It's Monday, what are you reading?

I have been busy for a while with work, plus had a bit of flu, so havent had a chance to get online much. I have, however done a fair bit of reading.
In the last week I have read the following:

• Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith which I enjoyed, but found a little slow going
• Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer. I really love his books, and read this in a day

Currently reading 3 books

• Dandelions in the Garden by Charlie Courtland. I was lucky enough to win 3 of this authors books and this is the first I am reading. I am thoroughly enjoying it, however since it is an e-book and I havent had much time on the computer I havent had a chance to read much
• New York by Edward Rutherford. A huge novel about the origins of New York, which I am thoroughly enjoying, but it is definitely time-consuming at just over 1000 pages.
• Getting home by Celia Brayfield. This is my first time reading Celia Brayfield that I remember and at the moment I am not too sure. I have only got 5 pages into it though, so will give it a chance.

So, that is what I am currently reading, for more inspiration pop over to Sheila's blog.

Summer mini readathon

I signed up for this a few days ago, posted in draft and obviously forgot to press publish! I have been reading since 8 am my time (GMT + 2). So far I have read the following:

Books read since start: 1 (Polar star by Martin Cruz Smith)
Books finished since start: 0
Pages read since start: 79
Time read since start: about 90 minutes

I do unfortunately have to go to the shops and have a bit of work to do, but will otherwise read for most of the day.

The two towers - possible spoilers

When we left the end of the first book Frodo and Sam had become seperated from the rest of the fellowship and this book continues that. Most of the book focuses on the adventures of the rest of the group. After burying Boromir, Legolas, Gimli and Aragon set off to find Merry and Pippin who have been captured by Orcs. They eventually meet up with Gandalf and go off to Gondor to fight a couple of battles. Merry and Pippin meanwhile escape from the orcs into Fangorn Forest where they meet Treebeard the ent and go off on some adventures of their own. In the meantime Frodo and Sam are nearing Mordor and finally meet up with Gollum and recruit him as a guide. The book ends with them in dire straits in Mordor.
This book is one that I always have mixed feelings about. There are some of my favourite parts and characters in it. I love the Ents and the parts in Fangorn Forest, I love the part where Frodo meets up with the Riders of Rohan and of course Gollum is always fascinating. As always, Tolkien builds such a fascinating world, which really draws you in to it, there are some wonderful battle scenes, and I love the banter between Gimli and Legolas. We also get to see Merry and Pippin as real characters on their own, rather then hangers on, which up until now they seem to have been. However, I do sometimes feel as if this book is just a "filler" There is no real beginning and end, it is just there in the middle, almost like something you have to get through to get to the good stuff in the last book.
I also have to talk about Sam here, he is such a wonderful supporting character. Always, loyal, helpful and trying desperately to do things for the good of his "master". I always think I would love to have a Sam by my side all the time!
I am really looking forward to starting the third one.
I just have to talk about Sam here  

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

This is going to be very quick since I am trying to catch up. I have been desperate to read this book since it came out, but it was always out at the library. A few weeks ago, I thought to check the Large Print section and there it was, in fact they had two copies. So, now I know what to do in future.
Robert Langdon, a renowned symbologist is asked by his mentor to give a lecture on very short notice. He rushes off to Washington only to find that his mentor, Peter Solomon has been kidnapped by Mal'akh and his right hand left in the Capitol building for Robert to find. Robert then teams up with Peter's sister Katherine to find the lost Masonic Pyramid and discover the lost word which will obviously solve all mysteries. Of course, nothing is as easy as it sounds and they are continuously chased and hindered by the CIA as well as being sent around by Mal'akh.
I enjoyed the book,however, it really follows the same old Dan Brown formula (not necessarily a bad thing) and I really didnt feel it was his best. Having said that there is a lot of action, twists and turns and enough historical information to keep me hooked throughout. What really frustrated me about this book was the CIA agent, Sato. She was so arrogant and obnoxious, and refused to give anything out. As a result she appeared to be the bad person and infact I thought she was in cahoots with Mal'akh in the start. I realise that obviously this is part of the plot, mystery etc, but in this book I thought that it was taken to such an extreme that it didn't really help the story.
Anyway, all in all I did enjoy the book and will be looking out for the next one.

