Tackle Your TBR: Wrapping up the read-a-thon

This was my first time to participate in the Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon, and it was a great experience. Thanks so much to Tressa for organizing it and actively communicating with all the participants. I was so relieved to finish two books on Friday. Mission of Honor was an awfully thick book—880 pages—and it took me much longer to finish it than I had thought. Next time I participate in the Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon, I'm going to pick shorter books so that I can tick more of them off the list! Also, since I was alone in my rental car this past week, I was able to finish listening to Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World just minutes before I returned the rental car to the Little Rock airport.

Having finished those two books, I started another book on my Kindle, A Lady of Resources, fifth in Shelley Adina's Magnificent Devices steampunk series. I read during the entire flight from Little Rock to Dallas on Friday, during supper, and even took my Kindle to bed with me. I finished the book on Saturday afternoon and then pulled out another Kindle book, Shift, that I had started last year but set aside without finishing it. And, on Saturday, when I headed down to my son's house to spend the day with my grandchildren, I tossed a CD into the player and started listening to My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares.

Overall, I'm still pleased with my participation in the read-a-thon. I read over 1200 pages in the 13 days of the event, finished three books, and visited several blogs. Tressa has announced next year's read-a-thon to run from 14-26 September. I plan to be there.

Statistics

Friday, 19 September

Number of books I've read today: 3
Number of pages I've read today: 238
Total number of pages read: 1057
Number of books completed today: 2
Total number of books completed: 2

Saturday, 20 September

Number of books I've read today: 3
Number of pages I've read today: 147
Total number of pages read: 1204
Number of books completed today: 1
Total number of books completed: 3

Completed Books

Currently Reading

Tackle Your TBR: Status Update 4

It's been almost a week since my last update for the Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon. There's just today and tomorrow and then the whole thing is over, so it's definitely time for another update.

This was another busy week at work. I did manage to get a lot of reading done on Wednesday as I had a flight to Little Rock for work. I read all the way from home to the airport, while I waited in the terminal, and on the airplane—not only the short, hour-long flight, but the hour and a half we sat on the plane while they fixed a mechanical problem. All the other days, I managed a steady average of 70 pages per day.

I continued to read Mission of Honor by David Weber. As I mentioned, it's over 800 pages long and I wasn't able to read it as fast as I had hoped. I also listened to a couple of hours of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. At the end of the day on Thursday, I was about 50 pages from the end of Mission of Honor and an hour from the end of the audiobook.

Statistics

Sunday, 14 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 70
Total number of pages read: 400
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Monday, 15 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 77
Total number of pages read: 477
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Tuesday, 16 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 60
Total number of pages read: 537
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Wednesday, 17 September

Number of books I've read today: 2
Number of pages I've read today: 215
Total number of pages read: 742
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Thursday, 18 September

Number of books I've read today: 2
Number of pages I've read today: 77
Total number of pages read: 819
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Currently Reading

Tackle Your TBR: Status Update 3

Saturday marked the mid-point of the Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon. It's time for another update. Friday was a normal workday rather than the intense schedule from earlier in the week. That allowed me to read as many pages as I had read on Thursday and moved me even further into Mission of Honor. And that was even though I entertained two four year olds with a sleepover at Nana's house on Friday night.

On Saturday, I had a number of errands to run, so I plugged my iPhone into the car stereo and listened to Gengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. Listening for about an hour in total counts for about 25 pages. The rest of my reading time was in Mission of Honor. When the read-a-thon began, I had really expected to finish Mission of Honor by Saturday, but it became obvious that wasn't going to happen when I had so many days early in the week with very little reading taking place.

Statistics

Friday, 12 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 95
Total number of pages read: 281
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Saturday, 13 September

Number of books I've read today: 2
Number of pages I've read today: 49
Total number of pages read: 330
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Currently Reading

Tackle Your TBR: Status Update 2

It's been a very busy week and I've had no time at all to post an update for the Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon. I've been reading, for sure, but not as much as I'd have liked. Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked very long days and just couldn't settle down to read without falling asleep. I read a total of 34 pages across the two days! Thursday was a much better day for reading, particularly since I had a two hour flight back to Texas from Florida. It was another busy day at work today, but now I'm kicking back with a few relaxing things including posting to the blog and then some serious reading time.

Statistics

Tuesday, 9 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 13
Total number of pages read: 68
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Wednesday, 10 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 23
Total number of pages read: 91
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Thursday, 11 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 95
Total number of pages read: 186
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Currently reading

Tackle Your TBR: Status Update 1

While I have time, I want to post a quick update for the Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon. I had thought I'd do a lot more reading on Monday, but I was so tired that I slept through most of my flight from Texas to Florida. By the end of the day, I had read only 55 pages in Mission of Honor by David Weber. Mission of Honor contains 880 pages (!) so I'm going to have to spend a lot more time reading in order to finish this book and a couple more by the end of the read-a-thon.

As part of the “social” aspect of a read-a-thon, I visited quite a few blogs and left comments as well as reading lots of Tweets and even replying to a couple. Of course the time I spent reading blogs and Tweets meant I had a little bit less time to spend reading.

Statistics

Monday, 8 September

Number of books I've read today: 1
Number of pages I've read today: 55
Total number of pages read: 55
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of books completed: 0

Currently reading

Tackle Your TBR: Kickoff post

Today is the first day of the Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon, sponsored by sponsored by Tressa at Wishful Endings. A week ago, I posted my intent to participate, but didn't really have any goals other than completing the two oldest books on my “Currently Reading” status. I actually read U is for Undertow on my short road trip last week, leaving only Mission of Honor from my preliminary goal. (Well, I did say that I reserved the right to amend my goals at any time.)

Revised Goals

1. Finish reading Mission of Honor by David Weber. That leaves me with only two more novels in the Honor Harrinton series.
2. Read five other books already on my TBR shelf. I'm aiming for two ARCs, The Oblate's Confession by William Peak and American Quartet by Warren Adler. The other three books will likely be Monk's Hood by Ellis Peters, Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinley, and A Lady of Resources by Shelley Adina.
3. Post regular read-a-thon progress. I will keep up with number of pages read as well as the number of books completed.

Tackle Your TBR read-a-thon

While I was looking at some of the links posted at this week's Stacking the Shelves, I discovered a new-to-me read-a-thon called Tackle Your TBR, sponsored by Wishful Endings. This is long read-a-thon, running for almost two weeks 8-20 September. The goal is to “encourage us all to read so that we can tackle those tbr piles, not to cause extra stress.” While I don't really need any encouragement to read, I do enjoy socializing with other read-a-thon participants, visiting their blogs, and seeing what everyone else is reading.

I haven't had time to put together any goals other than the main goal of paring down my TBR list. There are two books which have been tagged as Reading Now for quite some time and yet I've made no progress in them, so I'm going to make those two the highest priority for this read-a-thon. That means, I plan to complete reading U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton and Mission of Honor by David Weber. After those, I'll continue reading down the ARCs I offered to review, any library books on hand, and then the massive stack of books from Bookcrossing.com that I'd like to pass along.