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April 10th, 2010

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Romancing your friendship

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

This was a simple challenge for me, though I hate to spoil part of the story for anyone, soooooo, I’m only going to post the cover here, and will put details of who and why in the comments. If you’ve not read Tipping the Velvet, I recommend you DO read the book, and do NOT yet read the comment(s) on this post! :)

12 hour mark questionnaire

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

1. What are you reading right now? Lois Lowry’s Gathering Blue

2. How many books have you read so far? This is the second

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? Probably Zuzak’s I Am the Messenger

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? Nope, just warned the roommates and made plans with my partner for her movie marathon to happen concurrently :)

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Not interruptions, per se; I do have a hard time focusing with the TV/movies going on while I read new material, but I anticipated that, and haven’t read much less than I expected, given the compromised environment. Totally worth it, though, to share the day!

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? How much earlier I get super tired than I do on a “normal” day – 12 hours isn’t typical crash time.

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? I think added incentives for cheerleaders might encourage more people to sign up; I’ve seen frequent complaints about the lack of cheerleader presence, though most of that seems to be coming from a single twitterer…

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? Have more beverages on hand – my readathon personal assistant is fading, and she was supposed to go on a soda and/or coffee run :-P

9. Are you getting tired yet? YES. But I’m managing!

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? Nope, still working out my own dos and don’ts; I’ll be watching for other people’s tips, though ;)

If the cover fits…

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

For the cover mini-challenge, here are my selections:

Scary:

Serial Killers by Brian Innes

Disturbing:

Sniper by Pavel Hak

Beautiful:

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Vibrant:

Fablehaven – Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

Moving:

Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity

I think they’re mainly self-explanatory, though the last one is probably unfamiliar to most, if not all, of you. It’s moving because of the profound impact some of the pieces in the anthology had on me, both the first time reading it about six years ago, and this most recent time last year.

Hour 11 update

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Just a quick check-in post; I can’t believe it’s already 3pm! Rachel’s on movie #5, and I’m about a hundred pages into my second book, Gathering Blue. We’ve been snacking since breakfast and are about to do frozen pizza for lunch, which will hopefully give us a bit of pep rather than making us feel sluggish :) She’s been doing curls with the free weights every so often, and I’ve done leg lifts and crunches while reading in the bedroom (except when Xander jumped up and got all comfy on my tummy; I know he would have been a bit put out if my knees kept coming at him).

I think I hear the timer on the oven – lunch time! Be back in a bit with the latest readathon progress :)

Title sentence challenge

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

I remember this challenge from last fall, and so almost didn’t even think about participating this time around; as the host says, you can spend ages agonizing over it if something doesn’t jump out right away. This time, though, the first two were on my stack, and the other sort of stuck out directly in my line of sight on my shelves, so here’s my contribution!

“I am the messenger, gathering blue tales of the city.”

And now, back to my book, for real this time!

Readathon update

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Just a quick update; I’m about a third of the way through Magical Thinking, which has proven to be a great first read, and Rachel’s on to movie number two. She just took a break to put breakfast together for us, as we were both getting a little rumbly in the tumbly :) The end result? Amazing bagel sandwichy goodness.

Bagel, egg, bacon, and muenster for me, swiss for my girlfriend (hers will be the actual “sandwich” – I’m doing mine open-faced so it’s easier to eat while reading :) SO GOOD. And now, back to reading :) Hope you’re all having a great time!

Mini challenge 2

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

The second mini challenge is about our kickoff strategy – what we’ve got set up to make the start of the readathon cozy and well-stocked for the first few hours’ reading. We prepared a pot of coffee last night so all I had to do this morning was hit brew, and Rachel will be making breakfast sandwiches after the end of her first movie. We’re starting the day curled up on the couch; see that lil spot in the crook of her arm? That’s all mine :)

The picture links to Rachel’s movie blog, which she’ll be updating throughout the day with reviews of the films she watches over the 24 hours of the readathon. And now, I’m only 20 pages into my first book; must stop getting distracted by the movie and get to it! Happy reading, all!

First readathon mini-challenge

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Today’s first mini-challenge is a blessedly easy one, haha…

Where are you reading from today? My apartment in San Francisco, which I share with two roommates (who we’ve warned about today!) and my partner, who is doing a movie marathon while I readathon :)

3 facts about me … Hmm… I love glitter, am afraid of balloons, and am terrible at coming up with random facts about myself. *grin*

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? 21

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)? Not particularly, though I would like to make it the whole 24 hours without sleep this time around; I crashed twice for a total of about 3.5 hours last time.

If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, Any advice for people doing this for the first time? It’s only my second time, but I definitely recommend (a) stepping away from Twitter unless you’re deliberately spending as much time reading the #readathon posts as reading your books, and (b) having a couple of easy reads at the start of the day to give you a feeling of accomplishment right off the bat.

Back to Magical Thinking; have fun, everyone!

Readathon snacks

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

We’re 7 hours from wake-up time. Coffee is ready to brew, Rachel’s movie is in the DVD player, my books are stacked by the computer for now, and I’m about to create a post template for ease of updates. Thanks to my friend Erin for coming through with a second computer monitor so Rachel and I can post, research, and push our marathons simultaneously!

Snack prep was fun; here are a couple of pics of our food lineup for the day!

Chocolate chip cookies, yum!

Fruit salad: you can’t see it all, but we have watermelon, strawberries, pink lady and fiji apples, grapes, blackberries, oranges, and pineapple chunks. Holy moly!

And the majority of the foods we got specifically for the readathon/movie marathon. Snacky stuff, quick and easy meals that Rachel can make without my assistance or coaching (thank you for being the chef for the day, baby!), stuff we enjoy but not too much that’ll cause peaks and crashes.

Now for a quick trip over to the cheerleader pages to see what I need to know for that, and then to bed already – it’s going to be a looooooong 24 hours if I don’t get any sleep!