Wednesday, October 31, 2012

October 2012 Wrap-Up

Here's a summary of my book-related activity for October. Thanks to the read-a-thon, and the fact that I exercised remarkable self-control (one time I was in a book store, and I only bought a magazine!), my to read pile decreased by (slightly) more than in any month since I started The Towering Pile! Hooray! What a way to celebrate my first year of book blogging!

Books I read (linked to the reviews)

The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story by Susan Hill (library)
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate (TBR pile)
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (TBR pile)
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (TBR pile)
Dr. Horrible, and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon (TBR pile)
The Stranger (Animorphs #7) by K.A. Applegate (TBR pile)
Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler (TBR pile)
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (new book)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (library) (DNF)

Books I bought

Only 4! And one of these was actually ordered last month, and just arrived this month.


More & More & More Tales
to Give You Goosebumps
by R.L. Stine
The Enormous Crocodile
by Roald Dahl


I Am Number Four
by Pittacus Lore
Divergent by
Veronica Roth

Progress on challenges


The Capture was my October book for the Read Your OWN Library! Challenge.

The Art of Egypt: The Time of the Pharaohs was my October Random Read. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to read it.

I completed the following letters for the 2012 A-Z Book Challenge: none (only two left!)

I read 2 books for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

I read 0 books for the 2012 Anne Rice Challenge. (I finished The Witching Hour, though. Wow, that book is long!)

Operation: TBR Reduction: I added 4 books to my to read list and removed 7, so my pile decreased by 3 this month!

Happy Halloween!

It's peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly time!
Happy Halloween/Samhain! I hope you all get lots of candy and watch lots of scary movies!

Also, some blog updates: I've had some crazy writers' block lately. So, not only am I way behind on my reviews, but I never wrote my discussion posts for the 'Salem's Lot read-along. :( So, I'll just be posting a regular review for it. Eventually. Hopefully I will have some reviews written soon! In the meantime, my monthly wrap-up will go up this evening, and Random Reads is tomorrow morning.

(And yes, that's me in the picture. I'm dressed up as the peanut butter jelly time banana today at work.)

Friday, October 19, 2012

Zombie Surf Commandos From Mars by Tony Abbott

Title: Zombie Surf Commandos From Mars
Author: Tony Abbott
Publication Date: 1996
Length: 97 pages

This is a weird book. I mean, obviously. But I mean, I'm a big fan of R.L. Stine, king of the slightly cheesy horror books for kids. And I found this book too cheesy.

Liz, Holly, and Jeff are hanging out at the beach, when suddenly, zombie surf commandos from Mars come surfing out of the lake onto the beach, and start looking for brains! They're both zombies and from Mars because they were normal Martians, and were made zombie-like by something about Earth. Anywho, the kids have to come up with a clever plan to get the zombie surf commandos to go back to Mars.

What else can I say? It was just really weird, and really cheesy.

2 stars. That's what I gave it in the heat of the moment. I can no longer remember why it got 2 stars instead of 1. I must have liked something.

This book counts for the 2012 A-Z Book Challenge.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Killer Virus by R.A. Montgomery

Title: Killer Virus (Choose Your Own Adventure #177)
Author: R.A. Montgomery
Publication Date: 1997
Length: 112 pages

In Killer Virus, you are once again a teenager who is given a weird amount of responsibility. You and your uncle Steve are off to Africa to investigate an outbreak of Ebola, a deadly virus. Once there, your first choice is whether to work in the lab with Uncle Steve, examining blood samples to confirm if the virus is Ebola, go to the village to talk to the locals, or help capture animals and test their blood to try to find the source of the outbreak.

Whichever path you choose, a suspicious member of your group follows you. You suspect that he might be a terrorist, helping the dictator of a neighbouring country to get his hands on some infected blood to use as a biological weapon.

The main thing I didn't like about this book was that based on your choices, things changed that shouldn't have been dependant on your choices. It's not really fair that sometimes the suspicious guy turns out to be a terrorist, and sometimes he turns out to be working for the CIA! I think that choices in a gamebook should only affect things that would actually be affected by one person's choices.

