Happy New Year! I’ve sadly neglected this blog for the past couple of weeks, as I’ve been busy traveling and making merry. But with the arrival of 2013, I’m ready to jump back into blogging — and what better way to do that than joining the Bout of Books 6.0 read-a-thon? Here’s some info about the event, taken directly from the BoB website:
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
For this read-a-thon, I’m not going to set myself any specific goals other than to read every day. I just plan to read as much as possible and enjoy myself! I’ll edit this post every day of the read-a-thon with my daily progress, so stay tuned!
Monday 1/7: I probably picked the worst time to start reading a very long book, but what can you do? Today I read a mere 18 pages of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, a Pulitzer-winning Western weighing in at over 900 pages. My new goal is to finish it during the read-a-thon, but I definitely won’t make it at this rate!
Tuesday 1/8: Thirty-three more pages in Lonesome Dove! I’m doing so well on this read-a-thon! </sarcasm> But it’s fun to participate anyway. I did do Ms. Buff‘s mini-challenge about our favorite book cover and our funniest book cover. My answers were:
I totally love the new covers for Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series. Here are links to books 1 and 2, The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book. As for funniest cover, I definitely have to go with Lords of Desire. OK, guy, your sword is really big; we get it!
Wednesday 1/9: Here’s my entry for today’s mini-challenge at Booking in Heels:
Original sentence from p. 48 of Lonesome Dove: “I might do that,” Dish said.
“I might do that,” Dish said. “But eloping with you would hurt my family grievously! Bowl would have a meltdown – and surely Knife and Fork wouldn’t be too pleased with me either.” “None of that matters,” replied Spoon, “for I love you so. Run away with me!”
Also, I actually had a respectable reading day, with 56 more pages read.
Thursday 1/10: Seventy-two pages read in Lonesome Dove. I’m up to p. 193 now, which is pretty good, I guess…but then, I still have about 750 more pages to go!
Friday 1/11: A bad reading day — only 12 more pages read! Hopefully I can make some real progress over the weekend.
Saturday 1/12: A dismal 9 pages. I am really failing at this read-a-thon…although I guess I’m achieving my goal to read every day. I just wish I’d had more time and energy to devote to reading this week!
Sunday 1/13: I couldn’t resist the New Year’s resolution mini-challenge at Ex Libris! The idea is to pick one or several characters from a novel of your choice and make up what their New Year’s resolutions would be. Obviously I had to pick Pride and Prejudice, as it’s my favorite book in all the world! It was way too much fun to make up resolutions for some of the characters:
- Elizabeth Bennet resolves not to make fun of people…unless they REALLY deserve it!
- Jane Bennet resolves to stop thinking about a certain gentleman who has stopped pursuing her. If only he weren’t so sweet and charming and perfect!
- Lydia Bennet resolves to break the hearts of at least 10 officers.
- Mr. Bingley resolves to stand up to Mr. Darcy for once…ahem, maybe tomorrow!
- Mr. Darcy resolves NOT to fall in love with Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
- Caroline Bingley resolves to get Mr. Darcy’s ring on her finger — by any means necessary!
- Lady Catherine de Bourgh resolves to stay exactly the same. You can’t improve on perfection!
Also read 80 pages on this last day of the read-a-thon. At least I didn’t let the whole weekend go to waste!
You Book Me All Night Long 
I have always wanted to join the marathon, but it always falls at a bad time for me. This week is especially inconvenient, as my four-day weekend shift is coming up soon, so I’ll spend most of my time at work. Ah, well. Maybe one year I’ll be able to join in the fun.
A few months before the readathon there’s a poll over at the Bout of Books website. Maybe voting for your preferred date will help? (:
Aw, too bad you can’t join! Maybe next time. 🙂
No better goal than just to read! Good luck (:
Thanks, and same to you!
Have fun reading this week!
Thanks — you too!
Good luck and have fun!
Thanks — you too!
Sounds like a good plan to me, sometimes we get more read that way. Enjoy.
It looks unlikely so far, in my case, but hopefully you’ll be right in the long run!
I think that’s a great plan! Have fun with it, read as much as you can. Sometimes with numbers you get disappointed when you don’t make it 😦 Another idea that another BoB Read-a-thon participant is doing is counting the no of pages read rather than the no of books read.
My BoB Read-a-thon post.
Good Luck for the week 😉
Thanks! I just didn’t want to make it a chore to read this week. I will probably keep track of my page numbers as well.
Well any number of pages read are pages you have down in that massive book. I hope you are able to get a good chunk of it finished during the read-a-thon.
Happy reading!
Thanks! Here’s hoping I have some quality time for reading this weekend. Happy reading to you too!
Your p48 challenge response is awesome! Love it 🙂 Hope you’re still enjoying the reading – I think it’s a nice idea to go no-pressure and just make reading in general be the focus. My only reading goal is to finish the book I’m reading at the moment, as that seems pretty do-able given I’m a good way through it already, and I also didn’t want the reading to feel like a chore. 🙂
Thanks! It was really a stroke of amazing luck that I didn’t get a sentence about the dirty old Mexican cook or something. 🙂 Good luck with your book as well!
Love your pg 48 challenge response! haha
Thanks! It amused me.
Thanks for joining in with the Page 48 challenge – I think your answer is my absolute favourite one so far 🙂
I nearly picked a long book off the shelf for the read-a-thon too, but then I put it back in favour of YA and then Hemingway’s Old Man and The Sea, which is tiny. I’m not trying to build up my page count or anything, but it does make you want to read more when you feel like you’re making progress.
New follower! *waves*
Thanks for the compliment and the follow! When I saw that one of the characters was called Dish, my mind immediately went to that nursery rhyme.
I think you made the right choice in picking shorter books for this read-a-thon! The Old Man and the Sea is short, but it’s still substantial, so it seems like a great choice. Jealous of your YA pile, though! 🙂
That’s a hilarious page 48 response 🙂 It really made me laugh!
My Page 48 challenge is here if you’d like a look 🙂
Thank you! I was delighted when the idea came to me.