25 Oct 2009

Dewey's Read-A-Thon

Yes, I'm joining Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon

The timing isn't optimal for me - it runs from 2pm Saturday - 2pm Sunday, meaning that I'm going to miss out on quite a number of hours because of sleeping and a family birthday. Still, it's a read-a-thon, so I'm sure I'm going to have a blast no matter what!

The idea is that I pick a list of books to read, and then spend the day alternatively reading and updating here on my progress. I'll probably just have the one post and then update as I go along. Cheering would be lovely - or join in the fun yourself!

Past readers suggest reading shortish and light books in order not to get bogged down and stay motivated, so here's a list of the books I'm contemplating. Mind you, I'm a very erratic reader, so chances are quite high that I might end up picking up something else altogether ;)
Who Do I Talk To? by Neta Jackson, 400p
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry, 215p
Gifts by Ursula Le Guin, 288p
Tre piger i en bil by Estrid Ott, 200p (estimate)
Evermore by Alyson Noel, 301p
Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia Wrede, 336p

No, I am NOT expecting to be able to read almost 2000 pages in just 24 hours, but at least this gives me a nice selection to choose from. It'll be fun! And slightly insane ;)

T-4 (10:00) This will be my blogpost for the Read-a-Thon Challenge. I'll be updating it throughout the day, so those interested can bookmark it, and those not can just skip this post and forget all about it ;-) Right now I'm about to read out to run my weekend errands, so I'll be ready for the non-stop reading to commence once the clock strikes 2pm. see you then :)

Hour 0 (13:55): Ready to start with a glass of water and my first book Lærkeunger by Helene Hørluck.

Hour 2 (16:00): Okay, Lærkeunger was no fun. I wanted to start with a trip down memory lane, but I've obviously outgrown the book. I read the first 10 pages and by then I'd had enough. Instead I picked up Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry and am already half way! :-) Have exchanged the glass of water for a bag of chips and a Pear Somersby.

Hour 3 (17:10): Finished Gathering Blue. It's not quite as good as The Giver but I still really enjoyed it. I wish I'd known I'd like it so much, and I'd have bought The Messenger while in NYC. I'll have to see if the library has it. Next up: Who Do I Talk To? by Neta Jackson.

Hour 4 (18:30): Progress on Who Do I Talk To? - 78 pages. I'm taking a break from that now to go make dinner and listen to The Angel's Game by Carlos Zufon on my audiobook :) I'm glad audiobooks count as well!

Hour 7 (21:00): Got about half an hour's worth of listening done while making dinner. Had to take a break while eating though, as Lars has a night shift, and I wanted to socialise with him during the meal. He's left now, so I'm all by myself until 8am tomorrow morning... which is really 12 hours from now since we're falling back tonight. I probably won't be able to read through the night, but I'll give it my best shot! :-D Progress on Who Do I Talk To? - 120 pages.

I cannot write the title of that book without thinking of I Go To The Rock sung by Breeze of Gospel. Go listen to it, it's excellent!

Hour 8 (22:00): Progress on Who Do I Talk To? - 202 pages. That's 80 pages in 45 minutes, not too shabby, eh? I've got another 193 pages to go, so if I don't take too many breaks, I may just make that by midnight. We'll see.

Remember to go cheer the others on as well! :)

Hour 10 (23:50): Made it with 10 minutes to spare! :-) And it was EXCELLENT. After my disappointed reaction to Where Do I Go?, Neta Jackson more than redeemed herself in this one, and had me alternatively laughing and crying. Alas, the next book doesn't come out until June next year - go figure!

Next up... haven't quite decided yet. Either Gifts or Evermore. Since it's getting late, I'll be going for whichever has the biggest chance of keeping me awake for a couple of more hours.