This book seems pretty well researched, and so was an interesting read. Ebola is a real virus, and I learned a bit about it. As usual with these books, though, I found it hard to suspend my disbelief enough to believe that a teenager would be brought along on a dangerous trip to an area of Africa that currently has an outbreak of a deadly virus. And this teenager apparently knows enough about science to be working in a lab as an equal with the grown up scientists. I know it's a kids' book, but still.

2 stars.

This book counts for the 2012 A-Z Book Challenge and the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Animorphs #5 - The Predator by K.A. Applegate

Title: The Predator (Animorphs #5)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Publication Date: December 1996
Length: 150 pages

Warning: This is a review of the 5th book in a series, and will therefore contain spoilers from the series up to this point.

Ax, the Andalite introduced in the previous book, wants to go home. To do this, he wants the Animorphs to help him steal a Yeerk ship. The plan is for Ax to build a communicator that will send a distress beacon to the Yeerks, so that they'll send a ship down, while the Animorphs wait in ambush.

I swear, their plans get crazier with every book. At least they recognise that their ideas are crazy, but still they go through with them. Slight spoiler: It doesn't work. I can't say much more without spoiling it, but things don't go particularly well. Also, there's a twist! I unfortunately wasn't surprised, since it was on the back of the next book, which I foolishly glanced at. This series is bad for that! Don't read the backs of the books (or the Goodreads summaries) of books later in the series!

Marco was a good narrator. He wasn't as negative as I had feared. He's got just the right amount of cynicism and sarcasm, I think. And it was nice to see the real him, rather than just the jokes he uses to cover up his real feelings. That's a nice thing about this series. The main characters take turns narrating a book, so you really get to know all of them over time.

Ax is a fun addition to the group. When he morphs into a human and goes to the mall, he really shows the fact that he's just a kid. He's so excited by his new senses (especially taste) that he goes nuts, eating leftover food in the food court, and the group is lucky to get out of there alive. I look forward to more of him (though unfortunately the next book goes back to Jake rather than introducing Ax into the cycle right away).

4 stars.

This book also counts for the 2012 A-Z Book Challenge.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

End of Event Meme

1) Which hour was most daunting for you? Hour 19! That always seems to be when I quite suddenly become exhausted.

2) Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins was great! It really made the time fly.

3) Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Nope!

4) What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? I think overall everything went well!

5) How many books did you read? 6

6) What were the names of the books you read? The Capture, James and the Giant Peach, Catching Fire, Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories, The Stranger, and Hunger.

7) Which book did you enjoy most? They were all really good (the first 4 all get 5 stars!), but I think I'll go with Catching Fire.

8) Which did you enjoy least? Probably Hunger, but I still liked it; I just liked the others better.

9) If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? I wasn't a cheerleader. I also didn't get much in the way of visits from cheerleaders this year, or at least no one mentioned that they were here as a cheerleader.

10) How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? This is my third time, and I'm totally hooked. I'll always keep coming back as a reader!

Read-a-Thon Hours 23 and 24: 5:00 - 7:00

What are you reading right now? Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler (just finished!)

How's that going? It was pretty good.

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon
The Stranger (Animorphs #7) by K.A. Applegate
Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler

Pages read these hours: 90

Total pages read so far: 1123

Food consumed this hour: None. I have that sort of hungry-but-disgusted-by-food feeling that comes with lack of sleep.

Another read-a-thon has ended! Now it's time for me to sleep half the day away (hopefully), and be satisfied for a month or two, after which I'll start pining for the next read-a-thon! :)

Read-a-Thon Hours 21 and 22: 3:00 - 5:00

What are you reading right now? Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler

How's that going? Pretty good. I'm liking that it's about a girl with an eating disorder, told from her point of view. It's kind of like an unreliable narrator; you can tell from the things she says, and the things she observes about her body, that she's seeing things in a distorted way.

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon
The Stranger (Animorphs #7) by K.A. Applegate

Pages read these hours: 87

Total pages read so far: 1033

Food consumed this hour: A banana.

Read-a-Thon Hours 19 and 20: 1:00 - 3:00

What are you reading right now? I just finished The Stranger (Animorphs #7) by K.A. Applegate, and now I'm about to start Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler.

How's that going? The Stranger was really good once it got going.

