Hour 18

I'm having a lovely evening here, enjoying my books and my solitude and my music and my comfy clothes. 

I finished The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle.  There was a pit in my stomach by the end, aching for the main character's loss & pain, and appreciating her braveness, and wanting to hug and spend time with everyone I love. 

Now I'm 135 pages into Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver.   The illustrations are gorgeous.

My body is sore and I think I need to either get back under the covers or put on a sweatshirt. 

Mid-Event Survey

Mid-Event Survey:
1. What are you reading right now?
I'm reading The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle.

2. How many books have you read so far?
Haven't finished any books, on page 365 of TBOA
 
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?
Just settling in to reading after needing to miss the bulk of the day so far.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?
I was really needed at work (and I love my job) so I allowed myself (for first time) to not do so.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
See above.  :)  I have no regrets.

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?
That I have no regrets about the above.  :)

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
Nope.  I love it and I love the variety of people who participate.

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?
I'd like to collect more pledges next year!

9. Are you getting tired yet?
Nope!  But I know I'll get there.  Well, maybe I'm a tiny bit tired, actually.....

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?
Just taking breaks to stretch & put on chapstick/lotion.

Dewey's Read-a-Thon Introduction Meme

So I'm super late at this, as I needed to go into to work and ended up being there for a large chunk of the day.

 1)Where are you reading from today?
Denver CO, all at my apartment, in the living room, the bathtub, and the bed.

2)Three random facts about me…
I've never gotten my driver's license, I love garlic, I miss my grandparents all the time.

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
10 -- but I would've been happy if I'd done four.

4)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)?
At this point, I'd be pleased to completely finish two books and have started a third, we'll see.

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?
Change location, drink lots of water, wash your face to wake up, and put on music you love.

Dewey's Read-a-Thon Starting Post -- Hour 2

Well, this year I've not gotten any pledges for quantity -- hours, minutes, pages read.  (My mom did pledge $30 for me to read a Waylon Jennings biography, but that will be after the read-a-thon is over, since I couldn't get it from the library in time.) 

Because of that, I'm allowing myself to be more laidback than I have been in the past.  I just woke up, an hour after the official start time.  I'm going to get some granola and yogurt and start reading The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle, a YA book that's been making the rounds on the book blogs I frequent.    We'll see how the rest of the day goes.   I'll probably need to go over to work for at least a short time, but I'm looking forward to still reading a ton.

Cleaning out my camera -- Attempts at taking pictures of myself, The Comfort Cafe, Lauren & Kolya, Colleen, my stack o' books for tomorrow's read-a-thon

Me!

Book Beginnings and Friday 56 -- The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence, or two, of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.    

Aldwyn had often wondered what it would be like to have wings.  As the wind blew through his whiskers and his claws dug into the linen collar of Jack's tunic, he was beginning to get a pretty good idea.

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. Post a link along with your post back to this blog.

 

The librarian walked back to her seat behind the front desk, stepping right past a trio of the slimy bookworms that had found their way back inside during her absence.  Aldwyn fount it curious that now she ignored them, seeing how quick she had been to retrieve her broom before. Perhaps the exhausting day of research had taken its toll on her, as well.

Fiona and I are just finishing this one up.  It's the second in the Familiars series.  The authors have created several surprising twists in Secrets of the Crown, just as they did in The Familiars.  It's fun when something happens that I was not at all anticipating.  From the front book flap:

When every bit of human magic disappears from Vastia, it falls on the familiars -- Aldwyn the telekinetic cat, Skylar, the know-it-all blue jay, and Gilbert the gullible tree frog -- to find the Crown of the Snow Leopard, an ancient relic that can reverse the curse.

Teaser Tuesdays -- Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!

 "Young Farringdon is an undergraduate of  -- New College, I think it is -- who was engaged to Cattermole when they both came up, but is now engaged to Flaxman."

"Is he, indeed?"

"Mainly, I understand, or partly, in consequences of that letter."

~page 77, Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers

Another fun mystery from Sayers.  I enjoyed it, though I did have trouble keeping straight the many different female characters -- probably partially because I'm not clear on the way the Oxfordian academic hierarchy worked in 1935.  :)

The Luminist by David Rocklin

Photography comprises the bright, tensile thread in the sweep of The Luminist, drawing tight a narrative that shifts between the prejudices and passions of Victorian England and those of colonial Ceylon.  It binds the destinies of Catherine Colebrook, the proper wife of a fading diplomat, who rebels against every convention to chase the romance of science through her lens, and Eligius, an Indian teenager thrust into servitude after his father is killed demanding native rights. (from the front book flap)

By the time I picked up David Rocklin's The Luminist, I'd forgotten the main gist of the plot and setting, so I didn't know what to expect.  It's historical fiction, set in Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka) in the first half of the 19th century and is loosely based on the life of Julia Margaret Cameron, a British photographer.

I've never thought about what the early, still-just-exploring, don't-even-really-have-a-name-for-it-yet days of photography must have been like for the pioneers in the field.  I enjoyed learning more about it, and learning about it all in the context of Ceylon in the same time period.  I found the ending extremely satisfying -- certainly didn't tie up all loose ends, but left one with a sense of hope for redemption and completion.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

This book has been making the rounds among avid readers of young adult fiction.  From Amazon:

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her.

I didn't find myself as thrilled with this one as others seem to be.   The idea of society being divided by virtues -- and especially the virtues that Roth imagined -- is intriguing and I liked the basic message(s) of the book.  Most likely, it was just a case of too much hype before I picked it up.  (I'll be honest, the same thing happened to me with the movie version of The Princess Bride -- scandalous, I know.)  I will probably still continue with the series.