The Rereadathon is here!

 

I'm running a bit behind with this, but better late than never! I spent most of the weekend at Big Camp 2015, which is where every Scout in our District (from the ages of 5-25) descends on the Yorkshire Showground to camp, abseil, canoe, make their Leaders' lives a misery... etc.

Only I had to go home ill last night and then promptly spent literally 23 consecutive hours asleep (!), so obviously I haven't got a whole lot of reading done. Never mind. I had a good time at the parts of Camp that I wasn't ill for and I have plenty of time to read now!

  

This is my TBR for this week, which I may or may not decide stick to. They're all books that I've been wanting to reread for a while and there's a nice mix of genres there, so hopefully I'll be able to read the ones I don't get to this week before too long.

Wrap-up

I was going to do a day-by-day running tally in true readathon style, but that didn't happen due to a generally busy week and bouts of minor illness. That said, I can hardly call the rereadathon a bust.

I managed to reread two whole books, which doesn't sound like a lot but I wouldn't have reread anything if it wasn't for Bex and her great idea. Plus, at the rate I'm going at the minute, it's unlikely I'd have managed to read two books at all otherwise.

I'd always planned to kick-off the rereadathon with Never Let Me Go. It completely blew me away when I first read it a few months pre-Booking in Heels, but I wasn't sure how it would hold up to a reread. Part of the point of the novel is slowly unravelling what's happening the students at Hailsham and I thought that my pre-existing knowledge might ruin it slightly. 

It didn't. This book is still amazing. It was interesting watching out for the early clues that I didn't catch the first time round in my unknowning naivety. ARGH I LOVE THIS BOOK. I still think Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley are the wrong way round in the film version, but considering I'm unlikely to watch it anyway I don't suppose it really matters.

I struggled a little bit trying to decide which book to read next, but then I opted for The Night Circus. Partly because it's an absolutely beautiful book, but also because Bex bought it for me during Christmas 2011 (!!!) and the gift note that I'd tucked inside made me smile. It just seemed appropriate :)

It was surprising how little I remembered of the book though. I mean, I knew the overall gist - two duelling magicians set during a travelling black and white circus - but I'd forgotten how stunning and well-written it is. I'd also forgotten the somewhat dissatisfying ending, but let's just gloss over that. 

My previous review of The Night Circus is here, but I'm planning on writing a more updated one shortly.

I really hope Bex runs this event again - I loved having an excuse to reread without feeling guilty that I'm neglecting my newer, shinier books! It is interesting that I last read both of these books in 2011, once again confirming that I seem to have an unintentional rereading cycle of four years.

Do you reread your favourite books? If so, how often?

The End of Year Reading Cram! Days 3 and 4

Day Three

Number of Pages Read Today: 62
Total Number of Books Read: 0.5

Total Pages Read: 173

Books: Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott (52 pages)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (10 pages)

Reviews: 0 

Wow, this read-a-thon is not going great, is it?

We had a busy day at Court today and I spent most of the day filling out pupillage applications, although I did manage to fit a few pages in here and there. Then when I got home, I ate tea and then went almost straight back out to help a family friend set up an e-mail account.

 

Then I had a few Christmas related things to sort out... and now it's 11:16pm and I haven't written a single review or read much further. It's unlikely a review will get done tonight as I'm really very tired or tomorrow night because I'm meeting Charlotte in Leeds for food and drinks (which I'm super excited about!). Result = no time for reviewing but a very happy Hanna nevertheless.

Late last night I remembered that A Tale of Two Cities existed, scrabbelled out an update post and actually read some of it too. I was a little disconcerted today to realise it was only 13 pages but hey, that's Dickens for you.

I took Good Wives with me to work today and to be honest, I'm not enjoying it as much as I expected. It seems much, much preachier than Little Women and there's too much Jo. Although reading my review, I didn't like her much last time either!

Day Four

Number of Pages Read Today: 33
Total Number of Books Read: 0.5

Total Pages Read: 206

Books: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (10 pages)

Reviews: 0

Well I've learned not to take part in a read-a-thon and a read-a-long of a classic book at the same time, at any rate. It's really frustrating me that my word count just isn't going up!

That said, I am actually starting to enjoy the Dickens now. It's odd, because today is the day that I've had the least time for reading and yet somehow I ended up more immersed in A Tale of Two Cities than I have been at any point before.

We were busy at court today. Really, ridiculously rushed, to the point where I was pretty much standing in the middle of the office like a battleship commander trying desperately to juggle clients, staff and volunteers who really wanted a lunch break. How dare they.

Yeah, we all know I love this stuff. Still, after I'd written up the pile of case files that I had outstanding and tidied the office so it didn't look quite so much like a bomb had hit it, it was almost time to go meet Charlotte. Yay Charlotte!

