Merry Wanderer of the Night:
april readathon

I am participating in the Dewey Readathon today! My readathon mornings are always messed up. I always oversleep, and it seems like I'm always going to my parents' house for the weekend. This readathon was new different. I got started about two hours late, nine o'clock my time. I haven't wasted much time though, one and a half books finished. Jason and I made a little pit stop in Pella, Iowa on the way home to meet some of family for lunch. Now I'm at my parents' house to read for an hour before we go get our engagement pictures taken.

Time spent reading: 15/21
Pages read: 704
Hours listened: 3
Books completed: The Walking Dead Volume 2 by Robert Kirkman, Welcome to My Country by Lauren Slater, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Pharmacist's Mate by Amy Fusselman
Activities completed: None
Trees planted: 8

I'll be returning to update this post throughout the day. You might be wondering about trees planted. For each book I finish during the readathon I am planting two trees through Eco-Libris.

Update: My engagement pictures are complete! We had a lot of fun getting out pictures taken and I read a little Shakespeare during the photo shoot. I'm sure I'll share some of those later. For now I will just say The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a fantastic book. A really quick read too! Also, I didn't fill this out during hour one, so I'm doing it now.

1) My parents' house in Altoona, Iowa. Started at my house in Iowa City, Iowa and read on the road in between.
2) I love essays, almond macaroons are my favorite cookie, and I'm probably going camping next weekend.
3) 10
4) I don't really have any specific goals this time around, I'm just hoping to get a lot of reading done!
5) Relax and have fun. Try to get some actual reading in instead of checking up on everyone else's blogs!

Update: It's now 11:18 here. I went and got some dinner, took a nap, and started two books. I was originally planning on reading Molly Fox's Birthday, but decided it wasn't really working for today. Right now I'm reading Welcome to my Country by Lauren Slater instead. I've been working on some art projects for school while listening to Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World, which has been a nice break from reading and a good opportunity to get some work done. Now I think I'm going to get back to some real text reading for a few hours. Who is still out there? Are you hanging in there?

Update: A few hours have gone by since my last update. I'm officially starting to get tired. I've accomplished a lot more in this readathon than I thought I would. I've finished four books and made a pretty good dent in the beginning of an audiobook. I even managed to get a little homework done. In the last few hours I read a graphic novel to give my eyes a rest from all the text. In the next couple hours I think I might listen to some audio while trying to get some more homework done and then see how I feel.

Update: This will probably be my final update for the readathon. My eyes are heavy and I'm at the beginning of a book which is making it difficult for me to keep up with it. I might try to get up after a little nap to read just a little bit more-but I am basically done for this readathon. I also keep thinking about the paper I have to write tomorrow and how I should probably be a little coherent for that!

How is your readathon going? If you're not participating then how are you spending your Saturday?

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Well I survived most of the Readathon yesterday! I want to make it a little longer than I did during my last Readathon and I ended up going the same amount of time- but that's not what is really important. What was really important was that I completed my main goal, finish the Shelf Discovery challenge. Since I did that I feel like I was successful, and I also read more pages this time than last. I can't wait for the next Readathon, and next time around I think I might cheerlead and I also want to read for charity.

This week I posted a review of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Thomas Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. The rest of the week was pretty much all Readathon preparation and experience- but hey, it's a marathon! Because of the Readathon I have a lot of reviews to write, I'm probably going to be writing April reviews well into May, which may not be fun for you if you're curious as to my thoughts about a book but it's going to be really fun for me because I like to have review written ahead of time!

I'm at work right now and I'm folding pamphlets for moving out of the dorms. I can't believe it's almost that time of year! Next year will be my first year out of the dorms; I'm moving into my first apartment in August and I am so excited. I'm sure my dad and I will have fun loading up two bookshelves from my dorm room now and taking three to my apartment next year, all in about a three month time span. Muscles, muscles!

On another personal note, I can't believe I'm almost finished with my second year of college! I'm halfway through my undergrad years! It's insane, things that once seemed unforgettable are now becoming distant memories to me. It's sad but there are so many new and wonderful things happening in my life that I can't complain. Soon I'll be filling out applications for grad school... but let's not think about that right now. :)

I have surpassed my goals for today! So it seems like a good time to go to bed, especially since I'm getting over a cold and I have to work tomorrow afternoon as well as finish two history papers. Oh tomorrow will be a fun day. Coming into this Readathon I was hoping to finish the Shelf Discovery Challenge, which I did! I only had three books finished for the challenge, which ends April 30, and now I have finished all 6. Easy YA books are greats reads for Readathons, although they weren't my favorite books I read today. My stats are pretty similar to my last reading challenge, but for some reason I feel more accomplished. Probably because I actually finished more books. Another reason might be that when I took a look at how this Readathon has fit into my overall 2010 reading I was amazed! At the beginning of this Readathon I had read 29 books in 2010, and now I've finished 34 and I'm well on my way to getting to 35. So look at that, completed a challenge, read some good books, almost to 35 books in 2010 which puts me well on my way to my unadvertised goal of 100 books this year. Overall, a great day.

Title of book(s) read since last update: Go Ask Alice by Anonymous, Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi, Blubber by Judy Blume, and I'm Sorry You Feel That Way by Diana Joseph
Number of books read since you started: Finished 5, Read 6 (I'm more than halfway!)
Pages read since last update: 372
Running total of pages read since you started: 897
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 5
Running total of time spent reading since you started:12
Mini-challenges completed: Miss Remmers' Kick-off Challenge, I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read's Soundtrack Challenge, and 'Til We Read Again's And The Nominees Are challenge.