Hour 11 (01:14): Gotta admit, staying awake is getting harder! It's at times like these I wish caffeine helped me stay awake. I ended up picking Evermore and have read 68 pages. It's interesting enough to keep me awake so far, but I keep shaking my head at how much of a Twilight-wannebe it is. I'll try to finish it, but it's another 230 pages, so I may have to admit defeat sometime before then.

Hour 12 (02:00): Still reading, but am going to turn off the computer now. Expect the next update in 7-9 hours. Progress on Evermore - 130 pages.

Hour 21 (10:00): No, my maths isn't off, we fell back ;) Once again awake, once again reading. Progress on Evermore - 217 pages.

Hour 22 (11:00): Just finished Evermore. Wow... people who think Edward was a creepy stalker SO shouldn't read this one. I have no qualms with Twilight, but Evermore reminded me a bit too much of Hush, Hush (which made me feel dirty by reading) for comfort.

This will probably be my last update until the Read-a-Thon is over. I'm going out shortly and won't be back until after the 24 hours are up. I'll still be reading though :)

Running Totals
Number of books completed: 3
Total number of pages read: 909
Number of hours reading: 12 hours out of 22

My reviews will be up at bogormen sometime after the Read-A-Thon has finished.

2 Oct 2009

Fall Into Reading 2009 - DONE

Okay, I'm back. Fall Into Reading over at Callapidder Days was my first and is still my favourite challenge, so I'm going to have to join in on this one. Of course it helps that the criteria are really, really easy to fulfill :)

Simple: List any number of books you want to read (or finish) between now (or September 22nd rather, but I forgot all about it and thus am late) and December 20th. No book limit at all. Easy, right?

I figure listing books I've read since September 22nd would be A) cheating, B) defeating the purpose, so I'll make a brand new list of books I want to read from now on. One book per week left comes to 11 books.

Hmm... looks I have a bit of a fantasy/paranormal/goth theme going ;)

28 Apr 2009

5 Year Reading Plan

I'm not returning to my earlier level of challenge commitment yet, but the 100project on LiveJournal sounded like a suitable compromise. The idea is to pick 100 books you've been wanting to read for awhile, and commit yourself to reading those within the next 5 years, posting regularly with progress reports. I like the idea that it's a 5 year plan, as that makes it a lot more realistic challenge. I easily read more than 100 books in a year (am at 64 so far this year alone), but with my various jobs I can't have that many books from a reading list. I wouldn't have time to read anything else, and I'd get bored. There HAS to be some room for spontaneity. But 5 years is perfect - that's just 20 books from the list each year or one every second'ish week.

The books I've chosen are a random selection of my GoodReads 'to-read-owned' and 'to-read-not-owned' lists - I've limited myself to books I know are available at the libraries, as I don't want to be hindered by the difficulty of finding the books.

