Monday, August 19, 2013

Bout of Books Master Post

Bout of Books


It's Bout of Books time everyone! I know a lot of you are posting insanely huge book piles and novel length goal lists but things are going to be a little bit smaller here on my end. Basically, I've been in a little bit of a reading slump recently, what with trying to balance it with uni and work and life, so I'm hoping this will help tease me out of that slump and back into my regular reading habits.




So this is my pile of Bout of Books to-reads. I don't plan to read them all, and I probably won't even start them all, but they're the books I want to dedicate this week to reading. Some are books I really really want to read (Eleanor and Park, A Dirty Job), some are books I should have read by now (Smoke and Mirrors - I started it in January, put it down in February and have about 40 pages to go!) and others are there because they must (Skeleton Crew - It's not a readalong/readathon without some King).

My goals for Bout of Books: 

*Read at least 50 pages each day. With my commute, lunch break and an hour or so in the evening I should be able to do this easily. I hope.

*Take part in at least 3 of the challenges during the week.

*Keep you all up to date with my reading progress each night

*Visit 2-3 new blogs each night.

*Avoid too much internet-y distraction.


And that is that! I'll be back tonight to update my reading progress below and maybe a challenge or two.

Happy reading!



Monday:

Monday isn't exactly over yet, but I have plans to watch a DVD with my boyfriend (and the new Breaking Bad - WOOO!) so any pages read will probably be negligible and I'll just add them to tomorrow's tally.

So, onto my progress thus far;

Total pages read this challenge: 151 pages
Books read from today: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, Oldboy by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi
Books finished: 0
Challenges participated in: 'Book Bucket List' hosted by Sarah of Sarah Says Read, 'Pairathon Challenge' by Nikki of Book Pairing
Blogs visited: Actin' Up with Books, Life Merging, Tiny Library
Time spent on the internets: 1.5 hours

I really liked Sarah's challenge, I've thought long and hard well before today about what my bookish bucket list, and I don't think it's a list that'll ever be completed. I probably took the weenie way out a little and answered in the broadest way possible but shhhhhh, it's definitely something I want to do.
What is one bookish thing you want to do before you die? OR what is one thing you want to do before you die that was inspired by a book you read?
My answer:
I think I’d like to dedicate a European holiday to really bookish things. I wouldn’t worry about the Eiffel tower or Piccadilly Circus – I’d just go to all those amazing libraries you see pictured online all the time, and visit the favourite writing areas or homes of my favourite authors or legendary book settings. To take 3 weeks or a month to travel around doing this would be AMAZING!

Tuesday:

So I ended up barely reading today. Uni was hectic, the bus was full so I had to stand and since Tom's not well we ended up watching a few episodes of American Horror Story and having an early night. But I did get up to the super exciting roller-coaster climax bit of Lost in a Good Book, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to manage to get it finished tomorrow. And then I think I'll start on E&P because EEEEK RAINBOW ROWELL! But I should probably try and finish Oldboy before I start something new because I have 10,000 half read books sitting in my house right now.

Pages read today: 47
Total pages read this readathon: 198
Books read from today: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde,
Books finished: 0 (but I'm so close to done with Lost in a Good Book!
Challenges participated in: 0 from Bout of Books, but I did do Top 10 Tuesday
Blogs visited: Sarah Says Read, Devouring Texts, Book Nympho
time spent on the internets: too much

Oh and also, I came across this delightful video of a group of librarians who put together a videoclip for the Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage'. It's fantastic.



Wednesday

Wednesday was a pretty quiet reading day, even if I did manage to nearly hit the 100 pages mark with my reading. I was at the meaty end of Lost in a Good Book and I went from reading on the bus to reading while I walked from my bus to my office, to reading at my desk while waiting for my computer to boot up, to sighing and putting it down when I finally finished it. I really liked this book, a great deal more than the first in the Thursday Next series (and I liked that one plenty), and the last 100 pages of the book was just a whirl of action of humour and pathos. I never expected this series to bring out many emotions, but 20 pages before the book finished I had a few tears welling in my eyes. So that's my first book down, wooo! I'm on to Eleanor and Park next and the second half of Oldboy, and with the rate I'm reading (wayyyyy higher than I was expecting) I'm thinking I might get three books finished! WHAT! But yeah, so aside from my morning engrossment with the climax of Lost in a Good Book most of my spare time was spent writing up a few reviews that I've been umming and ahhhing over and taking part in Ellie's challenge. I think it's still going so you should take part if you haven't already because what reader doesn't love thinking about going into a book store with a bunch of money to buy any book they like? NO ONE THAT'S WHO!


Pages read today: 84
Total pages read this readathon: 282 pages
Books read from today: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde,
Books finished: 1
Challenges participated in: TBR pile hosted by Ellie of Musings of a bookshop girl
Blogs visited: I Blog for Books, Heydor Reads,
time spent on the internets: Not too much, and most of it was spent on Ellie's challenge and writing up a couple of reviews.

Ellie's challenge questions and my answers:
1. Which 5 books are at the top of your TBR pile at this moment? 

2. If I gave you a wad of cash and sent you into a bookshop right now, which 5 books would you buy to add to the stack?

 P.S. It's totally my birthday in less that a month, *hint hint* ^ books I'm drooling over ^ *hint hint*

Thursday:

So Thursday was kind of crazy. I finally got the guts to start E&P (I was terrified that a/ it wouldn't live up to my love of Attachments or b/I'd love it too much and then have no more Rowell to read) and once I started...I didn't stop. Well, kind of. I started reading on the bus, fell in love but somehow managed to keep it in my bag until the trip home and THEN I just kept reading. This is exactly what I did when I read Attachments, and even though I'm pretty sleepy today I totally wouldn't change a thing. If you haven't read E&P then DO IT! It's such a beautiful, sweet, sad book and I love it's guts. I'm a little worried about reviewing it, because I'm pretty sure it'll mostly be italics and capitals and SQUEEES and ZOMGS, but that's future Kayleigh's problem and I don't give a shit about that bitch. haha.