We went for drinks and then to an amazing restaurant that Charlotte gets complete and total credit for picking. It's hidden actually underneath Leeds so you barely know it's there, but it's a huge buffet restaurant with lots of different world cuisines and a huge dessert selection. It also looks very fancy but it's reasonably priced, so hey - the best of both worlds!

And obviously it was nice to see Charlotte before Christmas as well. She's ahead of me for the read-a-long and she persuaded me that the story does start to pick up before too long.

Clearly she waved her magic wand somewhere during the evening, because I picked it back up during the evening and it does seem to be more interesting than it has been! Or you know, maybe it was the wine.

Bout of Books Wrap-Up

I know I say this every time, but I just can't believe how quickly this week has gone. I didn't get as much read as I wanted to, but I think that's because I ended up picking reasonably heavy books.

My goal list is here, but the gist is that I wanted to get through three books from my TBR and write/post three reviews.

Here's what I ended up reading - 

 

That's The Gunslinger by Stephen King, Jurassic Park: The Lost World by Michael Crichton, Bumped by Megan McCafferty and then a little of Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. 

Click here for my update post, but in case you can't be bothered, that's 1231 pages!

Oh. I actually thought I'd done really badly, but that's nearly as many as my last Bout of Books total of 1330. I think that because my first two books were kind of heavy I didn't progress nearly as fast as I thought I should have. As you can see from my update post, I got much more read over the weekend when I enjoyed my books more.

It doesn't help that I've not been overly well lately - my BiPap machine is broken and I've been given some physiotherapy exercises that tend to leave me in a miserable heap on the floor, which is hardly conducive to reading. That said, I really enjoyed two of the books I read and it did cheer me up a lot :)

As for my other goal of three reviews - I didn't quite make it, but I sort of did, kind of. I got two actual reviews up, for The Fault in Our Stars and King Solomon's Mines, but then I got an In My Mailbox post up as well. Doing those can often seem like a bit of a chore, so it's a post up at least! 

On the whole, I'm happy with this week and I absolutely cannot wait to read more of Theft of Swords. It's not much more than I'd read in a normal week, but keeping track of it with you all makes me happy :) I'll see you all at the next read-a-thon!

So how did you do this week? Did you achieve your reading goals or did life get in the way?

Bout of Books Read-a-Thon Mini-Challenge 1

One of today's challenges was jointly created by The Space Between and Reading in Texas, and they want to know what we do with our books when we've finished reading them.

Well for me it varies. I have to admit that I am, first and foremost, a book hoarder. I love the idea of having a huge library one day and I think I've subconsciously started collecting for that. Unfortunately I've run out of room on my wall-to-wall bookshelves so I've had to be more ruthless lately.

Obviously I'm still willing to keep the books I love. Obviously. But if I don't like it then it gets plonked onto the ReaditSwapit website (my list of books is here) and then hopefully it can be swapped for something else. If it's been sat on there for a stupid amount of time, then I'll haul it down to the charity shop where I work and then get ridiculously over-excited when somebody buys it.

For the books I'm not sure about I let sit on my shelves, but not always permanently. Sometimes I need to muse on it for a while because you don't know if you're likely to want to read it again until after the buzz from it has already worn off. If I decide it's not worth it, then it'll get caught up in the next book purge a month or so in the future :)

What do you do with your books once you've read them?

Bout Of Books Read-a-thon Post!

It's that time again! I had such a good time with the Bout of Books Read-a-thon a couple of months ago that I just had to sign up again. I know there have been a fair few other read-a-thons going on lately, but I have to admit that none of them have really grabbed me. 

Still, I know that I get along just fine with Bout of Books and I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately so maybe this will persuade me to get back into those books! I don't usually have reading slumps though, so it could just be the fairly stodgy couple of books I was reading at the time, but we'll see!

Join us!

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, August 13th and runs through Sunday, August 19th 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 5.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.  

                                -From the Bout of Books 5.0 team 

Goals

I feel like I've been bogged down quite a lot with library books, review copies and challenge reads lately, so I'm liking the idea of just choosing my own books of my shelves. With that in mind, I don't really want to set too concrete a goal list so I can enjoy this read-a-thon to its full capacity.

I'm going to aim for three books during the week, possibly from the following:

 

 These are the books on my shelves that I'm most anticipating. I picked my first free-choice book off my shelf today (Red Glove by Holly Black) and I'm loving it, so I'm really looking forward to just reading whatever the hell I want!

I've also fallen behind a little with reviews, due to my general all-encompassing slump, so I'd like to get the following three reviews up - 

• Counselling for Toads by Robert de Board
• King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
• Red Glove by Holly Black 

 Wish me luck!

Once Upon A Read-a-thon July 9-11 2012

Because I'm not starting this late at all. Why do people always want to do real-life things when I'm trying to do a read-a-thon? Honestly!