Spud by John van de Ruit

I have been a bit over-blogged since the read-athon. Not to mention busy with work! I am quite behind on my reviews, so there should be a few more coming very soon!
Spud is a book by a South African author, about a young boy who wins a scholarship to a prestigious private boarding school. He arrives at the school which closely resembles a mad house, and in diary form it takes you through his adjustment to school, life as a young teenager in 1990s South Africa, his meetings with girls and assorted other adventures.

Now, I first read this book shortly after it came out. A little bit of background information here, is that I played tennis with the authors sister, I grew up in the same area and his mom came to our church. My grandparents also lived about 15 minutes away from the school it is based on. So, when the book first came out, that was the reason I bought it. But I loved it then. I saw the movie at the beginning of the year, which I also enjoyed and decided to reread the series.
Spud is a really mad book, and  has a bit for everybody. It is laugh aloud funny at times, but deals with serious issues that all teenagers face at some stage. There is really a bit of everything and Spud has to face it all - night swims, romance, ghost hunting, mad parents and even madder granny (aka The wombat), being the star cricketer, actor, but failing hopelessly at rugby (closely aligned to god in South Africa),not to mention an insane cubicle mate, demented cat and some really odd teachers. It deals with bullying, issues of identity, self-esteem, romance and even death, all of this is handled in a light-hearted way without getting bogged down in too much negative emotion.
Obviously this book appealed to me for the fact that it really took me down memory lane in a way, and it is quite South African. However I think it would appeal to many groups of people - those who like comedy, anybody who was a teenager in the late 80s, early 90s,  anyone who went to boarding school.
A couple of things which may upset some people - there is a bit of reference to sex in a typical early teenage manner, although there are no sex scenes, it is more them desperately trying to devise ways to have sex. Also, one of the pupils has an affair with a teachers wife, this is not really out there, but is alluded to rather than discussed. There is also a lot of typical boy high jinks and a little bit of violence, bullying etc, although not by the main character. It didnt bother me and my 13 year old has seen the movie and read the book, we had a discussion about the issues and that was it.
Anybody who read and enjoyed Adrian Mole will love this book!
On a totally different note, I am desperate to read a book called Hard Time by Shaun Attwood, which details his experiences of life in prison in Arizona. His blog entries reminded me so much of a grown up Spud! Obviously, much bigger issues dealt with, but his style is very similar.  

FINISH LINE: SiS Readathon Report # 2

Ok, I failed hopelessly last night at staying up all night. I wrote my last update at 8pm my time (12:00pm MT) , but only started reading again at about 9pm. I read until 12, from then I battled to stay awake until about 1:30am. Then I decided to have a half hour nap, when I woke up I still couldnt stay awake, lol. I did set my alarm, but it didnt help. So, here we are at the end. I hope it is okay that this is a little late, since I have only just got up now.

1.First of all, give us an end-of-read-a-thon status update. Books read, pages read, you know the drill!

Total Books read: 4 and a half

Total pages read: 1308

Books read since last update: 1

Pages read since last update: 255

Total time read: 21 hours. (Was probably a bit more, but since I kept falling asleep I havent counted it)

How am I feeling now. Well after about 6 hours sleep not too bad! Just wondering why I am able to stay up much later to read books than to study.

Books finished since the start of the readathon:

• Absolution by Caro Ramsay
• The two towers by J.R.R Tolkien
• The secret Island by Enid Blyton
• Beach Road by James Patterson
•  King Solomon's mines by H.Rider Haggard.

2.What is your favorite book you read during the read-a-thon?
The two towers but I enjoyed all the books that I read

3.Did you participate in any mini-challenges? Which ones?
I have to say I didn't do very well in this department. Partly due to the difference in time zone. By the time the challenges got up and running I wasn't in the mood to be sitting at the computer. But, a lot of it was also that I was just so busy reading that I didn't get onto the computer much. I only did the Book Character Pairing and the Organisation one.

4.Which mini-challenge was your favorite?
I loved looking at the wordles and this will definitely be something I do on my own. But this is my daughters computer, so have to wait until I get mine back.

5.What has been your favorite thing about the read-a-thon?

I loved the twitter feed, although I didn't tweet much. I also enjoyed just taking the time out to read.


6.Are you satisfied with how much reading you got done? Did you do more than you expected? Less?

I actually read more than I expected mainly because I got more time to read than I expected. With my daughter spending time away unexpectedly I was uninterrupted.