Pages read today: 325 pages
Total pages read this challenge: 607
Books read from today: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Books finished: 2
Challenges participated in: None today
Blogs visited: None.
Time spent on the internets: Like 20 minutes? Not much anyway!

Friday

Today was a pretty small reading day, partly because I didn't want to start another book so soon after finishing E&P and also because I had so much else happening I only had my lunch break and half an hour before bed to spend reading. I started Skeleton Crew, but since the first short story 'The Mist' is actually novella length I decided to read a couple of the later short stories during my lunch break instead. I read 'Here There be Tygers' and 'The Monkey', both of which were really short and a little meh about. 'The Monkey' ended up pretty creepy, but I found the first few pages really draggy, so it took awhile to get into. Before bed I decided to try and finish Oldboy, which I did. This is book 1 of 7, so not a whole lot happened at all really - or perhaps it feels that way because I've seen the film so I know what's coming, but it felt very much like a first chapter and I'm kicking myself for not buying book 2 at the same time so I could have progressed into the more meaty part of the story. Not book related at all, but still super awesome was the way I spent my Friday night. A few friends came over and we spent the night playing board games, 'The Resistence', 'City of Horror' and 'Galaxy Truckers'. All three are extremely fun and very easy to pick up the rules for (which was important since we had a newbie playing with us) but everyone should play 'City of Horror' - you have to try and survive the zombie apocalypse by killing zombies and/or voting for people to be thrown to the swarm. It gets very alliance-y and shouty and fun.

Pages read today: 129 pages
Total pages read this challenge: 736 pages
Books read from today: Skeleton Crew by Stephen King, Old boy by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi
Books finished: 3
Challenges participated in: None
Blogs visited: Lit Nerd, Potterhead Reviews
Time spent on the internets: Half an hour.

Happy weekend reading guys!

Saturday:

Just a teeny tiny update for today. my reading has decreased a little bit over  the weekend, what with work and family lunches and watching movies with the boyfriend, but it's still above my goal average. So yay! I'm mostly through 'The Mist' which is pretty good, a little lovecraftian and a whole lot Kingian. And actually, the film based on it is pretty accurate in terms of keeping to the story. It's not a great film, but compared to the drek that often gets made when King is adapted to film this is pretty solid. I'm eager to get to the end of the story because I know the film changed that, and King has actually said he preferred the way the film ended. I should be able to get the story done by the end of Bout of Books, it's just a pity that I think I might be just short of 1000 pages read overall. Oh well, still a lot better than I expected!

Pages read today: 79
Total pages read this challenge: 815
Books read from today: Skeleton Crew by Stephen King,
Books finished: 3
Challenges participated in: None
Blogs visited: The Space Between,
Time spent on the internets: 1 hour

Sunday:

I might not have hit 1000 pages (so close! only 112 pages off!) but I came so much closer than I expected, and I had a whole lot of fun doing it. This week was a blast, and also READING SLUMP OVER!


Pages read today: 73
Total pages read this challenge: 888
Books read from today: Skeleton Crew by Stephen King,
Books finished: 3
Challenges participated in: hosted by Dana of Little Lovely Books
Blogs visited: Musings of a Bookshop Girl, Devouring Texts, Tiny Library
Time spent on the internets: 1 hour

One of my goals this readathon was to make time to visit some new blogs and see how everyone else is doing with their reading and goals. Given that I'm in Australia and the twitter chats happen at less than convenient times for me (damn you time zones!), the blog visiting has been the main way for me to keep active in the Bout of Book community. I haven't been able to go to as many new blogs as I would have liked but I've managed to visit a new blog or two practically everyday, and I'm pretty ok with that! Dana at Little Lovely Books has created a great final challenge that perfectly ties in with this little goal of mine!

Dana's challenge asks for us to make a list of 5 bloggers that you found during this Bout of Books. 

My list of new found bloggers and blogs:
Ellie at Lit Nerd,
Kaylie at Potterhead Reviews
 Life Merging
Sam at Tiny Library
Heydor Reads,

Wrap up:

So here is where I remind you what my goals were for this week and how well I did or didn't do. And actually, I think I did pretty splendidly!

*Read at least 50 pages each day. I actually read under my goal on Tuesday (only by 3 pages though) but I averaged 127 pages each day which makes up for it I think! I probably wouldn't have come close to this if I hadn't read E&P, but there you go - further proof that book is amazing!

*Take part in at least 3 of the challenges during the week. I ended up taking part in 4, all of which were a lot of fun and a welcome internet distraction each night.

*Keep you all up to date with my reading progress each night. Tick, tick, tick. I was a little chattier in some of my updates than in others, but you guys probably preferred the shorter ones!

*Visit 2-3 new blogs each night. If I go by averages again I got this one ticked off, although I missed out visiting any blogs completely on Thursday night. But the main point of this goal was to try and visit new blogs and keep abreast of everyone else's progress and I think I would consider this one a success even if I only made it to one per night.

*Avoid too much internet-y distraction. I had a whole mess of other distractions this week, but aside from some time spent writing reviews and filling in these posts I actually managed to keep my nights internet free. That was an achievement in and of itself considering how much time I usually spend online and it was nice to distance myself a little.

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