#SWUR & #OlympicReadathon: Final tally

I've had a grand time over the past 2+ weeks while participating in both the Summer Wrap-up Read-a-Thon and Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon. These were normal work weeks and even on the weekends, I couldn't always spend a lot of time reading. Nevertheless, due to setting modest goals, I was able to achieve what I set out for.

The Olympic Readathon (#OlympicReadathon) ran for 17 days -- from the day of the opening ceremonies on July 27th until the closing event on August 12th. During that time, I read 2631 pages against a goal of 2500, completing 9 books.

The Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-thon (#SWUR) began on August 4th while #OlympicReadathon was going on and also ended on August 12th. I figured that if I was already participating in one read-a-thon, it wouldn't be too much trouble to tack on a second one. Well, when it came to reading, that was surely true. But I had overlooked the social aspects. I lost reading time due to taking time to hang out on Twitter and visit blogs—there were just so many participants. My one goal for #SWUR was to read A Call to Arms so I could return the borrowed book to my sister-in-law. I finished it on Sunday morning. In fact, it was one of four books I finished during the 9 day event.

Books finished during the first week of #OlympicReadathon:

Books completed during both #OlympicReadathon and #SWUR:

Books I read but have not [yet] finished:

Summary

Totals

#OlympicReadathon total pages: 2631
#OlympicReadathon total books: 9
#SWUR total pages: 1410
#SWUR total books: 4

Day by Day

Friday, 7/27
Number of pages I've read today: 138
Number of books completed today: 1

Saturday, 7/28
Number of pages I've read today: 278
Number of books completed today: 1

Sunday, 7/29
Number of pages I've read today: 318
Number of books completed today: 1

Monday, 7/30
Number of pages I've read today: 164
Number of books completed today: 1

Tuesday, 7/31
Number of pages I've read today: 11
Number of books completed today: 0

Wednesday, 8/1
Number of pages I've read today: 210
Number of books completed today: 1

Thursday, 8/2
Number of pages I've read today: 102
Number of books completed today: 0

Friday, 8/3
Number of pages I've read today: 100
Number of books completed today: 0

Saturday, 8/4
Number of pages I've read today: 161
Number of books completed today: 1

Sunday, 8/5
Number of pages I've read today: 20
Number of books completed today: 0

Monday, 8/6
Number of pages I've read today: 91
Number of books completed today: 0

Tuesday, 8/7
Number of pages I've read today: 100
Number of books completed today: 0

Wednesday, 8/8
Number of pages I've read today: 149
Number of books completed today: 1

Thursday, 8/9 Number of pages I've read today: 84
Number of books completed today: 0

Friday, 8/10
Number of pages I've read today: 111
Number of books completed today: 0

Saturday, 8/11
Number of pages I've read today: 66
Number of books completed today: 0

Sunday, 8/12
Number of pages I've read today: 628
Number of books completed today: 2

The last day for #SWUR and #OlympicReadathon

It's Sunday and the last day for both Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon and the Summer Wrap-up Read-a-Thon. (Not to worry, another read-a-thon is starting on Monday morning! Join me in Bout of Books 5.0 the 13th through 19th of August.)

I'm making very good progress toward my goal of 2500 pages during the 17 days of the #OlympicReadathon. When I turned in on Saturday night, I had read 2003 pages. This was a bit behind the pace I had set for myself, but I see no reason why I can't read 500 pages in one day! Today is being spent entirely in the car as we drive from Lancaster, CA, to Richfied, UT. So far, I've already read 196 pages and it's shortly after noon here in Nevada. I finished one book this morning and will definitely finish at least one more before day's end.

In the Summer Wrap-up Read-a-thon, I have now achieved my major goal of reading A Call to Arms by Alan Dean Foster which I finished around 10am. I then picked up Runner at page 118 where I had left off earlier this week. I love having so many books at my fingertips on my Kindle!

In addition to finishing my goal book, I also entered the Laughing Out Loud Challenge sponsored by Montana at The Book Belles. In this challenge, she asked readers to post funny quotes from books which they enjoyed. My response was:

One of the funniest series that I have read is the "Numbers" mysteries by Janet Evanovich starring Stephanie Plum. Finding quotes that are funny in their own right is difficult, though, since the situations and the evolution of the characters contribute so much to the occasional belly-laugh that bursts out when I'm reading. Here are a couple of funny quotes:

"Is that a bulletproof vest? See, now that's so insulting. That's like saying I'm not smart enough to shoot you in the head."

