Readathon Time!

It's 24 hour readathon time and even though I won't be able to take part until about hour 6, providing the boys actually go to bed at their normal time, I couldn't be more excited! The last time I participated officially was April 2012, so it's been a while. Since then (when I was pregnant with Benji) I've used the kids as an excuse for why I can't take part because I thought if I couldn't do the whole 24 hours there was no point in taking part at all, but this time I decided to call bullshit on that and take part as much as I possibly can once the boys are in bed and on Sunday morning (in my timezone the readathon runs from 1pm on Saturday til 12:59pm on Sunday) when Rhys is home. Before hour 6 I'll be around on twitter (on the Ninja Book Swap account, @NinjaBookSwap) and Instagram (@armchairbythesea) and hopefully popping in and out of people's blogs a bit.

Before I get on to the pictures of books, I wanted to mention my charity. Like lots of other people I'm reading for a charity and my reading is part of my year long fundraising project for Beanstalk who provide volunteers to help with literacy in primary schools. I'm donating a penny per page I read plus £2 for each finished book via my JustGiving page. If you'd like to support me and my charity you can donate there as well or you can let me know how you'd like to sponsor my reading via this form. Your support would be hugely appreciated!

So now, onto the books! obviously I've made a stupidly big pile of potential reads but it's always good to have choice. Here's what I've got:

The photo is ridiculously small and rubbish so here we go, from the bottom up! I've got a lot of graphic novels for the tired hours, then some novels and a couple of nonfiction titles I can read in short bursts.

Graphic Novels

Tank Girl One - Hewlett & Martin  - I have three volumes of Tank Girl and I really want to read it. Maybe it will happen during readathon!

Fairest: Wide Awake - Bill Willingham and others - Ahhhh Fairest. I don't think I could be much more excited about this, it will get read. 

Harlequin Valentine  - Neil Gaiman & John Bolton - I think this will be a quick read and since I've been dying to read it for years there's no reason not to really. 

Saga Vol 1 - Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - I feel like everyone in the world has read Saga except me. I'm going to be getting to this early on I hope. 

Daredevil Visionaries - Kevin Smith - I should really try to get to this as it's on loan from my brother who is very precious about his graphic novels and keeps them all in the plastic they arrived in... Plus it looks fun. 

Civil War - Mark Millar - See above. Also it's the book that the next Captain America film is based on, so there's that. 

Novels

Pigeon Post - Arthur Ransome - The latest in my Swallows and Amazons reading, I'll probably dip in and out of this one, I'm not really expecting to make any serious progress.

The Tin Can Tree - Anne Tyler - Picked by the TBR tin but quite a short novel and I love Anne Tyler so I'm expecting a pretty easy read.

The Wreck of the Zanzibar - Michael Morpurgo - Picked by the TBR tin. Can't actually believe I haven't read this yet.

Oranges are not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson - Picked by the TBR tin but perfect because it's short and I've wanted to read it for ages.

Nonfiction

Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women & Scribble Scribble: Notes on the Media - Nora Ephron - essays I can dip in and out of and if it's anything like my previous experience of Nora it will provide some necessary hilarity.

The Edible Atlas  - Mina Holland - I've just started this and it's segments about various different world cuisines along with recipes. Perfect from some light relief.

I think I'm probably going to start with a few chapters of The Edible Atlas, and probably Fairest and see where I go from there. I'll update for the first bit (before the boys are asleep) here and then post future updates as separate posts. I'm hoping to take part in a few mini challenges and visit a few new blogs as well as keeping up with my regulars.

Update Hours 1-6 

Pages read: from my own book, 94. From kids picture books to the boys, countless.

Books read from: Every Day by David Levithan

Books finished: In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back & Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss, Moomin and the Birthday Button & Moomin and the Moonlight Adventure by Tove Jansson, Happy Birthday Peppa!, We Love You Hugless Douglas & Don't Worry Hugless Douglas by David Melling, Happy Families, The Wheels on the Bus, Superbabe by Deborah van der Beek, Arthur's Teacher Trouble by Marc Brown, The Smartest Giant in Town & A Squash and a Squeeze by Julia Donaldson, Teatime for Pirates! by Richard Dungworth, The Trouble with Dragons by Debi Gliori and Whatever Next! by Jill Murphy.

