. Mrs Harkness and the Panda. I had high hopes because I find Ruth Harkness to be fascinating. Unfortunately, all of the things I find interesting about her were missing from this book.

Ho hum.

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