48h Book Challenge 2011 : Finish Line!

The end has come and I feel slightly disappointed; I didn’t do as good as I had hoped to.

I had been excited to join, but felt weirdly unable to concentrate on my reading or to pick a book. I started many that I put back in the pile, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. On top of that, I had an annoying headache all Sunday morning and afternoon, so I didn’t do much reading until the evening.

But you know, life happens and it’s not too bad! I still managed to read some, and since I enjoyed every of the three small books I managed to read, I count myself lucky. 🙂

So let’s see how I did :

• Time Reading : 15h45
• Time Blogging : 1h00 (I only tweeted a little, I’m ashame to say)
• Number Books Read : 3
• Pages Read : 732 (not counting the many ones I picked, read 5-20 pages, then put back in the pile)
• Books read : Sometimes it Happens by Lauren Barnholdt (light and funny), Cut by Patricia McCormick (I cried), The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer (captivating)

As announced in my previous post, I’ll be giving 10 books to a local charitable organism, although what I would love is maybe to give them to a school, so I’ll be looking into that first thing Monday morning. 🙂

 

48h Book Challenge 2011 : I’m in!

It’s back!

And I’m in again!

I wasn’t sure I would join this year, and I will probably to this even more casually than the two previous years, but I’m glad I can take this weekend to read, read, and read – especially since I haven’t been able to join Dewey’s read-a-thon for the last four times!

You can find all the rules and other participants at http://www.motherreader.com/, and sign up for the fun!

Things I won’t do for this challenge :

• Skip sleeping completely
• Skip eating
• Skip showering
• Skip caffeinating
• Skip feeding the cat
• Skip petting the cat
• Anything that requires ignoring the cat. I care for my life.
• Have any kind of social contact with “real” people (except for the Man, who feeds me. It’s polite to say “thanks” when you are handed food.)

Things I will do for this challenge :

• Drink coffee
• Read
• Visit book blogs
• Blog
• Rince and repeat!

I will keep track of my reading with this simple chart :

• Time Elapsed : 0h00
• Time Reading : 0h00
• Time Blogging :
• Books Read : –
• Pages Read : 0
• Currently Reading : Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Since I am extremely poor right now, I won’t be giving money : instead, for each book I read, I’ll be giving 2 books to a local charitable organism, and I’ll round the total to the ten. So if I read 4 books, I should give 8, and I’ll round it up to 10. These will not be books that already are in the “give away” box, either. I’ll try to part with some books I enjoyed so they can be loved by new readers!

Did you join the fun, too? What are you planning on reading for the occasion?

48h Book Challenge 2010 : Finish Line!

Wouh! It’s the end already!

So let’s see how I did :

Time Reading : 20h15

Social blogging/twittering time : 1h50

Books Read : 4

Pages Read : 1181

Books Read :

1. Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund
2. Wicked by Sara Shepard
3. Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski
4. Going too Far by Jennifer Echols

So this was, as I thought it would be, a fully YA weekend of reading. I’m happy to report that I enjoyed each of these books, to various degrees.

My objectives were 20 hours and 4 books, and I did that. But honestly, I was kind of hoping to beat last year’s time of 26h20. Saturday was stressful though, because it was the first day our cat was off his painkillers and he was hurting and acting weird. I wasn’t sure if it was normal and I was constantly checking on his every move instead of reading. It took, it seemed, an eternity for the vet to call us back, only to tell us “Oh yeah, we forgot to tell you, he’ll be hurting for about 3 weeks.” Poor kitty 😦

So : it’s 1215 minutes of reading for 1181 pages, which means that I really am reading about one page minute. It varies depending on the book and how tired I am, but that’s mostly it!

As for a charity, I would love to give to one of the organisation working on the oil spill, but I haven’t made a choice on which one yet. I’m broke, so I’ll probably go with a small 5$ per book 🙂

48h Book Challenge 2010 : It’s On!

At 8 pm tonight I started reading for the 48h Book challenge! I’m so excited to do it again this year, especially since I haven’t been able to join the fun for the last two Read-a-thons.