"In my opinion, the only good spider is a dead spider, and women's rights aren't worth dick if they mean I can't ask a man to do my bug squashing."

"There is no such thing as a good call at 7 AM. It's been my experience that all calls between the hours of 11 PM and 9 AM are disaster calls."

Summary

Friday, 8/10
Number of pages I've read today: 111
Number of books completed today: 0

Saturday, 8/11
Number of pages I've read today: 66
Number of books completed today: 0

#SWUR Totals

Saturday, 8/11
Total number of pages I've read: 782
Total number of books completed: 2

#OlympicReadathon Totals

Saturday, 8/11
Total number of pages I've read: 2003
Total number of books completed: 7

Read-a-thon updates

Just 3 more days in both the Summer Wrap-up Read-a-thon and Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon. On Wednesday, I completed The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear. As I said before, I think this was the very best book in the series so far. I have the next book, A Lesson in Secrets with me and plan to read it next week. But, since I was waiting on my hubby to arrive with the dozen (or so) books I had packed into the car, I started reading Runner by Thomas Perry. I was able to find some time to read during all three meals and thus I wound up having read 149 pages during the day.

On Thursday, I set Runner aside and started reading A Call to Arms by Alan Dean Foster. I had chosen it as my one and only objective/goal for the Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-Thon. Thursday didn't offer as many opportunities to read, and although I thought I had read quite a bit, I was surprised to tally my page count at only 84 pages for the day. I've not had any time to read today (Friday), but since my vacation begins around 13:00 PDT, I'm going to be heads-down in a book for several hours as we travel from Anaheim to Lancaster.

Summary

Wednesday, 8/8
Number of pages I've read today: 149
Number of books completed today: 1

Thursday, 8/9
Number of pages I've read today: 84
Number of books completed today: 0

#SWUR Totals

Wednesday, 8/8
Total number of pages I've read: 521
Total number of books completed: 2

Thursday, 8/9
Total number of pages I've read: 605
Total number of books completed: 2

#OlympicReadathon Totals

Wednesday, 8/8
Total number of pages I've read: 1742
Total number of books completed: 7

Thursday, 8/9
Total number of pages I've read: 1826
Total number of books completed: 7

Summer Wrap-Up, Days 2-4

I'm attending SHARE in Anaheim this week. It's a major event for me with lots of technical training, informal discussions, and—yes—socializing. I've squeezed in time for reading each day, but until today, I've just not had time to update this blog.

Sunday was a total bust when it came to reading. I had conference meetings starting first thing in the morning and going through to early afternoon. I ate a late lunch (or early supper, depending on how you look at it) around 3pm and then took a serious kick-back to relax. I napped, watched some TV, and browsed some of my favorite sites on the Internet. The down side was that by the time I turned in, I had only read 20 pages in The Mapping of Love and Death.

Monday was a bit better. The conference started and I had two presentations to give on Monday afternoon. I spent most of the morning attending sessions and reviewing/refining my own presentations. It was a long day—as are most days at technical conferences. I took my book with me to supper and Maisie Dobbs was my companion as I ate a lovely salad topped with grilled chicken. I would have loved to have kept reading, but I did have quite a bit of e-mail to take care of once I was back in my hotel room. At the end of the day, I had read 91 pages and could see that I was making good progress through the book.

Tuesday was a challenging day since in addition to the conference, I needed to write a technical document and get it mailed out by early afternoon. I was actually late arriving at the conference due to the pressure to get this document pulled together. I did take some time to read sporadically during the day, but the bulk of the reading was in the 45 minutes between when I went to bed and when I fell asleep, dropping the book onto the floor. I had hoped to finish it before midnight, but was simply exhausted.

As I'm writing this update, I have now completed The Mapping of Love and Death and have started reading Runner by Thomas Perry. Yes, I know that's not the book that I set as my only goal for the Read-a-Thon. My sister-in-law's copy of A Call to Arms is currently in Barstow, CA, on its way to me in Anaheim. I'll set aside Runner and start on A Call to Arms as soon as hubby arrives with my books!

#SWUR Summary

Sunday, 8/5
Number of pages I've read today: 20
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of pages I've read: 181
Total number of books completed: 0

Monday, 8/6
Number of pages I've read today: 91
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of pages I've read: 272
Total number of books completed: 0

Tuesday, 8/7
Number of pages I've read today: 100
Number of books completed today: 0
Total number of pages I've read: 372
Total number of books completed: 0

Reading while in transit

Saturday was the first day of the Summer Wrap-up Read-a-Thon and day nine of Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon. As this was another travel day for me, I was able to spend much of my "in-transit" time reading. Unlike my travel on Monday, I headed to the airport later in the day and didn't fall asleep in the car. Consequently, I read 57 pages as hubby was driving us down to the airport. (Hmmm... I've just noticed that I essentially was reading at a rate of 1 page per mile.)

