Sunday, 12 August: I'm planning on keeping all the status about my Bout of Books participation right here in a single post. Since I'm on vacation, there may be a day or two when I find it difficult to get online and update. I posted my goals a couple of days ago. I've already started on one of the books that's on my list of prime reads for the read-a-thon. At this point, I'm already 62 pages into Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich.
Monday, 13 August: I took Explosive Eighteen to bed with me and read until the batteries in my flashlight ran out. At midnight, I looked at the page number so that I could accurately report what was read during Bout of Books. I had read the first 180 pages before the start time for Bout of Books. I finished the book around 10:15 MDT today. Now I'm reading To Kill a Warlock by H P Mallory. I picked this up for my Kindle when it was offered as a freebie by the publisher. I'm now 76% through the book—on page 151 of 210— and should finish it sometime tomorrow. I had plenty of time to read today as we drove from Richfield, UT, to Vernal, UT. I took several hours away from reading when we visited Dinosaur National Monument this afternoon. And, I have to admit that most of my evening has been spent on the Internet instead of reading. Much of this time has been reading the backlog of Twitter messages and visiting blogs—all in the name of Bout of Books.
Tuesday, 14 August: Another day spent mostly on the highway. We drove from Vernal, UT, to Salida, CO. The scenery was magnificent most of the way. We even drove over the Continental Divide at least two times. I started the day off 59 pages from the end of To Kill a Warlock. I finished it around 10:15. (What is it with 10:15?) I immediately started reading A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear. This is the eighth book in her Maisie Dobbs series and I'm enjoying it very much. I'm updating around 9pm MDT and then I'm going to take the book to bed with me. Since I'm on page 260 (of 321), there's a high probability I'll finish it before midnight. If not, I know I'll complete it during breakfast tomorrow. I've also participated in some of the non-reading activities, including Twitter and visiting several blogs and leaving comments.
Wednesday, 15 August: I love spending the day in the car—hubby taking care of the driving and me just reading as much as I want. It was another long day as we drove from Salida, CO, to Amarillo, TX. I read the last 26 pages of A Lesson in Secrets before we packed up this morning and started reading Timeless by Gail Carriger during breakfast. By the time we arrived in Amarillo, I was on page 322 of 386 and I finished the book shortly before midnight. I still can't believe that Carriger has said that Timeless is to be the last book in the Parasol Protectorate. There's really so much more to tell. Perhaps she'll start a new series set in the same steampunk locale. At any rate, I've now read 1047 pages and finished four books since Bout of Books 5.0 began. Tomorrow I'm going to take a look at a couple of challenges.
Thursday, 16 August: Except for reading in bed early this morning, I didn't get much reading done today. I did start reading The Mezzo Wore Mink by Mark Schweizer—a mystery wrapped in comedy. But everything conspired against me having much time to read during the day. I'm visiting with a friend so it was more fun to visit with her than to be reading. And, I had major networking problems which kept me from getting online. Eventually, I went to the cell phone store and they were able to reset my cell phone so I could connect again. I've only posted a couple of tweets, but I did participate in one challenge today. By the time I get this blog updated, it will be past midnight and I'm going to take my book to bed.
Friday, 17 August: 'Twas the last day of long-distance driving for our vacation. Comparatively, it was a short drive of only 250 miles, but that again gave me several hours to read with no distractions. I started the morning about 22% of the way into The Mezzo Wore Mink by Mark Schweizer. Yes, I was reading it on my Kindle and this is one of those books which does not have the "real page numbers" feature. Since the paperback version of the book has 194 pages, I'm treating this as page 42—which means that I had read 152 pages by the time I finished the book shortly after lunch. I took an hour to update my reading lists and records, and then started reading Creation in Death by J D Robb. This book wasn't on the list of books which I originally included on my goals post, but it's one that I had in the car and which I wanted to read. We got home around 16:00 and I immediately set to unpacking and doing things at the house, along with relishing in the abundance of network bandwidth. Taking the book to bed with me around 22:30, I was on page 110 when I realized that I had read the same paragraph 7 or 8 times and decided to put the book away and turn off the light.
Saturday, 18 August: Now that we are back home, we also had to return to our normal schedule. On Saturdays, that means that I am taking care of my two grandchildren. This day, hubby went with me, so I was able to read in the car on the way down to their house (an hour away). If he hadn't gone with me, I'd have listened to an audio book. The net result was that I finished reading Creation in Death early in the evening. I spent the rest of the night browsing on the Internet—visiting #boutofbooks-er blogs and chatting on Twitter. And, we did watch the two episodes of True Blood which the DVR had recorded while we were out of town. I'll start a new book on Sunday morning.
Sunday, 19 August: If any day of the Read-a-Thon could be called a “fail” then it would have been Sunday, the last day of Bout of Books 5.0. That's because I simply did not make time to read. Perhaps it was because I started a new book and hadn't engaged. Perhaps it was that I was totally distracted with TV and Internet readily available. At any rate, I read only a dozen pages all day long. My number two son came to visit in the afternoon and brought his daughter—and you can imagine how much fun I had spending time with them. So by bedtime, I was on page 12 of Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble by H P Mallory. Not much progress to add to the total.
Updates
Overall
Total number of books I've read: 7
Total number of pages I've read: 1608
Total number of books completed: 6
Challenges
Candy Challenge hosted by BookSmartie:
This week of Bout of Books, I've found myself eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. On Monday, I picked up a package of the Dark PB Cups and ate them for an afternoon snack. On Tuesday, I had an ice cream sundae for dessert at supper; it was made with PB cup ice cream and chocolate syrup. And then this afternoon, I had a PB cup cookie at Starbucks with my Tall Decaf Coffee Frappiccino. It's been a PB cup week all around!
Monday, August 13
Number of books I've read today: 2
Number of pages I've read today: 291
Number of books completed today: 1
Tuesday, August 14
Number of books I've read today: 2
Number of pages I've read today: 344
Number of books completed today: 1
Wednesday, August 15
Number of books I've read today: 2
Number of pages I've read today: 412
Number of books completed today: 2
Thursday, August 16
Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 42
Number of books completed today: 0
Friday, August 17
Number of books I've read today: 2
Number of pages I've read today: 262
Number of books completed today: 1
Saturday, August 18
Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 245
Number of books completed today: 1
Sunday, August 19
Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 12
Number of books completed today: 0
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.
