High Summer Read-a-Thon - Wrap Up! #HSreadathon

wr

I realize that this is a few days late, but better late than never.  It was an okay read-a-thon, in that I got a good chunk of Travelling to Infinity completed and did get my book tour book completed and read a bit from The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness.   I could have read a bit more but between travelling and being with relatives for the last three days of the read-a-thon, it wasn't exactly prime reading time.  Even though I was in transit for most of Friday, I just didn't feel well for a good portion of the day.  As for Saturday,  I was with family for the better part of the day and the same goes for Sunday, even though on the trip from Vulcan, AB to Outlook, Sask, I did get a lot of reading done from Travelling from Infinity.

Hope everybody had a fun time and am looking forward to the next one.

#boutofbooks Wrap-Up Post

Overall, I think I did pretty good.  I got All the Bright Places completed and got most of Vanessa and Her Sister completed and should be done on Monday or Tuesday.

As for pages read, I got about 370 completed, which is pretty good, but for me a little disappointing. Hopefully the one in August is a little better for me in that respect.  I didn't really participate in any Twitter chats nor did I do any challenges, but I did enter a contest on Saturday.

Write On Review-a-thon Wrap-Up

I was able to get four book reviews posted:

• Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley (review)
• Levels of Life by Julian Barnes (review)
• Road Ends by Mary Lawson (review)
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (review)

Am very pleased that I was able to get these reviews done and posted and am that much closer to catching up with my reviews, even though I didn't get them all caught up with by the end of August, but they all are written up to some degree (the remaining 7 have been hand written and will posted throughout the week).  Looking forward to the end of September.

#boutofbooks Wrap-Up & #bthreadathon Update No. 8

Bout of Books:

Was pretty successful, even though I finished 2 books.   I managed to read about 869 pages, which in my books is pretty good and am looking forward to the next Bout of Books read-a-thon in early January.

Beat the Heat:
Friday:
Mrs. Hemingway:          31 pages
The Word Exchange:     69 pages
Total pages:                   100

Saturday:
The Word Exchange:         58 pages
Mrs. Hemingway:              47 pages
The Invention of Wings:    38 pages
Total pages:                        143

Sunday:
The Wide and Starry Sky:                                                                  64 pages
The One-Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window:  42 pages
Total pages:                                                                                        106

High Summer Read-a-Thon - Wrap up Post #HighSummerRAT

I didn't really read much more than Road Ends and almost completed The Goldfinch (which I completed the day after the readathon ended), but I did manage to finish both of them.  Due to the fact that I was listening to an audio version of The Goldfinch while I was reading that was from the library, I couldn't really read anything else.

Write On Review-a-thon wrap-up post

I got four reviews write out, but not posted.  I mainly wrote on Friday, as I needed some books and I was a bit busy with some family stuff (it was good stuff) and so by the time I got home, I didn't have much time before going to the Saturday evening church service I attend.  I will hopefully continue to catch up with my book reviews this coming week, but I don't know how many I will get done due to being a bit busier than usual this coming week and needing to concentrate on some reading in the coming days.  I hope to post a couple of the reviews that I wrote out this week, but with Armchair BEA, I don't know; maybe I'll go to Starbucks on Friday evening and post my reviews.

I wrote reviews for Boxers & Saints, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I look forward to the next Write On Review-a-thon in about a months time.

#boutofbooks 10 Wrap-Up Post

It was a pretty good read-a-thon for me, even though at the start it was a bit slow for my liking; I seemed to pick up steam during the final two days and especially the final day.

I was able to finish 3 books and pretty close to 4 books during the week long read-a-thon (I finished The Fault in Our Stars on Monday afternoon).  I ended up reading about 216 pages on the final day, for a 7 day total of 919 pages read.  I was a little disappointed that I didn't reach my goal of reading 1,000 pages, but I was about 80 pages off.  Not too shabby.

I am looking forward to Bout of Books 11 and am planning what I will read during that time; maybe a good thick Margaret Atwood novel, maybe Cat's Eye or maybe The Handmaid's Tale?  Anyways, I will have something ready for me to read during that read-a-thon.  Hope to see you in August.

Spring Into Horror Wrap-up

I didn't read as much as I had hoped to, mainly because I got busy between Tuesday and Thursday and had to do a lot of reading from The Mysteries of Udolpho on Friday and Saturday.  I did get a good portion of The Pursuit of Mary Bennet completed, but nothing much beyond that.

Hopefully next year I can get more completed.

Sunday Salon - #readathon End of Event Meme and Final Stats

I can't believe that I actually managed to stay up from 5 am PT Saturday until 5 am PT Sunday (today).  By the end, I was barely hanging on and had to mostly listen to an audiobook for the last 30 min so that I would be awake for the full time.

To kick things off, I read in my new reading corner in my room, as I had people staying with me on Friday night and I didn't want to disturb them as I read for the first few hours and one of my guests was leaving in the morning, so I didn't want to be distracted by the individual packing up, but by mid-morning, I had moved to the couch in the living room and there I sat from about 9 am Saturday until 5 am Sunday.  I did take a couple of half-hour breaks, including a run to Mcdonald's at around 12:30 am.

