Bout of Books Read-a-Thon

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 7th and runs through Sunday, January 13th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 6.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. -From the Bout of Books 6.0 team

TIME DEVOTED TO READING

The plan is to shut off computer/TV etc from 8pm each evening and read until sleep calls. So it should be around 3 hours each week day. Hopefully I can read ALL weekend too. For the first time ever, I do not have book group during Bout of Books!

MY GOALS

Read 6 books, visit some blogs, participate in the Twitter chats and most importantly, have fun. I’m never any good at completing challenges but there are a few I will make an effort to do.

BOOKS TO READ*



*Subject to change

UPDATES

Monday

I wanted to start with The Panda Theory but was running later for work and couldn’t find it. That meant I grabbed by Kindle on the way out and makes it harder for my page count. Typical. Twitter chat was great fun and I’ve followed a bunch of new faces although it cut into my reading time a bit as I wasn’t ready to down everything at 8pm!

Number of pages I’ve read today: 125 (ish)
Total number of books I’ve read: 0.5
Books: The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman

First sentence read*: The limousine taking Rebecca Reynolds and Lewis Taylor to the funeral had stalled in the middle of an intersection.

Last sentence read: The only area that needed work was her relationship with her only child, Aberystwyth, whom she had not seen since leaving the water behind.

 *I will star out words if I think these sentences contain spoilers.

 Tuesday

I broke my vow to avoid the internet after 8pm. Hence my reading is about the same as Monday. Slight improvement and at least I finished one book! Also found Jo Nesbo’s Phantom in Tesco for £2.99 FTW.

Number of pages I’ve read today: 151
Total number of books I’ve read: 1
Books: The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

First sentence read: After graduating from an Aquatic seminary, Margaret had received her first parish in the farming community of Nowwlk.

Last sentence read: He would have preferred to ignore him so that he could eat as much as possible of this food, to stare round at the oil paintings on the wall, the bay window that opened on to a sweeping lawn, to absorb the revelation that he was sleeping with a girl who still addressed her parents as ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’.

Wednesday

I got a bit distracted today, first with cooking teriyaki salmon for myself (YUM) and then when I saw some must read books had started dropping on people’s doorsteps. Excitement! So I only really spent 2 hours reading (lunch time reading was a write-off). Liking Heatwave but it seems to be a lot of character development and not a lot of story so far.

Number of pages I’ve read today: 126
Total number of books I’ve read: 1.5
Books: The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

First sentence read: But they would not give up.

Last sentence read: He has never, it seems, encountered anything more appetising than his aunt’s warm meat paste sarnies.

Thursday

Fantastic book post arrived and I read a few first pages that aren’t included in my reading. Cannot wait to get to the new Patrick Ness. SQUEE! I did manage to finish my second book of the readathon and even did the book spine poem challenge. No commenting on other blogs though, will promise to catch-up over the weekend.


Number of pages I’ve read today: 187
Total number of books I’ve read: 2
Books: The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

First sentence read: Just when his mouth is as full as it can physically be, Aoife appears in the doorway.

Last sentence read: “It is,” she says.

Friday

I watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which is sort of connected to books as it is an adaptation. Mastermind is interesting but requires me to pay extra attention and therefore slow me down. I may read a little bit of fiction before I go back to it (just to help the numbers).

Number of pages I’ve read today: 85
Total number of books I’ve read: 2.3
Books: The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Mario Konnikova

First sentence read: When I was little, my dad used to read us Sherlock Holmes stories before bed.

Last sentence read: Watson, on the other hand, is not so careful.

Saturday

This is more like it! Today also proves that work is the number one enemy of the readathon. Even though I didn’t really start reading until the afternoon (haircut, parental phone call, broken DVD player) I actually managed to get caught up on my goals. Just one book to go (and surprisingly I haven’t wandered from my list).

Number of pages I’ve read today: 697
Total number of books I’ve read: 5
Books: The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Mario Konnikova
The Panda Theory by Pascal Garnier
Hysteria by Megan Miranda

First sentence read: Consider again the missing boy and the German schoolmaster.

Last sentence read: And the next.

Sunday

My word count looks really pathetic and that’s because I forsaked reading time for a bit of a reviewathon. I wrote FIVE reviews! Which got me up-to-date on everything I read over Christmas. I’d also been neglecting housework all week so had to fit in the boring stuff too.

However, I do thing I can implement a three book weekend on a regular basis. I know one of them was tiny but I really spent a lot of time not reading as well. So unless I have something important (or more fun) to do, i don’t see why I can’t concentrate on reading more at the weekend. Of course, if I’m reading a monster it may just be a one monster weekend but that would still be better than spending all week on it.

Was lovely to meet some new faces on Twitter and I will be checking out your blogs to see what your everyday content is like over the next few days.

Number of pages I’ve read today: 177
Total number of books I’ve read: 5.3
Books: The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Mario Konnikova
The Panda Theory by Pascal Garnier
Hysteria by Megan Miranda
Fuse by Julianna Baggott

First sentence read: Lying on a thin coat of snow, she sees gray earth meeting grey sky, and she knows she’s back.

Last sentence read: He doesn’t know.

GOALS ACHIEVED:

Well I have amazed myself to sticking to my reading list. Whilst I didn’t read all six, I did start of the sixth and it was a conscious choice to do other things on the last day.

Twitter chats = 2 HUZZAH!

Blog visitation: I think I popped by a few blogs every day and said hi. Followed some new people on Twitter too. I’m pretty sure I’m RSS following Coffee Bean Bookshelf and Student Spyglass.

Technology curfew: I did sneak onto Twitter a few times after 8pm but the laptop was off and no watching of Big Bang Theory in this time (and my DVD player broke which helped matters). It’s generally a good thing to do on a regular basis and I will keep it up for at least half the week going forward.