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon
The Stranger (Animorphs #7) by K.A. Applegate

Pages read these hours: 113

Total pages read so far: 946

Food consumed this hour: Nothing but the energy drink! I feel better now. :)

Read-a-Thon Hours 17 and 18: 23:00 - 1:00

What are you reading right now? The Stranger (Animorphs #7) by K.A. Applegate

How's that going? Pretty good. Nothing much is happening yet.

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon

Pages read these hours: 112

Total pages read so far: 833

Food consumed this hour: Leftover pizza from Panago (pineapple and meatless pepperoni, with the sauce replaced by salsa and the regular cheese replaced by feta; that's how I roll) and ginger ale.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Read-a-Thon Hours 15 and 16: 21:00 - 23:00

What are you reading right now? Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon

How's that going? I've just read the first story, Captain Hammer: Be Like Me!, and it was short and funny.

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Pages read these hours: 97

Total pages read so far: 721

Food consumed this hour: Umm, none. I think I'll have dinner now. For real this time! I have leftover pizza.

And now, for your enjoyment, a delightful song from Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog:

Mid-Event Survey

It's time for the Mid-Event Survey! Actually that was a little while ago, but I forgot. :)

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?
Still going strong!

2) What have you finished reading?
I've finished The Capture and James and the Giant Peach, and I'm almost done Catching Fire.

3) What is your favorite read so far?
I couldn't even decide! They've all been really excellent!

4) What about your favorite snacks?

I've been a bit low on snacking for some reason. The oranges were yummy.

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love!
I never do enough blog discovering during the read-a-thon! I get so wrapped up in the reading. :) But I did find one new one who stopped by to comment on my blog: readerbuzz.

Read-a-Thon Hours 13 and 14: 19:00 - 21:00

What are you reading right now? Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

How's that going? Soooo good. And I'm nearly done. I should be done before my next update.

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 

Pages read these hours: 97

Total pages read so far: 624

Food consumed this hour: A mandarin orange. I'm just not feeling up to a meal! I know I should eat more, though, for energy later on. The tough part is only a few hours away! (Umm, Katniss might be rubbing off on me a little.

Oh and also, I love Cinna. I may have mentioned this in the past.

Read-a-Thon Hours 11 and 12: 17:00 - 19:00

What are you reading right now? Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

How's that going? Excellent! Ah, the twists and turns! My emotions!

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 

Pages read these hours: 80

Total pages read so far: 527

Food consumed this hour: Eggnog, and a couple more mini-doughnuts. I'll probably think about having some actually supper soon.

We're half done! I'm not quite on track to get through my 7 books, but I'll definitely finish at least 5.

Read-a-Thon Hours 9 and 10: 15:00 - 17:00

What are you reading right now? Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

How's that going? Still good. Even though it's on the longer side for a read-a-thon book, I don't mind, because as I fly through it, the hours fly by, too! Can you believe it's been 10 hours already?!

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 

Pages read these hours: 69

Total pages read so far: 447

Food consumed this hour: None!

Read-a-Thon Hours 7 and 8: 13:00 - 15:00

What are you reading right now? Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

How's that going? Really good! It's already toying with my emotions!


Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 

Pages read these hours: 61 (this book must have longer pages than the kids' books)

Total pages read so far: 378

Food consumed this hour: More orange juice and mini doughnuts, and some of that tomato and cheese salad thingy that has become my staple read-a-thon food.

Read-a-Thon Hours 5 and 6: 11:00 - 13:00

What are you reading right now? Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

How's that going? Well, I just started it, but I'm already finding myself sucked back into Katniss's world. I can't believe I waited so long to get to reading this book!

Books finished so far:
The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Pages read these hours: 99 (Oops, a slight decrease in pace! Too much computer time.)

Total pages read so far: 317

Food consumed this hour: A banana, and some chocolate covered mini doughnuts (and the junk food makes its first appearance!).

And now for your amusement, a song from the movie adaptation of the book I just finished, James and the Giant Peach. It's really a kind of weird movie! I've always loved it. (Sorry the end is a bit cut off; this is the best one I could find!)


Read-a-Thon Hours 3 and 4: 9:00 - 11:00

What are you reading right now? James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

How's that going? As expected, it's delightful! I've loved the movie since I was a kid and the book is classic Dahl.