Thanks to all of the great co-hosts for the Readathon, the cheerleaders, and the mini-challenge hosts! You guys all helped make this day a lot of fun!

I'm going to be gone for the next 5ish hours because I'm volunteering at the Englert Theatre in downtown Iowa City. I will be with you all in spirit! Before I leave I'll give a quick update of my stats:

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fifteen by Beverly Clearly and Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Number of books read since you started: Almost 3
Pages read since last update: 346
Running total of pages read since you started: 525
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 4.5
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 7
Mini-challenges completed: Miss Remmers' Kick-off Challenge, I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read's Soundtrack Challenge, and 'Til We Read Again's And The Nominees Are challenge.

Happy reading everyone!

I know I already did a post at the end of my one hour, but I didn't include any stats so I figured I'd just include them here.

But first, mini challenges! I couldn't resist I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read's mini-challenge to make a soundtrack for a chapter of the book you are reading. I just finished Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and I wanted to pick a song to be playing during the scenes where Guy Montag and Clarisse McClellan are talking and Montag starts to realize that something is really wrong with the world. The song I chose is Something to Talk About by Badly Drawn Boy, which was actually mad for the soundtrack of the movie About A Boy which is a great book by British author Nick Hornby. So I got very literary on this one.

This song might sound a little too peppy to be on a soundtrack for Fahrenheit 451, but can imagine it being really cool in a movie for the scene, especially since I see Clarisse as being a soft but strong character.

And I'm also going to do 'Til We Read Again's And The Nominees Are challenge.

Favorite Female Character in a book: Marian Halcombe from the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Favorite Male Character in a book: Henry DeTamble from The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Favorite Side Kick in a book: I really like Dick in High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, is he a sidekick?
Favorite Couple in a Book: Jane and Rochester in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Favorite Book Series: Right now probably The Luxe series by Anna Godbersen
Favorite Author: As far as authors I have read multiple books by... I'd probably have to say Virginia Woolf
Favorite Book Cover: I really like the cover of The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
Favorite Book of 2009: Middlemarch by George Eliot, which is a book I read in 2009

And lastly, I'll do a kick rundown:
Title of book(s) read since last update: Fahrentheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Number of books read since you started: 1
Pages read since last update: 179
Running total of pages read since you started: 179
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 3.5
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 3.5
Mini-challenges completed: Miss Remmers' Kick-off Challenge, I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read's Soundtrack Challenge, and 'Til We Read Again's And The Nominees Are challenge.

I've been reading for one hour and I'm already off to a good start! I decided to take a quick break and check out the Readathon site and do whatever challenges are post. Miss Remmers' Mini-Challenge is to talk about your kick-off strategy. I'm not really surrounded by anything right now, but I did know I wanted to start off with Fahrenheit 451 since it was the heaviest book in my pile but still short. I should still be able to accomplish something early in the day, but I'm also reading the hardest book while I'm still fresh. I made myself a pillow fort on my bed because I knew I wouldn't want to get out of bed at seven o'clock in the morning, so all I had to do was wake up, grab my book, and start reading. Eventually my tummy started to growl, so that is when I decided to stop, have a pop-tart, and do this mini-challenge.

On the Dewey website they asked you to answer the following questions for hour one:
Where are you reading from today? Since waking up an hour ago I've been reading Fahrenheit 451.
3 facts about me … I am a sophomore at the University of Iowa. I have flowers on my desk but they are starting to wilt. I read about museums for fun.
How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? 6
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)? I would really like to finish the Shelf Discovery Challenge today, we'll see.

Well I'm back to read for awhile. I'll be back in a few hours!

Everyone is buzzing about tomorrow's readathon, myself included. In case you're a Readathon virgin you can check out the Dewey's Readathon Website for more info. This will be my second and a half readathon. I say second and a half because the Dewey's Readathon last October was a surprise for me and I had only been blogging for a few days when it happened. I was at home and when I got on Twitter I saw that everyone was talking about some readathon, so I decided to join in! I didn't do that much reading really, but I enjoyed the taste I got so much that I decided to join in on Dreadlock Girl's readathon in December. I made it 20 hours and read for a total of 14 of those 20 hours, check out my wrap-up post to see how coherent I was.

Tomorrow I'm starting at 7 AM and I will be reading until 5:30 because then I have to go to the Englert theatre in downtown Iowa City to volunteer for the Indian Student Alliance. I'm planning on taking a graphic novel with me for any spare time I have while I'm there. Then I'll be back around eleven to keep the reading going, I'm excited to see how long I can make it this time! I might not make it as long as I originally planned though, because I seem to have a cold right now.

I have a stack of fairly short books to read for tomorrow, and most of them are for the Shelf Discovery Challenge which is over this month and I need to finish. Those are really my priority. I have a few other books on the pile though.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fifteen by Beverly Cleary
Go Ask Alice by "Anonymous"
Blubber by Judy Blume
Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi
Wild Ducks Flying Backward by Tom Robbins

Later today I go shopping for some snacks! I'm thinking crackers, veggies, fruit, peanut butter, and chocolate. All the essentials of course. I hope you'll join in on the Readathon if you can- I know you'll have fun!