I continued reading at the airport while I was waiting to board my flight, and read the last page in Among the Mad shortly before we left the ground in Dallas. I set that book aside and started reading The Mapping of Love and Death, the seventh book in Jacqueline Winspear's mystery series set in England between the two World Wars. Once we were at a decent altitude, I did allow myself to be distracted by the availability of Internet access on the airplane.

#OlympicReadathon Summary

Saturday, 8/4
Number of pages I've read today: 161
Number of books completed today: 1
Total number of pages I've read: 1482
Total number of books completed: 6

#SWUR Summary

Saturday, 8/4
Number of pages I've read today: 161
Number of books completed today: 1
Total number of pages I've read: 161
Total number of books completed: 1

In which the Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-Thon begins and goals are set

Not only am I participating in Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon, I also signed up for the Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-Thon which begins today. Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-Thon, or #SWUR as it goes by in the Twitterverse, is hosted by Jennifer at Some Like It Paranormal and Jude at In Between. They say, “It will provide some motivation to finish up all the reading you were hoping to get done over the summer. You can read whatever you want and as much or little as you want.”

I like this. A no-pressure week with a focus on reading, but a number of fun activities and challenges for those who want to play along. And the part of a Read-a-Thon that most appeals to me is the camaraderie among a bunch of readers who are sharing what—and why— they are reading. I'm sharing posts here on the blog as well as the occasional tweet. Of course, I'm reading the tweets that others are posting and following links to blog posts.

I suppose I need to come up with another set of "goals" for this week's event. Fortunately, the only goal I set for #OlympicReadathon was a total page count and posting regularly to the blog. That's going to be easy to overlap with any goals specific to #SWUR.

So with the theme of finishing up what I was hoping to read during the summer, one major goal for this week is to read A Call to Arms by Alan Dean Foster. A Call to Arms is the first book of a trilogy which Foster published in the early 1990s. I've had books 2 and 3 on my shelf for a long time, but had never gotten around to finding a copy of the first book. When I saw it on my sister-in-law's shelves, I asked to borrow it. That was eighteen months ago. With the first stop on our vacation to be her house, I think it might be a good idea to return the book, so I need to buckle down and get it read before the 12th of August. (Interesting how the end of #SWUR corresponds with the day we are to arrive at my sister-in-law's house.)

I don't know how many other books I can complete during this week. I'll be attending a conference during the day and hope to have some of my evenings free for reading. But you never can tell what will happen during the week. There are some people attending whom I haven't seen in at least six months, so we'll be catching up with each other. And that will very likely entail a shared dinner or two. And, of course, there is that on-going distraction of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games!

So, I guess my goals are very simple. Read as much as I can. Finish A Call to Arms. Post regularly to this blog. And I will aim to participate in at least two of the challenges—I don't know which two yet, but I'll pick two that look like fun.

To Read-a-Thon or not ?

Last night, I was looking at the list of participants in Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon and noticed that my BookCrossing pal Azuki had signed up. I decided to see what she had posted about the read-a-thon and noticed that she had something interesting to say about them in general:

There are so many read-a-thons nowadays it has lost some of its allure – after all, if you are joining a read-a-thon week after week, you are just basically reading at your normal speed. A faster speed maybe, but that is your new norm.

For most read-a-thons, I don’t see them as a challenge to read more/faster/longer than normal. Rather I like the fact that they focus on a community aspect—in particular, the recording (and bragging) about what we’re reading. Prior to read-a-thons, this reading blog had become nothing more than a place where I listed the books that I had read. Just a list. No reviews. No discussions. A rather dried-up excuse for a blog.

Now that I've been participating in a number of read-a-thons, I’m at least posting about them. I still am not comfortable writing and posting reviews, but what is here on my blog is a bit more interesting.

Additionally, I’m enjoying the occasional challenges and the chatting that takes place on twitter. Right now I'm engaged in the Olympic Read-a-thon, and I've signed up for two other read-a-thons in August. The Summer Wrap-up Read-a-Thon starts on Saturday, 4 August, and ends on the same day as the Olympic Read-a-Thon, and Bout of Books 5.0 will begin the very next day after the other two read-a-thons end. I may be burned out on read-a-thons by the end of the month.