Snacks consumed: Some hummus and pitta, chicken and thyme sensations, dinner (jacket potato with chilli and cheese, yum), and an entire bag of Cadbury's Marvellous Mix Ups. Now I feel slightly sick.

I've been reading Every Day on and off while the boys have been awake and also reading a lot to them. As I'm fundraising for a charity that supports children's literacy I thought what better way to do it than reading to my own children? Benji loved it, he made his own 'readathon stack' (or werfun, which was the closest he could get to saying readathon) and demanded stories all day. He kept telling me that 'stories so coool' which made me the proudest, I'm sure you can imagine. I'm trying to catch up and comment on a few blogs and possibly participate in a couple more challenges (I did the intro questions and Allie's classics challenge already) and then I'm getting down to the reading! Might have to make myself another cup of tea first though!

Update Hours 7-9

Pages read: 371 total

Books read from: Every Day by David Levithan

Books finished: Every Day by David Levithan

Snacks Consumed: None actually but I'm just about to get up and make myself another cup of tea before I start my next book!

I'm keeping my challenges in a separate post but I did the Treasure Hunt challenge which was fun and I'll probably do another a bit later on. This readathon is gearing up to be expensive for me! I already owe nearly £40! I think I'm the only person saying maybe I should be spending more time on twitter....

Update Hours 10-12

Pages read: 654 total

Books read from: Fairest: Wide Awake by Bill Willingham, The Wreck of the Zanzibar by Michael Morpurgo

Books finished: See above.

Snacks consumed: Malted milk and marmalade ice cream, chicken and thyme sensations, my last bottle of coke (necessary to keep me awake)

It's past midnight here and I've just had my last bottle of coke which has given me a bit of a second wind! I'm not planning to stay awake the whole 24 hours as I have little kids and Sunday is the only day we get to spend all together, with Rhys as well, but I am planning another couple of hours, hopefully another book? We'll see. Given that the rate of my reading is so much higher than expected we've decided that instead of me donating the £2 for finishing all 16 books with the boys earlier, I'll keep my donations as stated above for all of my books that I've read and Rhys will donate 50p per book I finished with the boys plus the 2p a page he's sponsoring me for my reading. Basically because we're not rich enough to carry on with the original plan! Still, hoping to raise a fair amount through our donations as well as lovely friends and family sponsoring me (remember if you want to do that you can here). Bring on hour 13!

Update Hour 19

Pages read: 852 total

Books read from: Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples, Crazy Salad by Nora Ephron, The Tin Can Tree by Anne Tyler

Books finished: Every Day by David Levithan, Fairest: Wide Awake by Bill Willingham, The Wreck of the Zanzibar by Michael Morpurgo, Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples

Snacks consumed: tea, biscuits, toast with scrambled eggs and salmon

I woke up just before 6am, so just over two hours ago and crept downstairs to finish Saga while making tea. I need the second installment now, I'm off to check the library in a bit! Then I made scrambled eggs for everyone and started The Tin Can Tree. I think this will be my last book of the readathon but I may dip back into some essays from Crazy Salad over the next few hours. Rhys is taking Ben off to church in an hour or so and hopefully Sam will nap and I can get some more reading done!*crosses fingers like crazy*

Update Hour 23

Pages Read: 902 total

Books read from: The Tin Can Tree by Anne Tyler, Crazy Salad by Nora Ephron

Books finished: See Hour 19 update.

Snacks consumed: chicken and thyme sensations, malted milk biscuits.

Had a bath, did some nice reading. Then Sam had a nap for a bit so I did some more reading. I switched from The Tin Can Tree back to Crazy Salad just because I wasn't really into it anymore. It's great and I'm about halfway through and will be finishing it but probably not during readathon! This will be my last update as once Rhys and Ben are back from church in the next half hour or so it will be family time. I've had SO much fun taking part in this readathon and my own donations at the moment will be £17 (I might round it up to £20) plus whatever I read before they get back. Rhys' will be a little more than that as he's pledged 2p a page plus 50p for each of the books I read to the boys yesterday. I'll be back later on today to do the closing questions and write a wrap up post!