If you want to join the fun too, it’s not too late! You can find all the rules and other participants at http://www.motherreader.com/

Last year, I read 26h20 and finished 6 books for 1377 pages, two of which I had started reading before the challenge. This year, I would like to read at least 20 hours and 4 books, with no particular number of pages. I’m setting my goals lower because I have a supper to attend on Saturday night, and I also have a small test to study for.

I’m planning on drinking lots of coffee and taking care of the cat, who’s still not 100% healthy (but getting closer every day!). My reading will probably consist in some shorter YA books. I find that, when reading for such a period of time, it’s better to have shorter books and variety.

Here’s how my first hour went :

Time Elapsed : 1h10

Time Reading : 1h00

Books Read : –

Pages Read : 66

Currently Reading : Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund

It’s a really fun book, and short too, so I have no doubt I’ll finish it tonight.

Are you participating too? What are you reading right now? What are your goals?

48h Book Challenge – The Finish Line!

I did it! I’m going through the finish line, finally! There are a few minutes left, but I’ll stop now to blog a little, thank you very much!

It was hard, that 48 hours thing. Even with sleep, I found it harder than the 24 hours without sleep. Today, my headache was gone, but I found myself distracted by any noise or movement around me. Except for food and sleep, I did almost nothing but read today, and yet it seemed I was making my way through the books really slowly. Even though they were good books.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely! (but not every week :P)

Here are the final stats. Some of the books I read, I had begun before, but I count only what I read for the challenge. Also, the time for Blogging and Reading is an estimate, I was counting by 20 minutes slices.

Time Elapsed : 48h

Time Reading : 26h20

Time Blogging, Tweeting : 4h00 min

Pages Read since last update : 707

Pages Read Total : 1377

Number of Times the Cat tried to Run Interference between the Book and I : 16 (and a few meows)

Books Read : 6

• Best Intentions by Emily Listfield (the last 238 pages)
• The Foretelling by Alice Hoffman (167 pages)
• Fade by Lisa Mcmann (248 pages)
• Alaska by John Green (221 pages)
• The Prairie Bridesmaid by Daria Salamon (261 pages)
• Signora Da Vinci by Robin Maxwell (the last 242 pages)

The Good :

• I got to read good books! I was lucky enough to like all the books I read this weekend
• I got to pet the cat a lot
• The Cat got to be petted a lot
• Drank lots of coffee
• 4 books less from my TBR pile!
• 2 books I can return to the library to borrow new ones!
• I discovered some great new blogs
• My computer got magically formatted for me while I read

The Less Good :

• My “To Be Reviewed” pile is getting higher and higher… arf!

I was giving 4$ per book and the man was giving 2$! 🙂 Which means we collected 42$ that I decided will go toward the same fund as the one for the read-a-thon, the WWF!

I hope everyone who participated had fun! If you did and you stop by, tell me, what was the best book you got to read? What was the most difficult part of the challenge? And if you didn’t participate, I’m still curious : is this something you’d enjoy? Or do you prefer to read here and there, without too many rules or time restrictions?

48h Book Challenge – Hour 24

It’s 10h30 here and, in 30 minutes from now, I’ll have done half of my way through this challenge! Yippee!

I haven’t read as much as I wished, but it’s not too bad either. Right now I’m making my way through Looking for Alaska and so far, I love it! My headache isn’t completely gone yet, though, and I hate that, but I drink coffee and it helps (why is that, by the way? Is it just me, or does caffeine helps against headaches? It works for my mom too, but I always wondered.)

Time Elapsed : 23h30

Time Reading : 14h40

Time Blogging, Tweeting : 2h00 min.

Books Read : 3.5

Pages Read since last update : 320

Pages Read Total : 745

Number of Times the Cat tried to Run Interference between the Book and I : 7

I wrote my review for Best Intentions today, but I decided to post it tomorrow so it doesn’t get flooded by the challenge updates. 🙂