Books finished so far: The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate

Pages read these hours: 111

Total pages read so far: 218

Food consumed this hour: A glass of orange juice and a mandarin orange ('tis the season of delicious foods appearing in the grocery stores!).

All of me feels alert except my eyelids. They keep drooping! And the bean bag chair is dangerously comfy. I might not be able to read in it later on when the exhaustion hits.

Oh, and better late than never, here's a picture of my book pile for the day, and a picture of me in my new bean bag chair, which is now my primary reading spot! So comfy! (Pardon the mess in the computer room/library.)



Read-a-Thon Hours 1 and 2: 7:00 - 9:00

What are you reading right now? The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate

How's that going? Really good! This might be the best in the series so far. The suspense is killing me!

Books finished so far: None yet. I'm about 2/3 of the way through my first book.

Pages read these hours: 107

Total pages read so far: 107 (hooray math!)

Food consumed this hour: A bowl of cranberry almond crunch cereal.

Having a great time so far! I won a prize! :) And my reading pace has been quite good considering the amount of time I've spent reading blog posts and doing the Introduction Meme.

Introductory Questionnaire

It's time for the Introductory Questionnaire!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
I am reading in Winnipeg, MB, where it's 7:18, and the sun won't rise for another half hour.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Catching Fire! I've been meaning to get to it for so long!

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Hmm, tough one. Probably the hummus.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I went to a Weird Al concert on Thursday! It was my third time seeing him! I think that tells you a lot about me. :)

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
No grown up books! My pile this time is entirely kids' and YA books. I will not get bogged down today!

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon has begun!

Good morning! Or whatever greeting is appropriate in your time zone! I'm reading in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where it is 7:00 in the morning. I don't normally see this time on a Saturday.

If you're just tuning in, I'm participating in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon, which means I'll be reading (with breaks only for blogging my updates) for the next 24 hours straight! This time, I'll be going back to updating every 2 hours, because last time I did every hour, and I found that it took too much time away from reading, and also I ran out of amusing things to say.

My goals for the read-a-thon this time around are as follows:
  • Don't fall asleep! (I've had mixed success with this in the past.)
  • Read all 7 of the books I've picked out. They add up to 1363 pages, which is slightly more than I read in my first read-a-thon, and a lot more than I read in my second (which, for a variety of reasons, did not go as well as I'd hoped).
  • Do more commenting! This is always my goal. I'm never that good at it.

My reading list:
  • The Capture (Animorphs #6) by K.A. Applegate (154 pages)
  • Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (391 pages)
  • James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (160 pages)
  • The Stranger (Animorphs #7) by K.A. Applegate (163 pages)
  • The Andalite's Gift (Megamorphs #1) by K.A. Applegate (240 pages)
  • Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler (177 pages)
  • Dr. Horrible, and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon (graphic novel) (78 pages)
(Due to technical difficulties, my picture of my pile is not yet on the computer. It will come later!)

In other news, I now have a beanbag chair! We recently purchased a Jaxx Pillow Sac, which is a really, really good beanbag chair. So I will be trying out read-a-thoning in that.

Oh, and in case you didn't see my post yesterday, for every book I read in the next 24 hours, I will donate one book to Strathcona Community School through the Indigo Adopt-a-School program! Click here to cheer me on by donating to my adopted school!

Let the reading begin! I'll be starting the day with The Capture by K.A. Applegate.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Reading for charity this read-a-thon!

As you may know, tomorrow I will be participating in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon. Some people take this opportunity to do a little reading for charity, which I've never done, but always seemed like a good idea. Well, this time an opportunity has presented itself!

The Indigo Adopt a School program is going on right now. (Actually, I think it might technically be over for this year, but you can still donate.) You can adopt a school in your area and donate books to their library, either by donating $12 to give one book, or by buying a $25 gift card, which donates one book with no cost to yourself if you were going to buy books there anyway!

So, I've adopted a school. I picked Strathcona Community School, which is in a poorer neighbourhood of Winnipeg. When I read about how their budget does not include a librarian, and they have to rely on volunteers to come and organise the books in the library, I was shocked. I never think of Canada as having these kinds of problems, but we do. Many schools have less than 1 book per child.

In tomorrow's read-a-thon, every book I complete means I'll donate one book to Strathcona Community School. And I'll be reading short books; my goal is to get through 7.

