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!

Update.

Firstly I need to apologise for never putting up my Classics Circuit post on The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This past couple of weeks it’s felt like if it’s not one thing, it’s another. We’ve been going through a bit of a stressful time, and the blog has (as usual) suffered because of it. I know I keep saying I’ll stop letting it happen, but I think that I probably need to accept that, for the moment at least, this is just the way I operate. That said, I have got a little way into The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and while I’m not loving it like I expected to, it is definitely getting more gripping, so hopefully I’ll be able to stick with it and let you know what I thought of it when I eventually reach the end! People have asked me why I don’t like it as much as I thought I would, and if I’m honest, it’s probably mostly down to the rambling pages of descriptions of Paris, which feel fairly similar to all the interminable descriptive passages in Frankenstein, which are still the one thing I despise about an otherwise awesome book, and which my first inclination is still to just skip over. That, and the fact that it’s not a Disney movie. There are no songs, and I know this is horribly blasphemous of me, but I sort of feel that so far, the story suffers from the gargoyles not talking back to Quasimodo. I am sure that by the time I finish the book I will have re-evaluated and retracted most of these opinions. Anyway!

In other exciting news (for me, anyway), after nearly a year of hearing me talk about my blog, and seeing how much keeping it has helped and inspired me, my wonderful husband has finally caved and started a blog of his own! He’ll be talking sporadically about music (he’s a singer and music graduate), drama, and all theatre related things, at www.twomasksandmusic.blogspot.com. If it sounds like the kind of thing you’d be into, go visit him, I know he’d appreciate it! J

I’ve been reading a lot lately, but not quite finding the time to write about it, and I really do hope to be rectifying that soon, but for now, here’s a quick update of my recent reading life:

Last weekend I took part in my first ever 24 hour readathon! Despite work and family commitments keeping me from a lot of it, I still managed to read for 7 hours, enter two mini – challenges, win a prize, and finish three books! Reviews of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (which was good), Whip It by Shauna Cross (which was very good), and Franny & Zooey by J.D Salinger (which I’m still trying to figure out..) will be forthcoming, and I will most definitely be participating in the next one, in April!

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing my annual Christmas pre-reading of people’s presents before I give them to them thing (I know people think this is cheeky, but in my defence, I’m always very careful with the books, and I do need to make sure they’re suitable for the person receiving them!). Every year I buy my mum a new Elizabeth Peters, Susanna Gregory, Alexander McCall Smith, or (if such a thing still exists!) an Agatha Christie she doesn’t already possess, because these are the things she likes. This year, it was A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters, which I read in two days and thoroughly enjoyed, as always. It’s the latest in the Amelia Peabody series of detective novels, and if you’re into either detective fiction or historical fiction (they’re all set late 19^th/early 20^th century England and Egypt and are about archaeology and feminism), I’d recommend checking them out! For my dad, it’s always the latest Terry Pratchett, and Snuff arrived in the post today, so I’ll be starting that next and I’m excited. Sir Terry has never let me down yet!

Lastly, I just wanted to share something I’m super excited about! A couple of weeks ago I was sent a gorgeous hardback copy of The Penguin Anthology of 20^th Century American Poetry by the lovely people at Penguin. The anthology is gorgeous, very informative, and contains a host of poets I’ve never read. I used to read a lot of poetry when I was a student, but since then, not so much, so I’m hoping that the arrival of this beautiful book will help to rectify that! The book is out in the States pretty much now. As some of you may know,  I have been trying for a while to get a regular poetry feature going on the blog, so maybe this is my chance to do that! Watch this space!

That’s all for now. It’s getting colder here by the sea, winter is most definitely on its’ way, and I’m off for a big hot chocolate and to curl up in a corner, under my first (ever) knitted blanket, with a book. Hope your last few weeks have been less stressful than mine!!

End of the 24 Hour Readathon!

So I've managed to post at the beginning and at the end of the event. I loved my first readathon, and I will definitely plan to participate more fully the next time around! With work, the theatre, and family commitments, I only managed to read for around 7 hours, during which time I read 3 books, so I'm fairly proud of myself. I just had a bit of a nap to recover from going to bed late and getting up early, and I'm now feeling lots better, so here's my end of event survey:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? probably the last hour or so between 12 and 1pm - I started to feel really rushed and wasn't really taking in what I was reading...
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? graphic novels (I wish I'd read more of these this year!), stuff like the Percy Jackson novels with quite fast paced plots, short books in general. 
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? I think it was brilliant this year!
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? cheerleaders were brilliant, cheering me even when I wasn't actively there... 
5. How many books did you read? 3
6. What were the names of the books you read? The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender, Whip It by Shauna Cross, & Franny and Zooey by J.D Salinger
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Whip It was a really enjoyable read
8. Which did you enjoy least? Franny and Zooey I think.. I'm still processing it, it was a very strange experience.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? n/a
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I'd love to participate again, and I may well sign up to be a cheerleader next time :-)

Next time, I will take both days off work, make sure I have loads of snacks and drinks, and attempt to get my internet to work better so I can update more consistently. Hope everyone else had a great readathon!

Readathon - I'm finally here!!

Hey everyone, it's hour NINE of the 24 hour readathon, and I am finally able to actually just sit down and read!! This may be the only post I will be able to put up for the duration, as my internet, as some of you will know, is ridiculously temperamental. Please come see me on Twitter (@fairybookgirl) where I will be tweeting my progress via my phone. Since the start time, I've actually read about 50 pages of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender, and I'm aiming to finish it at some point very soon. 


I know (and knew before I signed up) that my participation in this awesome event will be nowhere near as total as I would like it to be, however I'm hoping to use this experience as a learning process for the next one! Very late, here's my introductory meme so everyone knows some stuff about me!


