Friday, July 27, 2018

Reverse Summer Read-a-Thon!


There's a Reverse Summer Read-a-Thon!! What's reverse about it, you ask? The hours! Here in the middle of Canada, instead of going from 7:00 am on Saturday to 7:00 am on Sunday, it's going from 7:00 pm on Friday to 7:00 pm on Saturday.

While I am normally an all-in, read for literally 24 hours straight, no-interruptions-allowed kind of read-a-thoner, my participation in this one is going to be decidedly less intense. The reason for that is the tomorrow morning is the start of GISH!!! (Basically I'll be doing really wacky stuff for a week, and it's gonna take all my energy.) So, I have to be well-rested for that, and also once it starts I will have very little time for reading.

That being said, I am starting the read-a-thon right now, 7:00 pm. My plan is to read for most of the evening until whenever I want to go to bed, then sleep. If I wake up with time to spare before GISH, I'll read a bit more. But once that hunt starts, I am outta here! Except maybe I'll read a little when I need a break. :) Throughout, I will report on my reading here, just updating this one post.

Since my reading time is so limited, I didn't make a big TBR stack like I normally would. I'm currently reading Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga. And the next book I plan to start is Bounced by Ted Staunton. I might go back and forth according to my mood.



9:20 pm update:
I read 15 pages of Seven Fallen Feathers in the first half an hour. I thought this book would be tough reading since it's a) nonfiction and b) about a painful subject, but it's so well-written that I don't feel bogged down at all! Then I went and watched two episodes of Once Upon a Time with my husband. Haha. So that's how my read-a-thon started! Getting back to some reading now. I think I'll start the light-hearted book.

10:26 pm update:
I read 37 pages of Bounced in the last hour. I've been a bit sick today (weird summer cold!) and when I'm sick even reading feels like hard work. So, given that GISH starts in 10.5 hours, I think I'm gonna head off to bed and hopefully feel better in the morning! Good night all! I'm sure I'll update with at least a bit of reading tomorrow.

Past the end update:
I never came back. I woke up just shortly before GISH started and then spent the rest of the day on that! Ah well. The read-a-thon will be back in October, when I'll do my usual extreme, non-stop reading!

Sunday, July 1, 2018

High Summer Read-a-Thon 2018


I'm now on my first summer vacation since high school, so what better time for a month-long read-a-thon! The High Summer Read-a-Thon, hosted by Seasons of Reading, lasts for the month of July. It's very laid back. Basically I'm jumping in because I have a TONNE of reading I want to do this summer and I thought this might be a fun way of making it a bit of a challenge.

Now, for my goals!
  • I have the last 50 or so pages of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, which I want to finish.
  • I have a few books out from the public library that I should read sooner rather than later. In particular:
    • United (Alienated #3) by Melissa Landers
    • Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
  • By early September I need to read all 20 of the 2019 MYRCA nominees (both the Sundogs and the Northern Lights). So I'm aiming to get through roughly half of those in July.
  • I'm behind on my TBR pile reading (what else is new?) so it would be nice to get a couple of those in there as well.
  • In addition to my reading goals, I want to get back in the habit of actually writing books reviews (you know, the original purpose of this blog...)! So my goal will be to write reviews of all the books I read in July.
Ready...set...go!