August/September 2014 ReadaThing: LOGBOOK

The August/September/Labor Day ReadaThing is about to begin!

We've already been chatting on another thread about what we PLAN to read. This thread is for what we ACTUALLY read, as well as where, how, with whom or what...

(I've worded the questions as if you are posting just after you read, but feel free to post before, during, or after!)

**What book or books did you read?
**Where did you read? (specific or vague is fine) Posting a picture of where you read is encouraged.
**When did you read? How long did you read?
**Doing anything else? food, music, listening to someone snore, watching the sun rise or set...

Other Suggestions for Comments:
**Is it a GOOD BOOK? Tell us what you thought of it...
**Were there any passages worth sharing? (because they made you smile, or shake your head, or stick a postit on the page)
**Did it meet or exceed your expectations?
**Do you recommend it?
**Was it a fast read or a thoughtful read?
**Did it make you laugh or cry or "be afraid, be very afraid"?
**Was it boring?
**Would you read it again?
**Are you going to throw it off a cliff into the sea?
We aren't expecting a full review of the book, although, that's fine... just give us a flavor of the book...tempt us into reading it or warn us to keep clear!

Have some fun with your reading! There's going to be a good group of us reading along with you (virtually speaking), and we'll be really quiet, except for the tapping of the keyboards as people check in.

The signup page is here: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/ReadaThing-AugSept2014

For those in the "No Timeline" group, please fill in the timeline indicating when you actually read and keep adding on as you feel moved to read throughout the weekend!

I'm looking forward to following everyone's reading projects . . . when I'm not reading myself!

Have a Great ReadaThing!

Okay, I'm going to declare the Official Opening of the August/September 2014 ReadaThing a few minutes early, so I can make a cup of tea and get settled with my book!

I'll be starting off with The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. I thought I'd be finished with it by now. I really was enjoying it, but then about half way through the plot took a turn that really pissed me off!! I almost threw it across the room. So I didn't read it for a few days. But it's for a book group, so I need to finish it. (And won't post any spoilers here about what got me so angry. :) I'll be reading in bed, with a cup of tea. Most likely my cat Marvel will join me.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Reading!!!!

This is the first time I'm trying a LT ReadaThing. I'm reading The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt, a Booker long list nominee for this year that I'm enjoying so far.

I'm hanging out in our family room with my husband who is watching football and my two little boys are sleeping upstairs. My favorite time of night! Off to read!

I'm hoping to finish the audio version of Alan Furst's The World at Night. I love his books. Normal people caught up in the beginnings of WWII and struggling to survive. And at times forced by circumstances to be active in the resistance.

>3 japaul22:
I've read Siri Hustvedt's The Shaking Woman, which was a memoir . . . and fascinating. I haven't tried her fiction. I'll have to check it out!

I read WhipEye by Geoffrey Saign. I read on my couch. I've been reading it off an on all day between chores, but I read intensely between seven and eight o'clock this evening (PST). I read it while listening to music (Aura) on my T.V.

It is an excellent book. It exceeded my expectations because I had no idea part of it would be so emotional--a tear jerker. Yes, it brought tears to my eyes. I would definitely recommend it. I'm not quite done with it yet. It's mainly written for middle grade students, but then that's for which age group I write.

>6 LenitaSheridan: if you put square brackets - [ and ] - around the book title, it will go blue and be a link to the book on LT. Just underlining it marks it as a book title but makes it harder for others to investigate the book.

I finally finished a book I've been reading (as an ebook) for literally months. Lazette Gifford's Badlands. Interesting setting, great characters once I got into it - but the beginning was very slow and the ending was utterly annoying (ended on a side-trip, stopping before several important questions were answered). Also full of typos, unfortunately - I've done some editing work for Zette before, maybe I'll ask if she wants to rerelease this one with some work done. I did enjoy it, but I don't think I'll reread it over and over like her Muse and Ruins.

I read it on my phone, partly at the table over dinner (alone) and partly sitting on my sofa in my usual spot, with a cat curled up next to me (and regularly demanding petting).