The Lost Diary of Don Juan - Douglas Carlton Abrams
If You Could See Me Now - Cecelia Ahern
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Alborn
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mich Alborn
Dime Store Magic - Kelley Armstrong
A Gentle Madness - Nicholas A. Basbanes
Library: An Unquiet History - Matthew Battles
*Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernières
Libri di Luca - Mikkel Birkegaard
Daughter of the Blood - Anne Bishop
Valiant - Holly Black
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne
In a Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson
Ill Wind - Rachel Caine
*Xenocide - Orson Scott Card
The Rape of Nankin - Iris Chang
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
About the Author - John Colapinto
A Home at the End of the World - Michael Cunningham
Limes Billede - Leif Davidsen
*Blink - Ted Dekker
Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue
The Stolen Child - Keith Donohue
*The Last Concubine - Lesley Downer
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
Middlemarch - George Eliot
The Crimson Petal and the White - Michelle Sagara Faber
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - Anne Fadiman
Cathedral of the Sea - Ildefonso Falcones
Time and Again - Jack Finney
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
World Without End - Ken Follett
Inkdeath - Cornelia Funke
*The Last Gospel - David Gibbins
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
And Then He Kissed Her - Laura Lee Guhrke
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
*Pompeii - Robert Harris
The Observations - Jane Harris
Dune - Frank Herbert
Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb
The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs
*A Very Long Engagement - Sébastien Japrisot
*The Eye of the World - Robert Jordan
Ironweed - William Kennedy
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
Halfway to Forever - Karen Kingsbury
Blood and Chocolate - Annette Curtis Klause
Goodnight, Beautiful - Dorothy Koomson
Beggars in Spain - Nancy Kress
Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Laihiri
Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane
*Boys from Brazil - Ira Levin
What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Wicked - Gregory Maguire
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
Bella Tuscany - Frances Mayes
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Birth House - Ami McKay
Firethorn - Sarah Micklem
Sabriel - Garth Nix
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Emmuska Orczy
Here be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
Bloodhound - Tamora Pierce
*September - Rosamunde Pilcher
The Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope
My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett
*Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
The Cross-Legged Knight - Candace M Robb
*Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
Contact - Carl Sagan
Idlewild - Nick Sagan
*Border Wedding - Amanda Scott
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Peony in Love - Lisa See
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Shape-Changer's Wife - Sharon Shinn
The Pilot's Wife - Anita Shreve
Outer Banks - Anne Rivers Siddons
The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons
Animal's People - Indra Sinha
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
The Amulet of Samarkand - Jonathan Safran Stroud
Sophie's Choice - William Styron
The Bonesetter's Daughter - Amy Tan
The Kitchen God's Wife - Amy Tan
The Hundred Secret Senses - Amy Tan
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
*Vienna Prelude - Bodie Thoene
The End of Mr. Y - Scarlett Thomas
City of Pearl - Karen Traviss
Reunion - Fred Uhlman
Rabbit Angstrom - John Updike
*Ben Hur - Lew Wallace
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
Cast in Shadow - Michelle Sagara West
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton

10 Mar 2009

Abandoned for the time being...

I've recently landed a new job as book reviewer and book consultant for a Danish publisher. Very sweet job and they absolutely shower me with new books to read. Unfortunately this means that I no longer have as much time to read books of my own choosing, so I've decided to leave the challenges be for the time being.

I'm still hosting the LMM Mini Challenge and the Whitcoulls challenge, and am not planning on giving those hostings up, but I'll probably not actively participate in either.

That doesn't mean I've abandoned my reading though! My reviews can always be found at Bogormen. I still update that a couple of times a week on average.

I hope you will join me there.

8 Jan 2009

Christian Readers 09 - DONE

This will be my progress and wrap-up post for the Christian Readers challenge. Since the challenge runs for 4 months, I'll challenge myself to read 4 books.

1) Jamen, bad jeg da for lidt? - Leif Andersen (The title translates: But... Then Didn't I Pray Enough?)
2) The Way of the Heart - Henry Nouwen
3) The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
4) Traveling Mercies - Anne Lamott

1 Jan 2009

LMM Mini Challenge - DONE

Since I created this challenge I figured I'd better take part of it as well ;) Here are my 4 books:
1) The Doctor's Sweetheart (Short story collection)
2) The Blue Castle (novel)
3) Chronicles of Avonlea (short story collection)
4) Further Chronicles of Avonlea (short story collection)

I've chosen these four because they're all available as free audiobooks at librivox, so I can listen to them when I bike to and from work :)

What's In A Name - Take 2 - DONE

I had so much fun with this one last year, so here goes again. The What's In A Name challenge. This year the categories are as follows:

1. A book with a "profession" in its title. Dog Whisperer - Nicholas Edwards

2. A book with a "time of day" in its title. Midnight Sun - Stephenie Meyer

3. A book with a "relative" in its title. Stepford Wives - Ira Levin

4. A book with a "body part" in its title. Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye - Kaza Kingsley

5. A book with a "building" in its title. The Tea House on Mulberry Street - Sharon Owen

6. A book with a "medical condition" in its title. Insomnia - Stephen King