I’m so excited to be participating in another round of Bout of Books! Throughout the week, I’ll be updating this post with my progress and with my entries for the various mini-challenges. As I mentioned in my sign-up post, my overall goal is to read 1,000 pages during the read-a-thon.

Day 1: Monday 1/4

Pages read: 19 — not the world’s greatest start, but it’s better than nothing!
Books read from: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Challenge: Introduce Yourself in Six Words, hosted by Bout of Books. My six words are: Catholic, introvert, Janeite, musician, cheerful, procrastinator.

Day 2: Tuesday 1/5

Pages read: 36 — that’s progress, I guess! 🙂
Books read from: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles
Challenge: Would You Rather, hosted by Writing My Own Fairytale. She asks, would you rather…

• Lend books to someone who dog-ears pages or to someone who reads with cheesy Cheetos fingers? I’m going with dog-ears, because you can more easily unfold a dog-ear than remove a Cheetos stain! (Says the girl who regularly eats cheese-flavored snacks while reading!)
• Be able to meet one character of your choice or meet one author of your choice? Hmm, I think author. Tempting as it would be to meet Mr. Darcy, I’d rather meet Jane Austen! It’s her brain that created him, after all.
• Never be allowed in a book store again or never be allowed in a library again? Hmm…I feel like I should say bookstore, because then I could still go to the library and buy all my books from Amazon. But the truth is, I can’t even imagine never going into a bookstore again! So I’m saying library.
• Have to choose one of your favorite characters to die in their book or have to pick one of your favorite couples to break up in their book? Ugh, neither! But I suppose if I have to choose, I’d say break up. They can always get back together in the sequel…while there’s life, there’s hope!
• Be required to read Twilight once a year for the rest of your life or The Scarlet Letter once a year for the rest of your life? The Scarlet Letter. It’s not my favorite classic, but it’s really not so bad! And, bonus — it’s shorter than Twilight!

Day 3: Wednesday 1/6

Pages read: 44 — bringing me to a grand total of 99 pages, or 9.9% of my overall goal. What can I say? I haven’t had much reading time this week, and while both of my books are good, neither one is totally grabbing me right now.
Books read from: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles
Challenge: Bookish Rainbow, hosted by Ranty Runt of a Reader. My official challenge entry is on Twitter, but I couldn’t resist sharing my rainbow here as well!

Day 4: Thursday 1/7

Pages read: 54, bringing me to 153 pages total. Still plugging away!
Books read from: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles
Challenge: Villain Mashup, hosted by Bingeing On Books. Hear me out, but I’d like to see a battle of wits between Don John from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Acheron Hades from Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair. Both of these characters appear to be villainous for no particular reason; they just both really like evil for its own sake. But Don John is very logical and methodical in plotting to screw over his brother, whereas Acheron Hades is more chaotic (i.e., he basically just runs around kidnapping and murdering people). I’d be interested to see these two villains match wits, and I’m honestly not sure who would win!

Day 5: Friday 1/8

Pages read: 0
Books read from: N/A
Challenge: N/A

So, life happened and I actually didn’t read anything today! But I’m definitely planning on some quality reading time this weekend…although I think it’s obvious at this point that I won’t hit my 1,000-page goal! *blush*

Day 6: Saturday 1/9

Pages read: 73
Books read from: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles
Challenge: Comfy Reading Spot, hosted by Once Upon a Chapter. My spot is pretty boring…it’s just my couch. Sometimes there’s a blanket. I usually have a glass of water on the neighboring bookshelf, so it’s within easy reach. Super exciting, right? 🙂

Day 7: Sunday 1/10

Pages read: 0
Books read from: N/A
Challenge: none