Book Spine Poetry Time! courtesy of Bout of Books 11.0

I have never taken part in any challenges in any read-a-thon before, so here is to something new! It was actually loads of fun putting this together and seeing the product grow and develop into its completed state. I am quite proud of the outcome, even though it is a little morbid. But then I am reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, so morbid is definitely a way to describe the atmosphere around here - well, morbid and intrigued! I can't wait to see how this story ends.

But I am wasting time here prattling on about my reading (especially since I should be reading - and now I have to pack books away on top of it!!!). I will give an update post for day 2 in 2 hours (midnight my time). In the mean while, here is the picture of my book spine poetry! (You an find the post of the original challenge here.)

Gone (!) Girl
and
A Wanted Man,
Tomorrow When the War Began.

A Lion Among Men
becomes 
A Feast for Crows
and the
Reaper Man
Beyond the Shadows.

Worth Dying For
Monsters of Men,
On the Road
to
Oblivion?



I would love to call this 'The Fault in Our Tzars' but that wouldn't be allowed, I don't think. But nonetheless, it is my poetic commentary on war.

Just some admin on this. I used 11 books and only claimed 5 free words (and, becomes, and, the, to). I don't know if the exclamation mark I used to break the title Gone Girl is allowed (may I use my 6 remaining free words please! I like it there!). If it isn't, just ignore it. It doesn't really change much at all.

Oh well. I have 2 hours of reading to go for the day. I suppose I should get started!

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I was not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did!

The Little Book Club, a creation of Little Book Owl nominated Ready Player One as the book of the month. I had only ever heard great things about this, but I was still reluctant to read it. Sci-fi is not my favourite genre (although I have read quite a lot of it this year and have enjoyed everything I have come across) and I was expecting a rehash on Tron.

That was not what this was. I LOVED it! Ok, ok, ok, so a lot of the loving I felt was that I KNEW the 80s! I was a kid in the 80s! I had played some of the games and heard of more. I had seen the movies and could picture the scenes that were referred to - no problem. It was a trip down memory lane - that made me feel cool and not 'old'.

But that was not my sole reason for really liking this book. I see a cautionary tale between the pages. It isn't one of those preachy messages - don't get me wrong. It is just, in my opinion, a very well thought out probability of where we are heading to in the future. As it is, people are spending REAL money on dressing avatars (I am referring to games like Farmville). We are ignoring all warnings about the damage we are doing to the world. Many of us are are happier to live a virtual cyber life on the internet as opposed to socialising with real people in the real world. So, yeah. I think the world depicted in RPO is a pretty good guess of what could come - if we don't realise that we actually need to live offline too. This isn't a one-sided view on internet addiction though. Cline makes OASIS seem wonderful. I would love to have access to OASIS. (Personally I would KILL to be able teach with it!)  It is the internet, but a gazillion-million-trillion times better!

The characters are great too. Wade surprised me many times through the book. He changed and developed and grew from the first chapter right to the last. He was a character I wanted to cheer for. What was interesting as far as characterisation went, was that this was a world where race and gender didn't matter - because your avatar did not have to look like you at all. Hell, it didn't even have to be human! It provided a very interesting way of looking at people. No prejudices. People were just people - like it should be.

The pace of the book slowed around the midway mark and it was the only time I was made aware of just how uncomfortable and hard my chair is after sitting on it for a few hours. The change of pace was necessary as far as character development went, but it is the only negative point I could think of.

A very good read that I would recommend to anyone who is a child of the 80s, a geek, a fan of Chuck, a Sci-fi lover or a fan of dystopian fiction.

Bout of Books 11.0 TBR

I can't believe this starts tomorrow! I feel so unprepared!

Well, maybe that is a little bit of an exaggeration. I am quite prepared for the read-a-thon. Not toooo sure about how prepared I am as far as the rest of my life goes. So, with no further ado, here is my TBR for the Bout of Books read-a-thon.

My TBR 
1. Complete Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Let's face it. I am not abandoning this for a week. I am absolutely intrigued at the moment! I am loving what I think are a bunch of unreliable narrators. *crosses fingers that that is correct*

2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio

I have heard some really great things about this book. I can't wait to get into it. Plus, it is also a fairly thin book, so I am hoping that it will go quickly and make me feel as though I have achieved something.






3. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

OK, so this isn't exactly the peanuts to my beer, the cheese to my wine. But, people out there love it, and as I can't recommend anything to the kids I teach without having read it first, this is taking one for the team. YA reads quickly, and who knows, maybe I will enjoy it. After all, The Mortal Instruments didn't exactly have me gouging my eyes out - just groaning on occasion.



