Hour Twenty

At this point, I'd say that we all just kick ass. :) Even if we're grumpy, or only reading 2 pages an hour, or can't type to save our lives. Go readers! The cheerleaders are also kicking some serious ass...they're spending their time making us feel more special! And doing such a good job of it! Go cheerleaders!

I've spent the last hour reading the first book in Alexander McCall Smith's newest detective series, The Sunday Philosophy Club. It revolves around Isabel Dalhousie (love her name), an early forties-something single intellectual living in Edinburgh. So far, her niece (Cat, early twenties) and housekeeper (Grace, late forties) have been the most important supporting characters. It's a nice, soothing read; Isabel has cooked a mushroom risotto ("Cooking in a temper required caution with the pepper, as one might put far too much in and ruin a risotto in sheer pique."), sang duets with an ex-flame of her niece's (which I find endlessly amusing), and of course solved some crossword puzzles. I'm enjoying it!

Now for this hour's mini-challenge: a haiku based on one of the characters...

Zooey-you
precocious vampire-
be careful!

Based on the main character from Marked. Cut me some slack-I've been up forever!
ETA: I'm an idiot. I thought haikus wre 3-5-3, but they're 5-7-5. Oy. How about...
Zooey-though you are
quite a precocious vampire,
you must still take care.

Books Read (this hour): The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
Pages Read (cum.): 1595
Books Completed: 5 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson, Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast)
Stories Read: 2 ("The Death of a Government Clerk" and "The Sly Little Boy" by Anton Chekhov)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 13

Hour Ninteen

I'm doing this one really early so that I can go get lost in The Sunday Philosophy Club. :) This hour, I finished Marked. Then, I went and ran around blog-hopping. You can see how I felt about Marked down in hour eighteen.

Minichallenge:
Alison over at So Many Books, So Little Time has finished Pretties, and it helped bring the excitment back! Now, she's off snacking on popcorn. Yummy. :)

Claire at Bebo Author is reading Twilight, but finding it difficult to settle down over her break. Not to mention she's cold. :( Let's all send good vibes her way!

Books Read (this hour): Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Pages Read (cum.): 1495
Books Completed: 5 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson, Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast)
Stories Read: 2 ("The Death of a Government Clerk" and "The Sly Little Boy" by Anton Chekhov)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 12

Hour Eighteen

This is a late update, because I simply couldn't stop reading Marked. Technically, I didn't finish it until Hour Nineteen, but I'm still going to talk about it here. It had a lot of Wiccan elements in it, which amused me (not because Wicca is funny, but the idea of Wiccan vampires certainly is). I could've done without some of the pop culture references, but those tended to become more scarce in the second half of the book. Of course, it leaves at an utter cliffhanger, so now I have to go get the second one (Betrayed)! Let's see...well, I'd definitely recommend this one to everyone who's trying to stay awake in the tail end of a 24 hour read-a-thon. :) Other than that, it's kind of like Harry Potter + vampire + Wicca/pagan. For me, the coolest part is that the main character is part Cherokee and really connects with her roots. If any and all of that appeals to you, and you enjoy/don't mind YA style, I say go for it!

Books Read (this hour): Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Pages Read (cum.): 1383
Books Completed: 4 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson)
Stories Read: 2 ("The Death of a Government Clerk" and "The Sly Little Boy" by Anton Chekhov)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 11

Hour Seventeen

Wow! I'm completely and utterly sucked in by the world of Marked. There are definitely some things I would change about it stylistically, but I award it an A+ for keeping me awake. :)

With that, I'm getting back to it. Just wanted to check in so that y'all knew I was still awake. :D (oh-and the hot chocolate worked wonders!)

Books Read (this hour): Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Pages Read (cum.): 1247
Books Completed: 4 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson)
Stories Read: 2 ("The Death of a Government Clerk" and "The Sly Little Boy" by Anton Chekhov)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 11

Hour Sixteen

Two-thirds there. We can do this, people! This hour, I definitely experienced a slump. Between looking at the blogs, picking my prize books (I won the mini-challenge!), and suddenly realising how exhausted I was, there wasn't much time for actual reading. I was feeling kind of low, so I decided to make the ultimate late-night pick-me-up...

home-made hot chocolate! Yay! I also decided to break out my other YA novel, Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast. I don't need heavy reading right now! Hopefully the next couple hours will fly by. :D

Mini-Challenge for this hour was to visit blogs. 3M (who has been around to all of us readers tons of times, leaving uplifting comments, rather like a cheerleader herself!) decided to take a break from Stephen King and go with an Alexander McCall Smith Precious Rambotse mystery, Tears of the Giraffe. My mom loves this series, and I have a different McCall Smith (The Sunday Philosophy Club) waiting on deck. Meanwhile, L-Squared (I wonder if Dewey was attracted to numbers this hour?) is moving through Dracula. More importantly, imo, she might have lost a snake! Uh-oh...

Books Read (this hour): Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Pages Read (cum.): 1190
Books Completed: 4 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson)
Stories Read: 2 ("The Death of a Government Clerk" and "The Sly Little Boy" by Anton Chekhov)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 11

Hour Fifteen

This hour I spent immersed in Russian. I read a bit of Pushkin, a bit of Akhmatova, and then I settled down to a couple of Chekhov's short stories. I love Chekhov: I think his talent is incredible, for one thing, and for another he writes in quite simple Russian, so it's easier for me to figure out what's going on. :) This was to complete Sara's mini-challenge, and I'm happy that she challenged me! I read the stories aloud, and just enjoyed the 'foreign-ness' of it all. :D Here's the front and back covers of the Chekhov collection I have (it's the collection "The Lady with the Little Dog"). Fun factoid about Russian books: the table of contents is in the back, instead of the front.