If you'd like to support me in the read-a-thon, please consider donating a book to this school. Or, give a number of books based on how many books/pages I read. Or, adopt a school in your area and donate a book to them. To donate through my fundraising campaign, click here. That way I'll be able to see how many books I've fundraised!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Same book, different title!

I had an exciting package arrive in the mail recently. I ordered a couple R.L. Stine books that seem to be particularly difficult to find. One of them, The Witness, was delivered yesterday, and I was pumped, because that means I now have all the Point Horror books written by R.L. Stine! Yay!!

So I was adding it to Goodreads, and I flipped through it, to check the number of pages. (I'm a Goodreads Librarian, and I like to make sure the info on all my books is right.) That's when I noticed that at the top of each page, where you'd expect to see the title (or a chapter title, or something), it said "I Saw You That Night!". That's odd, I thought to myself. Isn't that the name of another R.L. Stine book I have?

Why yes, yes it is. And a quick glance and the back cover and the first page told me that they are in fact the same book! I Saw You That Night! was republished as The Witness. This is apparently not well-known. They were separate books on Goodreads (I combined them). And everywhere I saw a list of this series, they were both listed. I feel like I've made a big discovery! Haha.

So, I already had all the Point Horror books. Probably the reason why The Witness was so hard to find was because (I think) it's the UK edition. Live and learn, I guess!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

FrightFall Read-a-Thon Wrap-Up



I'm a bit late on this, as the read-a-thon actually ended on Sunday.

After update 2 (Friday), I read another 71 pages of The Witching Hour, and listened to some more of The Woman in Black (almost all of it; I finished it shortly after the read-a-thon ended).

So, altogether, I read 221 pages of The Witching Hour, and listened to probably around 4 hours of The Woman in Black. That page count is a little disappointing, but I didn't expect this book to be such heavy reading!

It's been fun reading with you all! :)

Monday, October 8, 2012

The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

Title: The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll
Author: Lewis Carroll (um, duh)
Publication Date: 1976
Length: 1293 pages

This review will be sort of split up by section, since there's a wide variety of material in this book.

The book starts out with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Of course, this story is simply delightful. I'd read it before, and it's what made me figure I'd enjoy Carroll's complete works. It has just the right amount of nonsense, and the characters are simply delightful. And this is one of those books that was adapted to film so well that having seen the movie actually increases my enjoyment of the book. I have perfect images in my mind of the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and the Red Queen.

The next story is Through the Looking Glass. It's sort of like a continuation of Wonderland. Alice steps through a mirror and finds another strange world. I don't enjoy this one as much as Wonderland. The characters she encounters are much less likable. Many of them are sort of mean and annoying. And the nonsense in this story (normally an element I enjoy) gets to the point where I don't even know what's going on anymore.

Sylvie and Bruno took me a while to get into. After a bit I figured out that the narrator was alternating between dreaming and reality, but there was no transition, so in the beginning I was just confused. Once I got the hang of the switching back and forth, I started to get into the story. It's much slower moving than the Alice stories. However, Sylvie and Bruno are such adorable characters that I still found it worth reading.

Then comes Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. By this time, it's difficult to get through. Sylvie and Bruno, and some of the other characters, are quite delightful, but the story simply doesn't go anywhere! People visit each other, and go for walks, and various people tell nonsensical stories and sing songs. So while some parts are enjoyable, as a whole, it's not so much a story as just a lot of randomness, and it took me a very long time to read. Stories should have plots, I feel!

The next section is Verse, and that part was a really mixed bag for me. Hunting of the Snark was lovely, as was a lot of the early stuff. But then there were some that were seemingly written in Scots, and some that were very difficult riddles, and some that were just so nonsensical that I didn't get anything out of them.

The rest of the book consists of short stories and other really random stuff. I confess, I didn't read much of these parts. By this point I was exhausted by the book, and nothing I started reading really grabbed me. Maybe at some point I'll read some of these parts, but for now I need a break from Lewis Carroll.

So, while Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is delightful, the whole book gets 2 stars from me.

This book counts for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge. It is also one of my longest books (it was the very longest on my to read shelf, in fact!).