I've read for my first hour and been tucked into a corner trying to ignore the noise drilling through my head of whatever the neighbors are having done now (it's involved a truck outside their house for the last hour and a half and a huge amount of noise. Not the best scenario for reading and it's been a bit slow going but progress was made and reading of Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks was done. I'm hoping to get another couple of hours done later in the day, but I really out to try and get some stuff done around the house now and I need to make some phone calls but whether anyone would be able to hear me over the racket is another question.

I've just been working on Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991, an ER book I've sadly neglected and need to rectify! Reading at my desk in my little corner, as usual. I will post a pic later. I did chuckle-snort at learning the tsarist censors had mistakenly let through Das Kapital "assuming that 'very few people in Russia' would read the heavy tome of political economy, and 'even fewer would understand it.'" When, of course, it wound up leading to revolution there long before any of the Western societies it was intending to reach.
Also at "[Lenin] suppressed his emotions to strengthen his resolve and cultivate the 'hardness' he believed was required by the successful revolutionary: the capacity to spill blood for the revolution's ends. There was no place for sentiment in Lenin's life. 'I can't listen to music too often,' he once admitted after a performance of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata. 'It makes me want to say kind, stupid things, and pat the heads of people. But now you have to beat them on the head, beat them without mercy.'" Obviously the "need" to beat people is not amusing, but his reaction to music... hahaha.

Well, my feline alarm clock woke me an hour earlier than expected so at 6am eastern US time I'll begin my slot 7am slot.
I'll start with Manon Lescaut for an online class I'm taking.
Good luck, readers.

My good intentions on reading in a sensible block were disrupted by oversleeping and then a parcel arriving and turning out to be an amazing painting shipped as a birthday present for my beloved other (and requiring some care and attention to unpack and confirm it was in one piece). So I've started as I'll no doubt continue, with a half hour squeezed in over breakfast, then a full hour from 10.30-11.30 finishing off Tigerman (just so I can make the Wiki look as messy as possible ;)

Curled up on the sofa with coffee and toast doesn't feel quite appropriate for the climax of Tigerman (which is awesome and made of win, to quote his diminutive companion), but it's far too early in the morning for whisky and I just don't like really strong builder's tea with a mountain of sugar in it. I remain a bit bewildered by the lady in the bookshop who told me it featured a psychic volcano. I suppose that's one way of interpreting it, but it's far from explicit - although it's clearly her headcanon, and far be it from me to argue with that if it works for her. I did briefly think it was going to break my heart, but it didn't in the end - although it was immensely satisfying for Harkaway's deft grasp of mythmaking plot arcs.

Now for a break to do some chores, and then I'll figure out whether it's Seroster, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, or some other childhood favourite up next.

I finished up The World at Night last night, another great WWII thriller from Alan Furst. I'm still reading A Spy in the House and will at sometime today begin The Mermaids Singing.

This morning I have a cup of vanilla tea beside me.

It is cooler this morning so I have the door near me open to listen to the birds of morning. It will be hotter later, though, so I'll be reading inside, either here at my desk or in the great room in the comfy chair.

Still reading Victorian Technology; quite enjoying it! I've mainly been reading this at lunchtime at work, but will be reading it in my cosy bedroom reading spot during the weekend, accompanied by a nice cup of tea.

Signed up and reading The Stranger, otherwise known as The Gallows Bird by Camilla Lackberg. This is the first novel by this Swedish author that I am reading. I will be reading it on my kindle, on my bed, enjoying the breeze through the window. It remains to be seen if my cat will join me.

I've picked up The Silver Brumby as the first of my totally indulgent childhood rereads, enjoyed in a steaming hot bath.

Read in my "Field of Dreams" reading corner this morning from 8-9am CDT, with my cat (who did not want to settle down) and a cup of tea.



I finally finished A New New Testament (which initially comes up as Grimm's Fairy Tales in the touchstones :) I reviewed this book when it first arrived from ER, but at nearly 600 pages I was basically reviewing the concept (of adding 10 Early Christian writings to the traditional NT) based on scanning and sampling some of the "new" parts. I'll be adding to my review now that I've read the whole thing.

