Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon: Update post

Hour 9

Reading: The Luminaries, Full Frontal Feminism
Pages read: 96
Books finished: The Luminaries
Eating: Chocolate cake, om nom nom.

The terrible lighting in my room does the cake no justice. But it was great.

I've had a pretty excellent start; I whipped through the last 40-something pages of The Luminaries really quickly as there weren't a lot of words on each page, then moved onto Full Frontal Feminism which is a pretty quick read too. It's still great. Some of the stuff is a little outdated, since it was published in 2007, but there's so much that's really important.

As for The Luminaries? I'm still a bit confused. I definitely enjoyed the book, but maybe it's the sort of one you need to read more than once to understand the many different threads and how they come together.

Hour 10

Reading: Full Frontal Feminism, The Horse and His Boy
Pages read: 57
Total pages read: 153
Eating: Tea and a few mini Wham bars

LOOK HOW DINKY THEY ARE

I've started The Horse and His Boy, so far so good. It's kind of an odd one in that none of the Pevensies are in it (as far as I know) but it started promisingly. A nice, easy, adventure-filled book is pretty much what read-a-thons were made for.

Hour 11

Reading: The Horse and His Boy
Pages read: 35
Total pages read: 188
Eating: The rest of the mini Wham bars

I'm getting tired now, so I think this will be my last update until morning. I'd always planned to get some decent sleep in- I really don't function well without sleep at all, and I'm already a bit sleep deprived this week from going to the midnight showing of The Avengers: Age of Ultron  on Wednesday night and then the Modern Languages formal on Thursday, plus I'm planning to get some serious uni work done tomorrow... basically, I need to sleep :P

Goodnight everyone!

Hours 12-21
Reading: The Horse and His Boy
Pages read: 28
Total pages read: 216
Time spent sleeping: Longer than planned, but NO REGRETS

So right after I posted the last update I found out I'd won a prize (!) which made me super happy and spurred me on to read a bit more before I inevitably succumbed to sleep. I really needed that sleep, guys. I'm up now and ready to go though!

The Mid-Event Survey

1. What are you reading right now?
Well, I was reading The Horse and his Boy, but I'm switching to Full Frontal Feminism for breakfast. Then I really need to read The Wild Irish Girl as I'm supposed to be discussing it in a seminar in little over 24 hours from now. Oops.

2. How many books have you read so far?
Completed one, The Luminaries, and read sizeable chunks of the other two.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?
Full Frontal Feminism, again! I'm hoping to maaaaybe get it finished before I have to move on to the world of obscure 18th Century Irish lit. But we'll see.

4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
I had work, and I had sleep. One of these was not welcome, the other certainly was. Idk, you do what you can when your life doesn't allow you to devote 24 solid hours to reading!

5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?
How much I'm really enjoying it and am not even remotely tempted to get distracted by TV/internet! I've been very busy lately and I'd forgotten just how lovely it is to put in some quality reading time. So that's been great.

The end is in sight, guys- keep on reading! :D

Hour 22

Reading: Full Frontal Feminism
Pages read: 38
Total pages read: 254
Eating: Sugar Puffs, orange juice, coffee

Relevant mug is relevant

Full Frontal Feminism is still excellent. I'm going to get up and get dressed and such now, and then I'll be switching to The Wild Irish Girl for the remainder of the read-a-thon.

Hour 23

Reading: Full Frontal Feminism, The Wild Irish Girl
Pages read: 9
Total pages read: 263
Eating: Coffee coffee coffee

Spent most of this hour getting up and getting ready and doing housework and all those dull, non-reading activities. But I've managed to read some of The Wild Irish Girl, yay! It's good enough I suppose. The writer is really trying to put across that Irish people weren't all savage heathens, but isn't exactly doing it subtly. Then again, in 1806 I guess some anvils needed to be dropped.


Hour 24

Reading: The Wild Irish Girl
Pages read: 28
Total pages read: 291
Eating: A Malteaster bunny and some strawberry jawbreakers

It's over!

Nah, it's been great really. I'll have a proper end post up later, but for now I really, really need to get some uni work done. I have two presentations to do tomorrow, and The Wild Irish Girl to finish, and coursework due on Wednesday that I really should have done more of by now. The Read-a-Thon has been a blast, but now it's back to business!

The Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon Opening Post

Hey everyone! I'm late to the party because I was at work, but I'm ready and raring to go. I got out of work slightly earlier than expected so I'm starting this post and getting my snacks together and should actually start reading soon!

Opening meme (because hey, why not):

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
I am reading from Armagh, Northern Ireland. Nice weather earlier on, but obviously getting a bit cold and dark as it's after eight o'clock here.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti. I'm about 100 pages into it and I've found it's fun, easy read with a serious message. I'm hoping to finish it over the course of the readathon.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Oh man, there are so many. I have a bag of mini Wham bars which I'm pretty stoked about.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm a student in my final weeks of completing my degree in English and French, and I deliver pizza on the side. I'm a Ravenclaw and a cat person and my music taste ranges from hardcore punk to Broadway musicals.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I've sort of 'read along at home' at previous readathons, but this is my first time properly taking part with a blog and everything. It's also my first 24 hour readathon in a very long time, so I'm excited!


The Books

Obviously I'm not going to make it through all of these, but everyone needs a to-read pile!

