Bout of Books 4.0

Next week—14-20 May—is the Bout of Books 4.0 Read-a-Thon. I participated in the 2nd Bout of Books in October of last year, but missed the 3rd round in January. So, my pal Shaunesay has challenged me to join in this time and I have signed up.

To participate, one need only sign up and then post her goals. The sponsors organize the read-a-thon as a fun way to network with other readers: “low pressure, meaning participants are only asked to push themselves to read more than they normally would during any given week.” While I don't think I'll really be reading any more than usual, I do have the personal challenge to blog more than usual.

During the read-a-thon, I need to focus on some books which I have offered in swaps and virtual book boxes (VBBs) over at BookObsessed. Several of the books which I have offered are “slow” reads for me. By that, I mean that they aren't high-interest genre novels which I tend to read very quickly. Rather, they are mainstream or literary fiction which, for some reason, seems to take me longer to read even when they have fewer pages than the genre fiction.

So! (I've noticed I tend to start sentences and paragraphs with so quite a bit. I guess it's my written substitution for the ummm and errr which tend to creep into my speech.) So! Here are some books which will likely be read next week:

Grace by Shelley Shepard Gray. From the blurb on the back cover, I find that the Brenneman Bed & Breakfast featured in Gray's “Sisters of the Heart” trilogy becomes the setting for a charming Christmas story. Two unexpected visitors show up, hoping to stay through Christmas—a grieving widower who can't stand the idea of spending the holidays alone and a young pregnant woman with a secret. I owe this book to LoriPed who selected it from a Virtual Book Box (VBB) at BookObsessed.

Another book that I owe to LoriPed is Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley. I don't think I've read any books by Buckley, but I understand that they are very funny. In this election year, I think it will be fun to read about a president who is determined to lose his reelection campaign and who has nominated a judge from a reality TV show to the Supreme Court. Sounds rather zany and should be entertaining enough to keep me interested.

I opened Storm from the Shadows by David Weber back in March when I finished reading The Shadow of Saganami. But I just wasn't in the mood to read more than the first page and I set it aside in favor of other books that were more appealing at the time. This book is just for me, and I may not read any of it at all. I think I'm just feeling badly that this book has been displayed in the “currently reading” area on my home page for so long.

And, I've downloaded many (many) free books for my Kindle. A large number of these books are fairly short—around 100 pages or so—and may make nice fillers when I just need a change of pace. I'm going to try to post every day or two so you may see some of these freebies pop up.

I'm really looking forward to Bout of Books