But despite how I felt when I finally went to sleep at around 5 am this morning, I am really happy at what I was able to accomplish.  According to my stat sheet that I kept (one of the readers offered this to fellow readers to use),  I read 995 pages between the 8 different books that I read and read for 19.75 hours.  I would have liked to read more during the read-a-thon and have more times when I would have entered my reading zone, but due to distractions that I encountered, especially during the early part of the read-a-thon, I missed about 4 hours and 15 minutes of reading, but I did read for at least 30 minutes during each hour.  I also participated in a few challenges, but by the end, I just wanted to read as much as I could, as I am also trying to get a very thick book completed by Saturday (its a library book and I have renewed it to its max and it has to be returned on Saturday).

I realize that I am being hard on myself, but I know for next time that there is a bit of room for improvement.

End of Event Meme

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
5. How many books did you read?
6. What were the names of the books you read?
7. Which book did you enjoy most?
8. Which did you enjoy least?
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

1) Probably the last hour was the most daunting for me; almost felt like quitting at about 4:15 am.
2) The Boxer & Saints series might keep a reader engaged for next year.
3) Not as many photo challenges
4)  What worked for me was taking at least two 30 minute breaks from reading and also the cheerleading helped.  I did notice that the cheerleading really dropped off after about midnight and I noticed that I didn't get really any encouragement from the cheerleaders; didn't get any sort of comments after my 1 am post.  I was disappointed that I didn't see any comments after that; didn't bring it up during the twitter chat.  I also noticed I didn't really many encouraging comments while on twitter.  I realize that there are a lot of readers participants, but if the cheerleaders could make sure to kinda hit readers on a regular basis, I think I could get through that final hour better.
5) Read 8 books; completed 4
6) I finished both books in Boxers & Saints series, The Hen Who thought she could fly, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
7) I enjoyed The Ocean at the End of the Lane for most of it and really liked the Boxers and Saints series.
8)  I didn't really enjoy The Hen Who Thought She Could Fly.
9) N/A
10) Depending on when the October read-a-thon is, I will likely participate; more likely to participate in April.  I probably will take on a similar role as have in the past.

Wicked Valentine's Read-a-Thon Wrap-up

Overall, it went pretty good. I finished How to be a Good Wife and Winter's Tale.  I also started reading Somewhere in France and got over half of The Luminaries completed.  But I didn't get around to reading Possession, Moon over Manifest, The Woman in White, and a couple others that I had hoped to read during the 10 day read-a-thon.

I am hoping that this read-a-thon allows me to get some momentum going forward, which it has so far.  Looking forward to next year.

#boutofbooks Day 7 & Wrap-up

Yesterday no reading happened, unless you account for the numerous times I went to the CBC News website or scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed or read a bit of a newspaper this evening.  But if you asked if I read a book, I didn't.  I think part of it was that I was tired and the other half of it was that I just couldn't concentrate on any sort of reading.  I realize that this is a wrap-up, but I am hoping to do a bit more reading in the coming days, but time will tell.

As for what I did this past week, I think it was quite successful, in that I was able to finish two books and post the reviews for those books and I did manage read a bit more of The Count of Monte Cristo and got about 120 pages completed of Winter's Tale.  I guess one could say that I did have a successful week and thinking about it now, it was pretty successful and I am looking forward to the next Bout of Books.

Links from previous days:
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3 
• Day 4 
• Day 5 
• Day 6

Dog Days of Summer (#ddsummer) Wrap-Up!

Overall, it was a quite successful readathon, as I got two books completed during the course of the two days.  While they weren't big books, I did get them completed and that makes me happy more than anything, especially since the later of the two was a book that didn't really like reading (funny enough, I was looking forward to the book, but once I was able to start reading, my opinion of the book changed; reviews of the two books will forthcoming this week, at least that is the plan).    I was also able to work on a few other books during the past couple of days and I am hoping that I can get a few more completed during the Bout of Books readathon.

#boutofbooks 7.0 Wrap-up

What a week.  While I did get some of my goals completed, there were some that were left unfinished and that's fine.  I got what I wanted to get completed for Moby Dick, War & Peace, The House Girl and The Whole Truth, but not much else.

But I did manage to read around 570 pages over the course of the week.  Now off to write reviews of the two books that completed...

2011 Christmas Spirit Wrap-up Post

Based on the goals that I had posted, I fell short, but only by one on each one.  I consider that not to be a total failure, but I was a little disappointed.  But when I take into consideration that I got really engrossed with Order of the Phoenix for the last few weeks of December, then its a success.   Next year, I probably will plan a little better and try to get as many books read by December, so as to enjoy a little Christmas reading before the holidays.  Here are the reviews for the movies and books that I did manage to complete (you can click on the titles for a review):

Movies:
1. A Charlie Brown Christmas
2. Disney's A Christmas Carol
3. A Christmas Story
4. Love Actually

Books:
1. The Christmas Scrapbook: A Harmony Story
2. Lost December: a novel
3. The Quiet Little Woman : a Christmas story 
4. The Christmas Wedding


Yes, I will participate next year and am already looking forward to it already.

Bout of Books 2.0: Final Update

I apologize for the somewhat lateness of this post, but here I am.  I finished only one of the books on my original list, but did nearly finish another one and I hope to finish this one later today.  Overall, I would say it was pretty successful, as I did get quite a bit done and was able to spend time reading this past weekend.  Hope everybody had fun and I am looking forward to the next one.