OR

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (if there is time)

I read book one over the holiday. It was OK. I'm not too sure what everyone is raving about. It was OK.  But I got book 2 when I bought book 1, so I might as well read it. If you are a fan of the series, I would love to know what I am missing.






4. Finish The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Steven Baxter

This book has been haunting me since the Booktube-a-thon. Yup. I should be embarrassed. I am really struggling with it, so I don't want to officially put it on my TBR for any read-a-thon. But, should the desire arise, I can finish it - I just have to put my mind to it.





This is a rather timid list compared to what I have seen from other readers, but let's be realistic here. I get up in the morning at 6am to go to work; I work until 2pm; I come home and work until some time between midnight and 2am. Wash, rinse, repeat. If I usually finish one book a week, it has been a GREAT week. My 3 or 4 book list here is highly OVER optimistic. Should some Tardis navigating hero, or a Time-Turner bearing wizard arrive on my doorstep, then maybe I can get through these AND add to it from my ever-growing TBR pile.

Happy Reading everyone!

Bout of Books 11

Yes, yes. I know. I didn't post the end of the Book Tube-a-thon results. I can explain, I promise. Everything went great up until day 6, where I got a call from my brother and sister-in-law saying they were coming the following day to visit for a week. Enqueue major rearranging of house as the guest room had to be 'de-storeroomified'. I actually managed to stay pretty much on track on day 6 even though chaos had definitely arrived. But alas, day 7 was an ultimate write off. One can't honestly get away with the excuse of a readathon when family one hasn't seen in almost a year decide to pop in. I still managed to read 6 books though and cleared the 2100 page mark quite well. But - I could have finished the 7th book. Oh well.

This brings me to the Bout of Books read-a-thon. I have no idea how successful this one will be - some of us actually have to work for a living, and unfortunately my holidays are long over by this point. But reading gives me pleasure, and perhaps having a few reasonable goals to reach for a week will get me away from slaving in front of the pc until the early hours of the morning and have me reading instead. After all, there is an expression warning 'Jack' about becoming a dull boy for a reason.

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 18th and runs through Sunday, August 24th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 11 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

BookTubeathon Day 3 and 4

Shew! I am clearly still an overachiever.

Day 3
Read 379 pages.
Almost finished Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
Started reading The Book Thief by Marcus Zusac

Day 4
Read so far: 266 pages
Finished Monsters of Men (IT WAS AMAZING!)
Still on The Book Thief - but it is going quickly. (Already wondering if I want to see the film adaptation. I love the characters in my head and I don't want them to change!)

Total Stats:
Books read 5
Pages read 1460
Number of pages to go 640
Average number of pages per day 365

Challenges:
1 Read a book with pictures  - DONE
2 Start and finish a series - DONE (YAY! IT WAS AWESOME)
3 Red on the cover - DONE
4 A book selected by someone else
5 A book from the genre read the least this year - DONE although if I have the time, I might read a different book for this one
6 A book to movie/tv adaptation - WORKING ON IT
7 7 books and/or an average of 300 pages per day - ON TRACK!

BookTube-a-thon Day 2

Although I have not yet officially decided to do it, I am still accidentally doing it.

So here goes with the stats so far:
Day 1
Pages read: 444
Books completed:2.5

Day 2
Pages read: 371
Books completed: 1.3

Challenges

Read a book with pictures - DONE (Master of Dreams: Sleep of the Just (Sandman, #1) by Neil Gaiman)

Start and finish a series - ALMOST DONE (Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness)

Red on the cover - DONE ('The Knife of Never Letting Go' by Patrick Ness)

A book selected by someone else

A book from the genre read the least this year - DONE ((Master of Dreams: Sleep of the Just (Sandman, #1) by Neil Gaiman), although if I have the time, I might read a different book for this one)

A book to movie/tv adaptation

7 books and/or an average of 300 pages per day - STILL ON TRACK.

In case you have not heard of the BookTube-a-thon, here is the link to the youtube page. 

Oh well, I had better head off and carry on reading!

Booktube-readathon

Still not sure about doing the readathon. Spent the day reading, just in case I decide to definitely do it tomorrow. :)
Today's progress:
Read a book with red on the cover - The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, #1) by Patrick Ness
Read a book with pictures - Master of Dreams: Sleep of the Just (Sandman, #1) by Neil Gaiman
Start and finish a series - (halfway) The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, #2) by Patrick Ness
Read 7 books - 2.5 done
Read 300 pages a day - 357 down and 1.5 hours to go.
Looks like I might end up doing it anyway! :D