Okay, it's not the best picture, so the books are:

• Nana by Emile Zola and The Wild Irish Girl by Lady Morgan- both books for uni. The plan is I can kill two birds with one stone by readathoning and doing uni work! The Morgan in particular I need to finish by Monday, but tbh I'll probably get distracted by other books.
• The Horse and his Boy by CS Lewis- amazingly, I am currently reading the Narnia books for the first time. I know. Please feel free to tell me I had no childhood in the comments.
• Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti- like I said, this is a great, really readable intro to feminism.
• Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood- because I've had it out of the library for an embarrassingly long time and haven't read it yet. The only other Atwood I've read is the amazing The Handmaid's Tale, so obviously I need to read more of her.

Also on the Kindle are:

• Adam by Ariel Schrag- there's been a lot of buzz about this book- it's about a straight boy who starts hanging out with a bunch of LGBTQ+ people and ends up in a relationship with a girl who thinks he's trans- when he's nothing of the sort, but he's not going to tell her that. It's been pretty polarizing (as you can probably guess) but I read and loved Schrag's graphic novel memoir Potential a few years back, so I'm excited about this.
• The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton- this is a very large book and I'm so near the end, so this will be my starting point. I'm enjoying it and it'll be good to finish it off and (hopefully) have the mysteries wrapped up.

Okay, it's just after 9pm here, so let the reading commence!

Readathons readathons readathons!

I love readathons. I used to do the 24-hour ones on LibraryThing back in the day, and I've been 'reading along at home' to a lot of the week long ones like Bout of Books, but I haven't done any in forever- mostly because with uni, work and trying to have a life and other interests I often don't have the time. But I'm determined to make time, and by fortuitous coincidence three readathons are coming up in the next few weeks, just as I've finally started my blog to take part in them!

First up is Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon, which I've done a few times over the years but I've missed the last couple. It's on the 25th April, and you can find out all about it here. I won't be able to participate for the full twenty-four hours, because 1) I work on Saturdays, 2) I sacrifice my sleep for nobody and nothing, and 3) I have coursework due the following week. It'll probably be a spectacular failure, but I'm going to take part anyway and see how much I can read even under the circumstances.

Next up, Bex at An Armchair By The Sea has had the wonderful idea of a re-readathon, a week dedicated to rereading old favourites. I love rereading books and actively judge those who say they don't, but with my big pile of unread books and library books it's hard to get around to doing it sometimes. I've got loads of possibilities already in my head and I'm really looking forward to it.

Some books that I'm considering:

Honestly, there's so many books I want to reread, I could completely diverge from this list, but these are the main ones.

Last but definitely not least, the following week is Bout of Books. From the blog itself:

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, May 11th and runs through Sunday, May 17th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. 

Since the week before will be dedicated to rereading, I'm hoping to use Bout of Books to focus on my library books. I have a library addiction that has frankly spiraled out of control as of late, so it'll be good to focus on that.

So! Tell me, are you participating in any of these readathons? :)

Introducing the Doctor Who 50 Stories Project

So last summer I started a project based on the then-most-recent edition of Doctor Who magazine.

This one right here.

Basically, they did a poll of their readers' favourite episodes, from An Unearthly Child to The Time of the Doctor and everything in between, and ranked them. I love lists like this, especially concerning Doctor Who, which I really love but am occasionally overwhelmed by. (What other TV shows do you know that have 50+ years and 900 episodes of backstory?!)

I took the top 50 episodes, put them in order of original broadcast, and decided to blog my way through them on my tumblr. Some I had seen many, many times. Some I had never seen before. Basically, it was a way for me to fill in gaps (some of them embarrassing) in my Doctor Who viewing and to while away the weeks before Season 8 started.

The project has stalled somewhat in recent months, but I'm still determined to get all the way to the end with The Day of the Doctor (which, quite neatly, placed top of the poll). So, I'll be continuing the project on my shiny new blog, editing my old tumblr posts and hopefully making it all the way through Jon Pertwee this time! 

Join me in a few days for the first installment, where I'll be going back to Skaro with the first ever Dalek story, The Daleks!

Here's the complete list. I'll add links as I go.

1st Doctor

The Daleks

The Daleks' Invasion of Earth

The Daleks' Master Plan

2nd Doctor

The Power of the Daleks

The Evil of the Daleks

The Tomb of the Cybermen

The Web of Fear

The Invasion

The War Games

3rd Doctor

Spearhead From Space

Doctor Who and the Silurians

Inferno

The Daemons

The Green Death

4th Doctor

The Ark in Space

Genesis of the Daleks

Terror of the Zygons

Pyramids of Mars

The Brain of Morbius

The Seeds of Doom

The Deadly Assassin

The Robots of Death

Talons of Weng-Chiang

Horror of Fang Rock

City of Death

5th Doctor

Earthshock

The Five Doctors

Caves of Androzani

7th Doctor

Remembrance of the Daleks

The Curse of Fenric

9th Doctor

Dalek

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways

10th Doctor

School Reunion

The Girl in the Fireplace

Human Nature/The Family of Blood

Blink

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead

Midnight

Turn Left

Stolen Earth/Journey's End

The Waters of Mars

11th Doctor

The Eleventh Hour

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

The Doctor's Wife

Asylum of the Daleks

The Name of the Doctor

The Day of the Doctor

First posts are always awkward

So, here we go! This is long overdue, really. I've had various blogs on places like Livejournal before but it's time to start this again and actually put all my ramblings on books and stuff in one place.

Plan for this blog: lots of book stuff, music stuff, and probably a fair amount of TV too. Mostly just me geeking out, probably.

Now, some more tinkering and hopefully some actual content...