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.

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 :)

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!

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!

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!

Having the books I already owned in the TBR collection and adding Rachel’s books that I haven’t read made creating a stack for this readathon a very quick process; before I knew it, I had over twenty books totaling several thousand pages. I came in at just under one thousand pages last time around, so I’m not expecting to get anywhere close to completion of this list, but at least I have a good variety, and no re-reads.

Augusten Burroughs’s Magical Thinking: True Stories – the next from his collection that Rachel recommended, after Running with Scissors and Dry. I’ve found his writing to be super easy for me to fly through, so I’m hoping this will be a good kickoff book – not too dense, but not 100-200 pages of fluff, either. Also on the stack is Possible Side Effects.

Lois Lowry’s Gathering Blue – a companion novel to The Giver, which I read and loved last year. I’ve also got Messenger on the stack, which followed those two.

Chosen: A House of Night Novel by P.C. and Kristen Cast. I read Marked a while back on a recommendation from a friend; I picked up the first four books at once, as they were all out in paperback and she’d read them all so far. I wasn’t hugely impressed with the start to the series, but it was an easy, fast read, and will be a good way to break up the more literary selections on the pile.

Okay, in the interest of time, and wanting to get this up before the readathon actually *starts*, here’s the rest in straight list form:

A Million Little Pieces, James Frey

I Am the Messenger, Markus Zuzak

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw

Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones, the Edge of Reason, Helen Fielding

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

Animal Farm, George Orwell

The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

Stardust and Coraline, Neil Gaiman

The Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum

There are a couple more on the stacks that I can’t post because the pictures I snapped with my cell are pixelating the bindings when I zoom, haha, so those will remain a mystery :) Similarly, if I typoed or completely screwed up a title or author’s name, it’s all the fault of poor camera skills!

At any rate, there’s the batch – no re-reads, and enough variety to hopefully keep me from flitting from book to book at 30-some pages in. Happy readathon-ing, everyone – can’t wait for 5am!

Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? Which would you rather read?

I’ve not read much stream-of-consciousness, but it does intrigue me. Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse was fascinating to me, though difficult at times to read. I definitely enjoy a brilliantly crafted plot, a la Sarah Waters’s Fingersmith, and am more likely to read something like that, but I think that stream-of-consciousness is a different sort of experience altogether for the reader; it brings you in on a level not many people can actively access, let alone portray with words.

Anyone have any good recommendations for stream-of-consciousness?

I’m still working on my readathon book list post a bit at a time, but in the meantime I thought I’d ask you how you decide what to read. Do you stick to a list you’ve already got going of books to be read, rifle through for things you know (or anticipate) will catch and hang onto your attention, go for short and simple books that you know you’ll fly through?

My list last time was ambitious to a fault – I selected a few series, a few dense standalone novels, and very few light, easy reads. I ended up abandoning most of my pre-selected books and hitting the shelves for ones I felt would be more apt to really be able to get lost in. I re-read several YA novels last time around, which made for an enjoyable readathon, but this time I’m going to try for a more “productive” and “accomplished” feeling. No re-reads, though I do still have quite a few YA titles on the stack so far.

So what’s your plan? Have a link to your anticipated reads for Saturday?  Not participating in the readathon but have a method to your next-book madness? Drop your link or your feedback in the comments!

After a wonderful weekend with my partner, I’m surprised today doesn’t feel like more of a letdown than Mondays typically do. I’m not going to complain about the lack of the “case of the Mondays,” by any means, though!

Part of the weekend fun involved shopping at one of my favorite secondhand stores, Community Thrift on Valencia Street in San Francisco. Their book collection absolutely cannot be beat – it’s extremely well organized, well stocked, and absurdly priced. Most hardcovers are under two dollars, and paperbacks a dollar or less. We picked up a few household items, a couple of games, two records (I can’t resist musicals on vinyl!), and a handful of books (including a paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I’m in the middle of reading right now) for twenty-five bucks. We have the hardcover HP5, but I’d much rather carry around the smaller, lighter copy for bus rides and jury duty (yep, back again today).
How did you spend your weekend? Celebrate Easter, watch or listen to some baseball (go Sox!), score any new books?

Today’s link is to my girlfriend’s new blog, and her post about the military, stop-loss, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

I’ve always been connected to the military in one way or another; my dad was in the Navy, my brother in the Army, I have a good friend who is still in the Army now, and of course my partner is former Navy. We’ve talked about the possibility of her returning once the policy is repealed; it has its good and bad points, and we’ll certainly weigh them more deliberately when the time comes, but even the idea of it being an option is an indication of the fact that we, as a country, are finally making some great strides toward equality.

What are your thoughts? Share them here or there, or both!