Yey I made it! I missed a couple of days in there due to work and real life, but I genuinely put in effort to read extra pretty much every day so I feel really great about this Bout of Books!

Favorite Thing: I got into the habit of finding extra time to read and wanting to make progress, and I hope that it’ll stick for a while!

Goals: 

• Read at least 2 hours every day - Didn’t manage everyday, but read more than usual!
• Read audiobooks whenever driving - Check!
• Finish at least two books this week - Didn’t quite get this, but I’m almost done with the second one, so I’m still happy!
• Spend at least one hour (OUTSIDE OF MY BLOG) communicating with the community - I participated in several of the challenges and did a lot more blog hopping than I normally do, and did a Twitter chat, so I think I did well on this :D
• Find 4 new blogs to follow :D - Done! My list is below :D

4 New Blogs Goal:

• The Magic Pen
• Bibliotropic
• Croft Fantasy Reads
• The Little Red Reviewer

On the one grand prize vs. many overall: 

I didn’t really care for the grand prize and realized it would be more valuable to someone else, so I didn’t enter. I have no real need for specialty business cards, and was rather disappointed since they don’t seem very book related to me, though I understand that a lot of people were excited about them. I would say a more book related grand prize or just several smaller prizes would have made me a little happier, but I was already really happy with the read a thon, so it’s all good :D .

How did everyone else like the read a thon? What was your favorite part?

-A

Whoops, I missed a day it appears :(. I went on a day trip out of town yesterday so I just didn’t have much time I’m afraid. I made progress with my audiobook though and got some new books from the library! I just got Beggars and Choosers by Nancy Kress and Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin on audio! I also am very happy to be able to say that I got my first unsolicited review copy and have started on that as well! I don’t think I’ll be meeting my goal to finish another book though :(.

That’s all I really got today since today was a date day and while I did a lot of reading at the Minnesota History Museum today, that doesn’t really count for book progress ;-). How’s everyone else’s finishing stretch going?

-A

As I said yesterday, I didn’t get as much reading done yesterday as I would have liked, however, I had today off work! I promised I’d catch up and catch up I did! I finished Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress and participated in the twitter chat and went blog hopping. I’m feeling pretty good ;-).

Goals: 

• Read at least 2 hours every day - Check! And I caught up from yesterday ;-)
• Read audiobooks whenever driving - didn’t drive today >.> still counts? lol
• Finish at least two books this week - Finished Beggars in Spain today! 1/2
• Spend at least one hour (OUTSIDE OF MY BLOG) communicating with the community - I participated in the Challenge today and the twitter chat and went blog hopping :D
• Find 4 new blogs to follow :D - Done! My list is below :D

4 New Blogs Goal:

• The Magic Pen
• Bibliotropic
• Croft Fantasy Reads
• The Little Red Reviewer

I’m very excited to have found all of these in the Book Blogger Directory under the sci-fi/fantasy section since I saw a lot of books I had read and liked reviewed on these blogs. I apparently have weird taste and have had trouble finding bloggers that like what I like, but I’m looking forward to reading the archives on these blogs :D.

Day 3 Challenge: 

Today’s challenge was Re-Title It at Books Devoured and I chose to do Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress since that was what was on my mind!

I think that a more sci-fi title would suit this book better since from the title I had no idea how awesomely sci-fi the plot would be. Therefore I proposed Those Who Never Sleep though I’m sure there are better sci-fi alternates out there ;-). Anyone have any other cool ideas?

How did everyone’s third day go? I’m nervous about the rest of the week since I’m going to be driving and packing for part of the day in a slow moving out process, but I’m definitely going to try for my goals anyway :D.

-A

Oof, so work asked me to stay late today, so I didn’t get home until 9:30 pm which has severely cut into my read a thon time. I’m definitely not going to be able to keep up with all my goals today, but I have tomorrow off so I’ll make up for it tomorrow, that counts right? :D

Goals: 

• Read at least 2 hours every day - not even close… stupid work
• Read audiobooks whenever driving - done, yey!
• Finish at least two books this week - still batting zero here…
• Spend at least one hour (OUTSIDE OF MY BLOG) communicating with the community - I participated in Nyx’s Story Challenge at least :D My comment is below
• Find 4 new blogs to follow :D - Still looking for more fantasy/sci-fi adult blogs!

Day 2 Challenge comment: 

I posted this story over in the comments on the day two challenge, but I’ll repost here ;-)

All right, so back before anyone knew what the heck Harry Potter was, I received the first book as a birthday gift and set it on my shelf because I had other things that I was reading/doing etc at that age. A few months later I was apparently feeling secretive in the way that young children sometimes do and so I decided that I was going to start reading this book about witches and wizards, but not tell my parents. I definitely knew that there was no reason to keep it a secret, but I apparently just found it fun to go out of my way to hide reading this book. I have no memory of when it went from this fun secret project to “OMG must read more right NAO” but Harry Potter definitely didn’t stay a secret long in my family after that first book ;-)

How’s the second day for everyone? Anyone else get the second day slump? I didn’t mean to D:

-A

Updates from Day 1:

• Read at least 2 hours every day - Pretty close! 1/2 hour off right now, might sneak it in ;-) Spent my time reading Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress on page 277 of 438 and omg I loooooove this book!
• Read audiobooks whenever driving - As close as I could since I got a Nora Roberts audiobook only after work today :) But now I will!
• New: Brave the new scary library and GET SOME AUDIOBOOKS NAO!!! >.> - Check! And it was scary >.> So quiet!
• Finish at least two books this week (gulp… not really close on anything…) - Getting there, might be able to :D
• Get at least one book from Goodreads to-read list from library -DONE :D Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress has been on the list for a while and it came into the library the other day and I GOT IT! :D
• Spend at least one hour (OUTSIDE OF MY BLOG) communicating with the community - Pretty much done if you count going through my reader as 10 mins :D Link me if you want to be on my blog hopping list for tomorrow!
• Find 4 new blogs to follow :D - Still working on this, not that there aren’t lots of awesome blogs, but I’m not very into YA and have trouble finding mostly fantasy/sci-fi adult book blogs, so if you have one please please please link me!!

Woot! Finishing up typing just as the boyfriend comes home from work, go me and my awesome timing! I had a headache when I came home from work today, so didn’t have as much fun on the first day as I would have liked, but I was able to drag my tired butt to the library which I wasn’t sure was going to happen. I’m really happy that I’m actually managing to stick with my goals so far, since I’ve had a lot of trouble with read a thons in the past when real life butts in. How’s everyone else doing? Anyone else succeeding with a read a thon for the first time? *high fives everyone* wooooot!

-A

Yey Bout of Books time :D I have to work this morning, but I’m re-posting my goals and slightly adding to them for my own reminder and because the holiday weekend kept me from fully preparing for this :(

Goals: 

• Read at least 2 hours every day (doesn’t count reading during lunch break because that’s hard to time ;-) )
• Read audiobooks whenever driving (as soon as you get the stash of them)
• New: Brave the new scary library and GET SOME AUDIOBOOKS NAO!!! >.>
• Finish at least two books this week (gulp… not really close on anything…)
• Get at least one book from Goodreads to-read list from library (DONE :D)
• Spend at least one hour (OUTSIDE OF MY BLOG) communicating with the community
• Find 4 new blogs to follow :D

So, the caps-lock sections are mostly new additions to further guide my blogging and reading ;-) and I think I’ll be able to meet all my daily goals today since my boyfriend and I are on opposite work shifts so he won’t be home to distract me! *shoos him away*

How’s everyone’s first day going???

-A