I'm not sure what I'll move on to next...but I'm going to try to stay up all 24 hours, so I do know I'll be drinking lots of caffeine!

Books Read (this hour): "The Death of a Government Clerk" and "The Sly Little Boy" by Anton Chekhov (but in Russian)
Pages Read (cum.): 1180
Books Completed: 4 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson)
Stories Read: 2 ("The Death of a Government Clerk" and "The Sly Little Boy" by Anton Chekhov)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 10

Hour Fourteen

I'm absolutely loving the mini-challenges! Wow-these cheerleaders are super-inventive. :) This hour, I'm supposed to decide what I would serve at a book group meeting to discuss one of the books I've been reading. I just finished Gods in Alabama (and it was a great read!), but I also really want to talk about Russian food, so I'm going to do two version!

First, let's say we're meeting for Gods in Alabama, a book about the South. Since we're talking about finger food, I'd probably serve fried chicken and cornbread with sweet sun tea and some kind of pie for dessert. :) Glorious! For The Kitchen Boy, I'd serve black tea with guest's choice of sugar, lemon, and raspberry preserves, along with blinchiki. Blinchiki are a food made out of blini (the Russian version of crepes)-the difference is that blini are flat while blinchiki are stuffed with yummy fillings (I'd offer an apple filling or a ricotta cheese/yogurt/sugar/currants mix-those were my host mom's specialities). There'd definitely be candy as well; Russians have a hardcore sweet tooth, and Russian adults eat candy with the abandon of American kids. Of course, if we could upgrade it to an actual meal, I'd make borscht (I have a delicious recipe), and serve it with huge dollops of sour cream, fresh dill, and black bread. Hmmmm...borscht.

Well, now that I've made myself hungry, lol, I'm going to take a little break from the fast reading I've been doing, and try out Sara's mini-challenge. I'll be reading some of Chekhov's short stories in Russian, so my pages/hr average is about to drop substantially. ;)

Books Read (this hour): Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
Pages Read (cum.): 1170
Books Completed: 4 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 9

Hour Thirteen

No mini-challenge this hour, which is probably good, since I'm quite caught up in Jackson's book! I love the South (it kinda reminds me of Russia, in that I love it and hate it at the same time, lol), and thanks to Maggie's Southern Reading Challenge earlier this year, I realised how much I enjoy the genre. I saw this book reviewed a few times back then, and then I went to B&N and found it on clearance. Yay! I plan to finish this one by 9, and then start on Sara's mini-challenge of reading in another language. Girding my loins, as they say! (at least, I think that's what they say) Oh-I've also passed the 1,000 page mark! Very exciting. :) And Blogger still isn't letting me post pictures, which is less than exciting. Those tacos were cute, lol, and I had plans for some other pictures as the night progresses. I'll just hope it fixes itself soon. :)

Books Read (this hour): Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
Pages Read (cum.): 1036
Books Completed: 3 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 8

Hour Twelve

Half-Time alert! This week's half-time entertainment? A picture of Eva's dinner...
(Note: picture pending...Blogger isn't letting me upload pics :( )
two tacos loaded with beans, cheese, yummy salsa from a Mexican restaurant, and homemade guacamole (my guacamole has been responsible for converting several former guac-haters). Simple, but fast. I'm a taco fiend, maybe from living in San Antonio (home of the original Taco Cabanas) for so long. I probably have at least one taco six days a week!

Additional entertainment provided by Dewey's meme...

1. What are you reading right now? Godsin Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

2. How many books have you read so far? 3

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? good question! probably Marked or Good Omens...maybe The Wisdom of Father Brown

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? I don't have kids, but I do live with my parents and baby niece (I'm the nanny). I just stressed that I would be reading all day, and they've been really good about it so far.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Just a few, and they were fun ones (like my sister bringing my niece in to attack me w/ lamb chops kitchen mitts). I looked at them as welcome breaks! My biggest interruption from reading has been checking out all the blogs. :)

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? Just how much it feels like a little community; I've gotten a ton of comments on my posts, and I've left a ton of comments as well. It really feels special. :) That, and how fast the hours are flying by!

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Not so far!

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? So far, nothing really.

9. Are you getting tired yet? Nope! (I've been trying to drink caffeine regularly every couple of hours)

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Well, the starting things off with a YA novel seemed very helpful, but other than that not much. :)

Well, as you might have noticed from the meme, I have put Lud-in-the-Mist aside for the moment. It's delightful, but I'm not in the right mood for it. So, this hour I grabbed Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson. I'm a little over 50 pages in and enjoying it!

Books Read (this hour): Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
Pages Read (cum.): 957
Books Completed: 3 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 8

Hour Eleven

Wow! The read-a-thon is almost half over. I didn't get to do much of any reading this hour (about ten pages), between catching up w/ other readers, making tea, and then going for a walk like Dewey suggested. I took my baby niece and my dog and went up to the mailbox. And guess what was waiting there for me?! Two bookmooches and a box of books (they're free in exchange for me reviewing them at Curled Up). If this isn't a pick me up, I don't know what is!


And with that, I'm going to get back to my reading. :D

Books Read (this hour): Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrless
Pages Read (cum.): 895
Books Completed: 3 (Tithe by Holly Black, The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie)
Mini-Challenges Participated In: 7