Reading in Texas: Bout of Books 9.0: Status Updates

Monday, January 13, 2014

Bout of Books 9.0: Status Updates

I'm going to use a single post to document my activity in Bout of Books 9.0. I'll update it regularly and at the end, I'll have recorded my reading activities for all seven days of the read-a-thon.

Updates

Monday, 6 January: Trying to get an early start to the read-a-thon, I took my Kindle to bed with me shortly after midnight. I was continuing to read The Star Beast, a juvenile SF novel by Robert Heinlein. This was a re-read since I had read it several times as a teen and a young adult. It was fun to experience it all over again and I was really glad that I had picked up an electronic copy from Baen Ebooks.

First thing Monday morning, I had an appointment for a teeth cleaning and hubby offered to be my chauffeur, letting me read to and from the dentist's office. I took along Steward of Song by Adam Stemple since I was only 90 pages from the end of the book. After the dentist visit, I resumed reading The Star Beast, finishing it shortly before lunch. I then returned to Steward of Song and concentrated on reading it during the various breaks in the day. I finished it late in the afternoon. At supper time, I opened Whisper to the Blood by Dana Stabenow. As I noted in my goals post, this is a library book which is due back on 16 January. Due to other things going on, I only read a couple of pages.

Tuesday, 7 January: Unlike Monday, I didn't manage to squeeze in much time for reading. The only book I read was Whisper to the Blood and I only managed to read 77 pages by the end of the day.

Wednesday, 8 January: I read almost twice as many pages on Wednesday as Tuesday, though less than half as much as Monday. (Do you see an enthusiastic start and a more limited follow-thru?) Again, I only read in the one book, Whisper to the Blood, reading during breaks and supper time. I attempted to read in bed, but when the book fell out of my hands the second time, I put it aside and turned out the lights.

Thursday, 9 January: Ah! Some progress. I completed reading Whisper to the Blood shortly before supper. This allowed me to start reading the next book in the series, A Night Too Dark, which I had put on reserve at the library and had just become available on Thursday. Earlier in the afternoon, I drove to the beautician, listening to Sunshine on Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith. It can take me as long as three months to complete an audio book since I only listen when I'm alone in the car—which isn't that often.

Friday, 10 January: I started reading at 2am when I headed to bed with A Night Too Dark. Read for a short while until I fell asleep—then resumed reading when I woke up early in the morning. It was a work day, so I didn't resume reading until lunchtime. I managed to read a little bit in the early evening and then took the book to bed with me at 10:30 and read until midnight. In total, I read 263 pages, getting pretty close to the end.

Saturday 11 January: I love a lazy weekend day! When I woke up, I quickly addressed myself to A Night Too Dark and read the last 49 pages to finish the book. I started in on Ghost Gone Wild on the way to lunch. I didn't get as much reading done during lunch as I would have liked since it's difficult to eat with chopsticks and manage page turns. I also decided to download a book to my iPhone, so I read about 40 pages of The Impossible Cube in various breaks during the day.

Sunday, 12 January: The final day of Bout of Books 9.0. We had scheduled some activities with the family, so I only managed to read 55 pages in Ghost Gone Wild during my lunch break.

Summary

So, I don't know how to classify this particular Bout of Books. I read from 7 different books, finishing 4 of them, and I did read over 1000 pages (1179 to be precise). The most important part of the Read-a-Thon is to have fun, and that I did. I'm looking forward to Bout of Books 10.0!!

The Books