The rest of the morning totally got away from me . . . mostly because the Rainbow Chard from my garden that was going to go into my lunch didn't look good, so then I had to come up with something else for lunch, go to the grocery to get spinach so that what was going to be lunch will now become dinner . . . so much for spending the day reading!

One more confession: I'm using old pics of my reading spots . . . it's rainy and dreary here today so not the best light for new pics.

This is my corner. I usually just read in my chair there, at my desk...

But sometimes I lay on my "camping" chair (its "official" purpose, but its purpose as far as I'm concerned is a reclined chair in my living room since my couch sucks and I don't always want to sit in a desk chair!), which you can see somewhat in the first photo, in front of my regular chair.


ETA
Oh and for anyone curious, lol, the cardboard at the bottom of the first pic is the "rat ring." Since they're naughty crazy buggers who can't be let properly loose without spazzing.

Woke up far too early, considering I didn't get to bed until after 6am. 12:45pm wake up time means sleep deprivation, yay! But at least it was productive sleep deprivation. Around 1:30 or so, I picked up one of my library books, This Book Is Full Of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong, which I am enjoying the hell out of. Didn't read straight through, like I would've hoped though. In the hour and a half that I was laying on the couch trying to read, I got a few chapters in, but I also played a couple words on Words With Friends, I got my stomach jumped on repeatedly by two cats that don't yet realize they each weigh at least six pounds, I talked to my fiancee for a few minutes, and eventually ate a bowl of cereal. But I read about fifty pages, so I wasn't being as bad as that makes it sound. I had the smart tv on Pandora the entire time, switching out my usual yoga station for the Classical For The Soul radio that's still playing as I type this. I can't read with silence, because my brain gets distracted with every little noise. I'd be reading further, but nap time is in order. Have fun reading, everybody. I'll be rejoining you soon.

>17 .Monkey.:
Fun to see other people's reading spaces!
And happy to see that the open slot I had hoped to fill in got filled in by someone else while I was napping instead. :)

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was able to fill a blank spot! It wasn't even planned, I just happened to not be doing anything so picked up my book, and then went to fill it in only to find it was an empty one, woo! Hahaha.

I'm stuck on a long bus ride made longer by holiday weekend traffic and have spent the last four hours alternately staring out the window and reading The Tent of Miracles. It is sometimes fascinating and sometimes dull and I'm not sure what to make of it yet.

Since I'm posting via phone, I'll have to add myself to the timeline when I return home on Sunday.

I read some more of The Signature of All Things tonight . . . in bed with cat and iced coffee (mostly decaf with coconut milk "creamer").

Today I was supposed to work the morning shift at a local store. Then I discovered that my manager, who is on vacation, had scheduled someone else for that timeslot, and that I wasn't needed at work! Wonderful! I came home and got back into my pajamas and (with some interruptions for food and cat), have been reading all day!

Started and finished The Green Mile by Stephen King. Loved it. The movie is a favourite of mine, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how little the movie script deviated from the novel.

Around dinner-time I started Jo Nesbo's Cockroaches. I'd forgotten how good his writing is. This novel finds Harry, Nesbo's alcoholic Oslo police officer, sent to Bangkok to help cover up the fact that the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand has been found stabbed to death in a seedy brothel.

......not sure what I'll read after I've finished the Nesbo, but am considering two books: Ann Patchett's The Patron Saint of Liars, or perhaps I'll stick with mystery novels and tackle P.D. James' Devices and Desires.

Having fun with my first ReadaThing!

....there are other questions.....my reading area is far too messy to post a photo of right now. I read in bed, and it's unmade. Ate while eating lunch (a roast beef and mozzarella cheese sandwich, and some green seedless grapes), while eating dinner (salmon and broccoli), and read accompanied by the cat, until she started eating the book jacket, at which point I deposited her in the living room and closed the bedroom door.

It was a slowish night at work, so I got a bit of reading done. I was interrupted a few times, so my times may be off.