1)Where are you reading from today? Broadstairs, Kent, UK
2)Three random facts about me…1) i don't like coffee 2) I just bought a really bright patchwork rug 3) this is my first readathon!
3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? a very ambitious 8...
4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)? nope, just to do at least a few hours of uninterrupted reading (believe me, not easy in my house!)

If I don't manage to post again, I will be tweeting, I will be commenting, and I will be updating the books I've read on the readathon website, so see you there! :-)

The 24 Hour Readathon is Coming!!

Soooo for those of you who have been living under rocks, this weekend is the return of the 24 hour readathon! It runs from 12 noon GMT on Saturday 22^nd October, until 12 noon Sunday 23^rd October, and despite the fact that I’m working till 5.30 on Saturday AND going to the theatre straight after, I’ve signed up to participate! This seems like it’s probably going to be madness, not least because my internet will almost undoubtedly not work properly the entire way through, and thus prevent me from writing update posts. However, I’m trying to prepare myself for this eventuality, and the performance on Saturday is only a couple of hours so after that I should have a good few hours of reading left before I eventually need sleep, and then plan to get up early on Sunday and read until noon. I just love the idea of being able to use books as a legitimate reason to get people to leave me alone, rather than feeling guilty for not talking to people... I know, I'm a terrible, antisocial human being, and to be fair, my husband is generally very good at knowing when I'm really engrossed, but still. With so much going on lately, I feel like I just need this time to destress and switch off for a while. If we had a bath, I'd be reading in it to maximise the relaxation, but I don't think it would work so well with a shower... After all the events and craziness going on when the readathon took place back in April, I couldn’t not join in this time around. If anybody wants to join in, sign up is here. It’s going to be great!!

Here’s a picture of the pile I’ve complied for reading:

After my recent post on the effect that reading The Night Circus had on me, I did one of my super –geeky amazon searches, and The Magicians and The Girl with the Glass Feet were both recommended as being similar books, so we shall see how good Amazon’s ‘people who like this also liked’ facility is... Also, I need to read them as they are both library books! The Percy Jackson series has become a bit of a readathon standard for me. I was given the first one as an RAK, and read the second during my first ever readathon. Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse is the third in the series and I’ve had it ever since the last readathon. I’m hoping it’ll be perfect, as the other two have been really light, easy, fun reads. Whip It was lent to me by my friend after we watched the awesome film, starring Ellen Page, who’s one of my current favourite actors, and will apparently take me no time at all to read and is amazing, so I’m looking forward to that, as I am to Franny and Zooey. I’ve never read any Salinger other than The Catcher in the Rye about five hundred times, so I’m excited to expand my repertoire, especially since Adam from Roof Beam Reader is always raving about him. Finally, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society has been on the shelf for ages, and I keep hearing people saying good things about it, plus, it’s a little book, and I need little books to keep me motivated! I also have Bill Willingham’s Fables: Legends in Exile, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home on standby in case of a graphic novel emergency.

I know it seems like a lot of books, but I like to give myself a variety, and it’s likely that I’ll dip in and out of lots of them during the time. There’s a lot of personal stuff going on right now which makes it a bit difficult for me to concentrate, so I’m partly doing the readathon as a distraction, but at the same time, I think it will probably be difficult for me to settle down to it. I’m super excited about all the mini challenges that will be going on during it, and I’m soooo hoping I can convince my internet to work properly at least part of the time, otherwise I will probably write all my update posts and then just have to condense them down into an overall one to post after the event! Wish me luck!

The Sunday Salon - Advent with Austen and the Readathon!

Hello everyone! It's finally starting to feel wintery by the sea, and I have to admit that I totally love it, although I did *somehow* manage to leave our big umbrella in the pub last night... no idea how that happened...*shifty eyes*. Anyway, I've been disgustingly rubbish at posting lately, and I really am planning to be better. The internet isn't behaving itself lately, and we still have a lot going on so it's been difficult to find the time. However, it's getting scarily close to the end of the year, and so in desperate hopes of motivating myself, I've signed up for a couple of exciting events!

The first is coming up in a couple of weeks. Back in April, I jealously watched as the blogosphere went absolutely MENTAL for 24 hours with posts about the readathon. I hadn't quite geared myself up to that sort of level of reading back then, though, but when I heard it was coming up again, I had to sign up!

The readathon runs from 1pm London Time on Saturday October 22nd, and runs for (shockingly) 24 hours from then :-) I'm working that day, but I finish work at 5.30, so from then on I will be alllll in, and I'm really excited! I will post a proposed reading list closer to the time, and will just have to keep my fingers crossed that my internet behaves itself that day! It sounds like it will be amazing, with all kinds of mini challenges and events going on. If you want to join in (and you should!), go here and sign up! You can also sign up to host a mini challenge or to be a cheerleader.

The other thing I've signed up for and am hugely excited about its this:

This event is hosted by Teadevotee, The Sleepless Reader, Iris on Books, Things Mean a Lot, and Reading Fuelled by Tea. Starting on the first Sunday of Advent, 27th November, and ending on Christmas Eve, the event celebrates the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense and Sensibility. There will be lots of events and different levels of participation, but basically all you have to do is read Austen and related books, and/or watch Austen inspired, adapted or related TV shows and films. It sounds brilliant, and I'm going to be reading A Walk with Jane Austen by Lori Smith, as well as attempting a possible re-read of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, and possibly watching the Pride and Prejudice TV series starring Colin Firth for the first time ever! (Yes, I know it's shocking).

If you want to join in the festivities, go and sign up here, and wait with growing anticipation for December!