My goals over the next three days are fairly simple, as I've been out into town today, I'm heading into Sheffield tomorrow and I've got a hospital appointment on Wednesday.

• Part Four of Anna Karenina for the Read Along
• A Touch of Power by Maria Snyder
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

These aren't exactly what I'd have picked, but I completely forgot about the Read-a-thon and so I'm at my boyfriend's with not a whole lot to choose from! Luckily, I ended up at the library this morning and came home with an armful of fantasy books. Plus, I really need to get round to reading Jekyll and Hyde for my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Challenge. 

This post is where I'll be posting my updates and linking to my mini-challenge posts, so keep checking back!

Monday

What I've been reading: A Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

Pages read: 130, as of 11:58pm

Comments: Not the best start to the Read-a-thon. In my defence, I found out today that I was rejected for my loan to do my Bar course in September, so I haven't felt much like reading - only like alternately sobbing and scowling as I somehow need to scrape up £13,000.

I got hold of myself towards the end of the day, but then still only managed 130 pages. I probably wouldn't even have managed that many if it wasn't such an easy book.

Today #insixwords: God-damned ****ing Law money people.

Tuesday

What I've been reading: Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder and Anna Karenina

Pages read: 106 and 81 respectively, as of 11:57pm

Comments: So I'm feeling much more positive today! I woke up really late, but that's not unusual and hey, at least I'm sleeping! I've got my review of The Woman Who Died A Lot up as well as reading a tiny bit in bed, so that's good and I'm going to go get some actual reading done now! :)

I finished Part Four of Anna Karenina, which started out a bit dreary but ended up beyond awesome. It's just amazing. Well, that's one of my goals completed anyway! 

I made a decent amount of progress with Touch of Power in the evening too. We watched Little Miss Sunshine, which was awesome, but cut into my reading time. Later though, Lewis turned on the Xbox so I read a little. I may have read more but the book wasn't as good as I'd expected. 
Mini-challenges: Bookish fight! Roll up, roll up and watch the impending battle between the Cheshire Cat of Wonderland and d'Artagnan of Musketeerdom! Bets are being taken for the next five minutes at odds of 3:5 Cheshire! With his superb disappearing act, will the young Gascon be able to find the feline? Or will his rapier sharp... uh, rapier, save the day?

Today #insixwords: Anna Karenina takes up much time!

Wednesday

What I've been reading: A Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder (still)

Pages read: 154, as of 11:36pm (finished!)

Comments: Uhh... I think I've accidentally been taking part in a buy-books-to-read-a-thon instead. I've only read 60 pages so far, but I may have obtained a further ten books. I know, right? My little TBR arrow on the right hand side is up fourteen books and it's not even halfway through the month. So much for having a minus-month.


Well, I finally finished Touch of Power with half an hour to spare! I clearly didn't complete my goals, but I'm glad I caught up with the Read Along and I finished this one. I couldn't really have read more today though - it's the other days that let me down!

Today #insixwords: Uncompleted goals? Ah well, I'll survive.
 
 

Once Upon a Read-a-thon Update and Mini Challenge

Well it'a Day #2 of the Once Upon a Read-a-thon and so far I've read and reviewed The Adoration of Jenna Fox (review here) and I'm about a third of the way through My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.

It's slower going than I'd hoped, although I've not been very well and I've still got 16 million boxes to unpack from moving house! I did manage to buy six books this morning though, because if you're not getting through the books you own fast enough you should always buy more...

This is the Read-a-thon Mini Challenge from IB Booking Blogging. 

Mini Challenge Question 1:
What is your favorite type of myth (Greek, Roman, Egyptian etc)?

Greek! Definitely Greek. I've been obsessed with Greek mythology ever since I had some form of encyclopaedia about it when I was tiny. I can happily sit here and read the legends over and over - I particularly like the story about Paris having to choose who's more beautiful over Athena and Aphrodite, and the ensuing argument leading to the Trojan War.

Mini Challenge Question 2:
What is your favorite book with some type of mythology in it?

Pfft. Umm... The Percy Jackson books are great, especially the Greek ones (shockingly). They're YA/Children's so they're really easy to get into and great for relaxing with. The film's very watchable too.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood is a great adult retelling of the Odyssey, but from Penelope's point of view as she sits at home and waits for her husband to return.

Once Upon a Read-a-thon

Okay, so I'm ridiculously last minute with this. I first saw it over at An Armchair By The Sea but wasn't going to join because hey, I read a lot anyway and I have (read: had) a lot to do over the next few days.

But now? Not so much. Because I've been Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E-D. Not half as interesting as it sounds, trust me. So as I'm pretty much destined to spend the next five days alone in a room, I thought I'd join up! (It was either that or start licking the windows or clawing at the door...)

I have to admit, I'm oddly excited - I've never done a read-a-thon before. So I'll see you all tomorrow... Wish me luck!