Friday, October 5, 2012

FrightFall Read-a-Thon Update 2



It's now almost the end of the fifth day of the FrightFall Read-a-Thon, and I'm still reading The Witching Hour by Anne Rice and the audiobook of The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

Since update 1 (two days ago), I've only read 42 more pages of The Witching Hour, bringing to up to page 447. I'm still enjoying this one, but it's at a bit of a slower part right now (basically I'm reading a report by the Talamasca on the history of the Mayfair family), so I am finding my pace slowing.

I lost track of how much of The Woman in Black I've listened to, but I think it's been about an hour to an hour and a half. I have a little over an hour left of it, so I should finish it this weekend. It's definitely less scary than the movie (maybe I just need to listen to it in a better environment than the bus), but the writing is very nice and the reader is excellent.

Happy reading, and have a good long weekend (assuming you live in Canada, or somewhere else that has a long weekend now)!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

FrightFall Read-a-Thon Update 1



We're about two and a half days in the FrightFall Read-a-Thon, and I've been reading The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, and I also started listening to the audiobook of The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

So far, I've read 108 pages of The Witching Hour, bringing me up to page 405 out of 1038. It's not looking likely that I'll manage to finish it within the read-a-thon, as I'd have to read well over 100 pages a day (and as I've said, these pages are long), but I'll definitely get close. I'm really enjoying this book, so it's excellent read-a-thon material.

I've also listened to about 2 and a half hours of The Woman in Black, which is actually more than half the book. This one is nice and short, which I'm finding is good for audiobooks. Also, it's narrated by a man with a lovely English accent. Definitely perfect for a horror story! I might have to browse the audiobook section at the library more often! (I mean, no! I'm reading off my to-read shelf!) ;)

Happy reading, read-a-thoners!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Stephen King Fall Read-a-Long: 'Salem's Lot

Stephen King Fall Read-a-Long

It's time to begin the second book in the Stephen King Read-a-Long hosted by Midnight Book Girl: 'Salem's Lot. I had a great time reading Carrie in September, and ended up buying 'Salem's Lot and Misery (and a LOT more) at the Children's Hospital Book Sale, so now I keep on reading along!

Here's when you can expect discussion posts:

October 17th: chapters 1 to 8
October 31st: chapter 9 to the epilogue (This one will obviously be prescheduled, since I'll be busy watching scary movies and eating obscene amounts of candy.)

Monday, October 1, 2012

FrightFall Read-a-Thon Starting Line

FrightFall Read-a-Thon

Today begins the week-long FrightFall Read-a-Thon! I don't really have a pile for this one, because I'm currently reading The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, which is extremely long! I've already been reading it for weeks, and I'm only on page 297 out of 1038. So my goal for this read-a-thon is to finish this book! I'm really enjoying it, so it's just a question of devoting a lot of time to it. If I manage to finish it before the end of the read-a-thon, I'll start a review copy I've got called Rick & Wylie's Fantastical, Magical Adventure by And Katsina.

To give you an idea of how much time I'll be spending reading this week, I work full-time, but other than that I'm not too busy this week, except the weekend, which is Thanksgiving, so there are lots of family dinners to go to. So I'll be reading on the way to and from work, on my lunch, and in the evenings, so pretty much the same as usual, but I'll be trying to do more of it. :)

Wish me luck! And let me know if you're participating too, so we can cheer each other on!

October Random Reads selection

It's time to select my Random Read for October! Last month, my Random Read was Claws by Will Weaver, which I read, and it was terrible. C'est la vie.

So it's off to the random number generator. I have 717 books on my TBR shelf at the moment, so I enter 1 as the min and 717 as the max, and hit Generate. (If you actually looked at my shelf and saw that this number is way off, that's because I wrote this post right before buying a huge pile of books at the Children's Hospital Book Sale!)

Drum roll, please!




For October’s Random Read I'll be reading The Art of Egypt: The Time of the Pharaohs by Irmgard Woldering. It's been on my TBR shelf since May 17, 2009, which is during the time when I was adding my collection to Goodreads, meaning it's probably much older. This is the first time a non-fiction book has come up for my Random Read. I'm a little nervous about it! My non-fiction books tend to be the ones that I don't want to get rid of, but at the same, I don't really want to read them. I put them off way too much. So this is good. I WILL read this non-fiction book!