7.What did you think of the updates? Too close together? Didn't like the time limit?

I liked that they were 2 hours apart, gave you time to get reading inbetween. I understood them to be voluntary unless you wanted to win that prize and so I chose to do 4 hourly updates. The reason I did this is I know I am a computer addict and tend to get stuck here, so didnt want to be on the computer too much. What I did do is to check the site on my phone every 2 hours then if there was a challenge that I really wanted to take part in I would have. I think also that having regular updates means that you fit in with every bodys schedule. Those that are ready for a break can stop, those that aren't can carry on. As far as the time limit goes I think 2 hours is fine, especially for those that only require you to answer a question. Maybe it could be extended to 4 hours for those like the writing one, the puzzle and the wordle that require a little bit more.

8.If you could change one thing about the read-a-thon, what would it be?

As I said in my previous post one of my problems was the time difference. But, obviously that will never satisfy everybody and has to fit in with the host! Where I did have a big advantage was that it only started at 4pm for me so I didnt have a problem with work. I wouldn't change anything actually I thought it was well planned and run. I would make sure I had a few more drinks at home and more comfortable reading places. I got a bit tired of the same places and it was rainy so I couldnt go outside. Also, I would have a few childrens books (long ones obviously) available. I did read one and it really broke the intenseness of the reading.

9.Would you participate in another read-a-thon hosted by Squeaky Books? Why or why not?
Yes I would I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

10.Any last comments on the read-a-thon?

Nope, they are sprinkled above.

Thanks for a really great 36 hours.








 

Spring into Summer Readathon Day 2 Update Post

Update 2 (officially number 8)
This is my 2nd update for today, but the 8th in the readathon.

Mini-challenge:
If you had bookshelves FULL of all of your favorite books, how would you organize them?
Now this is really a question that I need to consider, since I have so many books and need to sort them out. When I say so many books, I have my own, my dads, my moms and even some of my grandparents! They are in bookshelves and boxes all over. I really need to go through them.
Most likely I would organise them alphabetically by authors name, since it makes them so easy to find. It is one of the reasons that I hate the main library near me, since it is so huge that often books are put back incorrectly and you can never find anything. I would put series together, but otherwise strictly alphabetically. But now here comes the problem! I really love the look of a row of books all of the same size. I dont like the higgledy piggledy look of all different sizes together. Whenever I have organised my daughters bookshelf (which I have to do fairly regularly) this is my main bugbear. So, I would probably have it alphabetically but bigger books in a shelf on their own.
Whew, that was a bit of a novel wasn't it?

Update:
Total books read: 3 and a half
Total pages read: 1103
Books read since last update: 1 (Beach Road by James Patterson)
Pages Read since last update: 232
Total time read: 1017 minutes (16hrs 57 min)
How am I feeling: Actually I am quite tired at the moment, so I have stopped for a bit of a break, to eat and rest my eyes a bit. I may have a little nap later, but hope to read right through now. My daughter is home, so she has been reading with me for the last couple of hours.

Books finished since start of readathon:
1. Absolution by Caro Ramsey
2. The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien
3. The secret Island by Enid Blyton
4. Beach Road by James Patterson




Update1 (officially update 6)
24 hours into the readathon and I am doing relatively well, I think anyway. I had a bit of a nap at lunchtime but apart from that and making and eating lunch I have read for most of the day. I have also just found out that my daughter is going to play squash with her friend and will get dropped off, so I dont need to go out at all and can just continue reading.
Total books read: 2 complete books, (Absolution, The secret Island), and a half (finished The Two Towers)
Total pages read: 871
Books read since last update: 1 and a half
Pages read since last update: 313
Total time: 840minutes (14 hours)
How am I feeling: Actually quite good, enjoying the book I am reading at the moment, about to get some coffee. I just want to say that this time I have had much less snacks etc since the last readathon and I actually seem to have managed better!

Mini-Challenge
Was to pair two characters from different series.

When I saw this I was immediately reminded two of my favourite male characters of all time (Jamie Fraser from the Outlander series is the third)
I personally think that al Lan Mandrogaron from The Wheel of Time Series and Aragorn/Striker from Lord of The Rings would make an awesome team. They have always struck me as similar characters, both strong, silent type, loyal and will do anything to do what they need to do. They definitely would kick some *ss if together.