Bout of Books 16

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 9th and runs through Sunday, May 15th 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 16 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I'm late to the party because I totally forgot this was happening. But hey, I'm in essay hell and it's been a bit quiet around the blog lately so I might as well take part!

I'm hoping to finish four books, including the two I'm currently reading. That might be optimistic, but we'll see how the week goes! I'll try to update this every day with my progress, work schedule and essay deadlines permitting.


Monday and Tuesday

 

Reading: Women Who Did: Stories by Men and Women, 1890-1914; The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee
Pages read; 142

Thoughts: Not a bad start! Monday I was in work and doing uni work, but managed to squeeze in some reading in the park as the weather was glorious. Tuesday was a bit less productive as my girlfriend was over, but I still got a good chunk read.

Women Who Did is pretty self-explanatory from the title- it's a collection of stories about women at turn of the century. It's actually some belated uni reading that I'm doing after the semester has finished, whoops. There's big names like Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf as well as lesser known ones, including (so far) an African American and a Native American, which is unusual given the time period and nice to see.

The Expatriates is one of the books I won from Bex during the last re-readathon, and even though it's something I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own accord, I'm really enjoying it. It's about a group of- you guessed it- expatriates living in Hong Kong, with their lives intermingling and some interesting stuff about local vs. expat dynamics.


Wednesday

 

Reading: Women Who Did: Stories by Men and Women, 1890-1914; The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee
Pages read; 182
Books finished: Women Who Did
Total pages read: 324

Thoughts: I was off work today so as usual I tried to get as much uni work done as physically possible. And mostly succeeded! I finished Women Who Did, meaning I've finally finished my assigned reading for the year. All in all a pretty good book to finish the academic year with. As with all collections, some stories are better than others- but I've finally read some Kate Chopin and some Charlotte Perkins Gilman and enjoyed them just as much as everybody told me I would, so it's all good.

The Expatriates is also going swimmingly. You know sometimes you read a book about something you've never thought much about before but the author just makes it seem so interesting? Yeah, expat life in Hong Kong is surprisingly interesting. There's all this stuff about how everyone sticks together in groups by nationality and the underlying sexism where so many of the wives become stay at home mothers because they've followed their husbands half way around the world. So, yeah. I'm enjoying it a lot, and should finish it tomorrow if I keep going at this rate.


Thursday

 

Reading: The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee, Possession by A. S. Byatt
Pages read; 165
Books finished: The Expatriates
Total pages read: 489
Total books finished: 2

Thoughts: Work was long and exhausting today, so when I came home I basically decided to skip the uni work and relax with a book all night instead. I was successful for the most part, though I ended up falling asleep about two hours before my usual time. Like I said, exhausted!

I finished The Expatriates! I'm feeling satisfied in the way that happens when a book you didn't have any expectations about turned out to be actually really good.

I've stared Possession now, which has probably sabotaged my vague goals of finishing four books this week- it's pretty chunky- but I'm not that bothered. I've heard amazing things about this book and so far so good!


Friday and Saturday

Aaaaand then it all went to hell. I won't bother with stats for these two days, because I read two pages. Total. I had a family emergency on Friday night and had to go home, missing work and everything. Everyone's alive and more or less well, don't worry- but yeah. One of those rubbish complicated family drama things. So, I basically spent two days flicking about on Reddit and Tumblr, not really able to focus on anything. Bit of a wash out, really.

Things have mostly resolved themselves now though (as much as they can...) so fingers crossed I'll read more than one page on Sunday!


Sunday

Reading: Possession by A. S. Byatt
Pages read; 20
Total pages read: 511
Total books finished: 2

Thoughts: Hey look, I read more than one page! Seriously though, today I was really busy with uni work. It's that time of year. I had a deadline for something that really should not have taken as long as it did, so there's that. Honestly, it's a miracle I read 20 pages.

I'm enjoying Possession. As a lit student there's an awful lot to relate to... though perhaps not the best book to dip into when I'm trying to take a break from all that!


Round up
Well, I didn't reach my admittedly ambitious goal of four books finished, but I did finish two and start another, so that's not too bad. I was doing pretty well at the start of the week, but personal issues got in the way and I wasn't really able to recover that. Still, I don't think I did too badly!