I started by reading a few (relevant) chapters of How to be the world's smartest traveler by Christopher Elliott. I got some good advice and some good ideas, too.

Then I read my daily reading from the ECUSA's project, The Bible Challenge by Marek P. Zabriskie and the three readings (OT, Psalm, & NT). My parish is starting the challenge this fall in the Adult Book/Study Group. So far, so good.

And you really don't want me to post of picture of where I was reading... very plain vanilla & undecorated computer workstation. Not a work-cube, but a very bland & beige cinderblock office.

Having loads of fun with my first ReadAThing already. Yays! Anyway, I read for almost an hour (4:15am - 5:09am), again on my couch in the front room. No cats jumping on my stomach this time though, thankfully. I should've gone to bed hours ago, but I was hoping I could finish The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom by Leah Cutter. No such luck, though. I hit the point of can't keep my eyes open any longer with 33 pages left to go. Sad face. I'm definitely going to try finishing it when I get up in the afternoon. So close... I don't care that this book is most likely intended for middle schoolers, I'm completely hooked. Didn't stop me from reading the Artemis Fowl series or the Percy Jackson series (or from them being two of my favorites). Y/A novels til I die of old age. Heh heh heh... ^_^ Hope everybody has a good morning of reading while I'm asleep. I love hearing about the interesting books everybody is reading. Keep 'em comin'.

I zoomed through the rest of The Silver Brumby last night, and moved on to Dragons of Autumn Twilight. This... hasn't stood the test of time so well. It speaks volumes that it feels like it was written for a younger reading age than The Silver Brumby, which I first read when I was 7!

Last night's reading was tucked up in bed as my beloved other was out on the town with his work colleagues, and this morning I've been curled back up on the sofa with cold feet but a cup of very nice coffee, rediscovering the joy of full-fat milk (although I like the sound of using coconut for creamer, lucindalibri - I might have to give that a go). I'd forgotten how full whole milk makes me feel, and how satisfied. Yum.

I'm in two minds as to whether to persevere with Dragonlance. I'm not getting any joy from it, and the short choppy sentences and liberal exclamation marks are starting to make my teeth sore from gritting them... but the nostalgia bug may see me through. Maybe.

Morning! Here I am for my 7AM slot. Awoken, once again, by Mr. Mittens. Not quite ready to remove myself from the pleasant breeze coming thru my bedroom window, I will read in bed.
Pg 100 ish of Manon Lescaut. How gullible, naive etc, etc can Chevalier be. Well, let's find out!

I've been persevering and the book is picking up after the first 100 pages, so maybe I'll stick with it after all. It always helps to be curled up in my favourite reading spot in the attic with Mr Bear:

>24 skittles: & >25 VampAmber:
No pressure about the pics . . .

>26 imyril:
I'm dairy-free now for my sinuses (it really helps!), though before that I used half-and-half or full cream in my coffee :) The coconut milk adds just enough creamy fat-filled feel to make coffee without real cream drinkable. :)

Time to go make tea and then do some reading with Miss Marvel (my black-and-white cat who looks like a masked, caped crusader, thus her comic book name :). I only checked in on LT to find my "Currently Reading" list . . . which, sad to say, contains TEN books . . . time to reduce that number by finishing some!!

"Love is like the heavenly phenomenon known as the Milky Way, a shining mass made of a millions of little stars, many of them nebulae. Four or five hundred of the small successive feelings-so difficult to recognize- that go to make up love have been noted in books, but only the more obvious ones are there. Among the many errors is mistaking the lesser lights for the greater. The best of these books, such as La Novelle Heloise, the novels of Madame Cottin, The Letters of Mademoiselle Lespinasse, and Manon Lescaut, have been written in France, a country where the plant called love is chronically afraid of ridicule, stifled by the demands of rational passion-vanity-and hardly ever grows to its full stature."

Stendahl

>30 March-Hare: Great quote, March-Hare. I will keep it in mind and refer back to it as I continue on with ML.

>28 imyril: what a cozy reading place, imyril! I'd never want to leave the attic if mine looked like yours.

