Bout of Books 14: Saturday, Sunday and Wrap-up, with bonus cat pictures

Saturday
Reading: The Blind Assassin
Pages read: 25
Total pages read: 329

Hey, it's better than yesterday! I don't think I did too badly today. I worked from 10.30 to 8.30, read for a bit, and then managed to doze off :P I've been really tired lately, between the early starts and starting a new job and all that. Oh well, it's the effort that counts in these things, right? :)



Sunday
Reading: The Blind Assassin
Pages read: 80
Total pages read: 409


11.23pm 
Pages read so far: 69

Today was my last day at my old job, which was... actually surprisingly sad. I did love working there; but pizza delivery pays under minimum wage, I wasn't getting enough hours and coming back to Armagh all the time was doing my head in. Onwards and upwards.

So as well as saying goodbye to my old job, I actually managed to get some reading done today, yay! I'm getting into The Blind Assassin properly now. I really like the style of it, even if it is a bit confusing at the start: all the different narratives, newspaper articles, excerpts from a novel one of the characters wrote... it's interesting. I think I have the potential to become a very big fan of Margaret Atwood- this is the fourth book I've read from her, and they've all been great so far.



Wrap up
Books read from: NOS4R2 by Joe Hill, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Books finished: none
Total pages read: 409

So, this week didn't exactly go to plan- I had to work 43 hours instead of my estimated 24-ish, and the craziness of starting a new job pretty much exhausted me. Also, I had to deal with these two:

Cat on the right gave birth to kitten on the left three weeks ago, and kitten is now old enough to run around the house and basically cause mischief and be cute. So they're just the biggest distraction of all. (Note my sadly neglected The Blind Assassin in the second picture.)

Still, it wasn't all that bad. I got a good chunk of NOS4R2 read and will hopefully finish it today, at long last. What I've read of The Blind Assassin was great too, so I'm looking forward to reading that too.

Until next time then! It's been great.

Bout of Books 14: Thursday and Friday

Thursday
Reading: NOS4R2
Pages read: 49
Total pages read: 304

7.54pm
My girlfriend came up yesterday so the rest of the day was dedicated to Forbidden Planet and watching The Great British Bake Off before retiring early for my 7am shift this morning (bleh). After work we went to see Paper Towns, which was actually really good, and I'm pretty much only home and settled now. So yeah, absolutely no reading has been going on, I'm sad to say. Still, I'm going to get a wee bit of NOS4R2 in before I go to bed, as I have another early start tomorrow morning. I'm not a morning person and never will be. What can I say? I like being awake in the evening. Mornings are over-rated, I say.

Hopefully some more reading will be going on tomorrow! I get out of work at 3, so that should give me a nice long afternoon of reading. Right? ...right?


Friday
Reading: Nada, unless you count fanfiction...
Pages read: Big fat zero
Total pages read: 304

Hahaha, no. So today was a total no-goer on the reading front. I was up early for another 7am start at work, got home about 3 totally exhausted and just lay on my bed reading fanfiction on my kindle, then I made dinner and had to drive back to Armagh for my other job at 10.30 the next morning, and basically spent the evening watching The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, reading fanfic, and awwing over my kitten before going to bed embarrassingly early. So, yes. That was my day. I suppose I did read a fair bit of fanfic at least... sometimes I just go on a big binge with it.

Tomorrow I'll read, I swear!

Bout of Books 14: Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday
Reading: I'm planing on reading some of The Blind Assassin later, if that counts
Pages read today: zilch, so far Later: 19
Total pages read: 195

11.07pm
Today was really warm and sunny, so of course sod's law meant I was stuck in work for ten hours, driving around and standing in front of a hot pizza oven. I also found out that my new job, which I was supposed to start on Monday, wants me in for two shifts this week, so there goes all my free time this week! Oh well, I need the money so I can't complain.

So, no reading done today so far unfortunately. I got home from work about an hour ago so I've just made dinner and watched some BBC iPlayer, but I'll be getting stuck in to The Blind Assassin before bed hopefully :)


Wednesday
Reading: NOS4R2 
Pages read today: 60
Total pages read: 255


11.16am
Goood morning! I'm off today, which of course means it's raining. Oh well. I read a good 50 pages of NOS4R2 over a lazy breakfast. I always find in readathons that I read much better when I read a chunk all in one go, instead of little bits here and there like how I read the rest of the time. NOS4R2 is great and I'm really hoping to get it finished this week, if nothing else.

Bout of Books 14- Opening Post and Monday

Bout of Books is upon us again! I have to say, it kind of crept up on me and I nearly forgot about it. But for once it's actually fallen on a good week for me- my last week of only working part-time- so I'm hoping to get some serious reading done!

For the uninitiated, from the blog:
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 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd 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. For all Bout of Books 14 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.

The Books & Goals

Here's my initial book pile, with bonus Wee Cat:

From top to bottom:
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
NOS4R2 by Joe Hill


Ideally I'd like to finish all of these this week- I'm already more than halfway through NOS4R2 so it's doable, I hope! I'll see how the week pans out though. 


Monday

Reading: NOS4R2 by Joe Hill, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Pages read: 105+71= 176

10.28pm
I'm off work today and like most days off I'm not really sure where the time's gone! I had to bring my car up to the garage to get new brake pads which cost me almost all my weekend's wages, boo. I've also been distracted by cats- a cat we feed had a kitten in our back garden a couple of weeks ago, and he's seriously the biggest distraction ever. Those little blue eyes! I'll try to get a picture up this week, if the mama allows me. She's very protective.

But on the reading front! I have read a good bit more today than I have been reading lately. I made a good dent in NOS4R2, which is good but seriously fucked up in places. There's a villain called Charlie Manx who kidnaps children in his 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith and takes them to 'Christmasland' and he's just kidnapped the protagonist's son, so, shit has hit the fan, pretty much. It's a great read and I really want to find out what happens, but it is very dark so it's hard to keep reading sometimes.

 I started The Blind Assassin as a reprieve. It's an odd one so far, darting about all over the place even from the very start but it seems promising so far.