28 imyril: love your reading nook! I had a couch like that once, but it never looked so inviting.

Btw, love how so many of us read with our cats.

>28 imyril:
Love that space! (Is that a futon? I have a similar one in my living room . . . may read there later and post a photo.)

Read for another hour this morning. Made some more progress on Nicholas Nickleby and My Gender Workbook.

MGW is striking me as a bit dated now (published in 1998), though still might be useful for those questioning gender categories/identities. I picked it up again during the recent/ongoing kertuffle about "radical feminists" and transgender issues. I have many issues with how society wants to define "womanhood", but never to the extent that I felt I wasn't or didn't want to be a "woman". I've always figured the problem was with society, not with me. So, even though I know quite a few trans-identified people, I still find it difficult to imagine what it must be like to feel as if you were born into the "wrong" body . . . My Gender Workbook is designed as a workbook to explore these issues through exercises . . . so useful if one is experiencing those kinds of questions/issues, but not really helping me "get it" any more than the several other books I've read on this topic have. I suppose it is something you have to live through to really understand, but I'm trying.

Read most of the time from 10am-noon CDT with a short break for coffee and kitchari. Last night I made a big pot of kitchari (ayurvedic dal and rice stew) with sweet potato, chard, and spinach . . . so today I'm eating only that . . . more time for reading!

This time I was sitting on my front porch . . . thought I had a pic in my member gallery, but apparently not . . .

Updating now that I found the pic (from a RaT in 2012):

>33 LucindaLibri: yep, that's a futon :) Quite a lot of my guests ask to sleep up with the books rather than the proper bed downstairs... and then ask if they can borrow their reading material when they leave ;)

I like the look of your porch - all that greenery out the window!

I'm going to read Les plus beaux contes zen (The most beautiful zen stories) from Henri Brunel, in my bed, during two hours.

Most of today's reading has been audio as I'm also working on a crochet project that must keep progressing - I'm working my way through The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng but also while out shopping managed to acquire a number of extra books (all from a local charity store) and have been somewhat sucked into reading one of those - it's actually a children's book, but when I saw it I thought it might be good either for my nephew to read or for my sister to read with/to him as a bedtime story. It's called Squire Terence and the Maiden's Knight and it's by Gerald Morris. I'm only 3 chapters in but so far it's lightly amusing and takes the Arthurian legends as a starting point. I think it will be a good option for them (plus I acquired another 3 in the series at the same time, so it will give them a few to get their teeth into before they'd need to buy the rest of the series if they still wanted some more).

I got through about half of Dream London in my time slot last night. From here on I'm going "no timeline" but will add my name to any substantial time chunks.

I made some more progress in The Signature of All Things this afternoon. This time reading in my living room on my futon wearing my LibraryThing t-shirt (What's on your bookshelf?) (the pics below are from a previous RaT, but still appropriate . . . not much changes at my house, though my hair is longer now . . . but my camera doesn't make it easy to take "selfies" so I won't bother to update.)

Enjoying all the reading spot pictures.

Meanwhile, I finished A Spy in the House which was great fun. Still working on The Mermaids Singing and will start The Marco Effect this evening.

I stopped reading about two hours ago, but Facebook lured me in and made me almost forget to log it at all. :( I finally finished The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom, and now I can't wait until I can afford the second one in the trilogy (right now we're a bit tight, with everything going towards bills and groceries, so no buying ebooks at the moment). I loved it. I might have to look into Leah Cutter's other works now. Hopefully they're as good as this one. To set the scene (until I figure out how to post pictures on here), I was once again on the couch (sensing a trend yet? it's a very comfy couch), with a kitty sleeping on my stomach for the majority of it. Back to the yoga station on Pandora, as well. As soon as I can drag myself away from the computer again, I plan on going back to one of my other books, or starting up Places To See, so that I can review it, as well. Not sure which yet. All in all, a productive hour.

Last night I completed The Paper Chase, a reread. This morning I started Jane Eyre, a reread as well. Now I will start some unscheduled reading and I'm going to begin Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I'm hoping tomorrow morning will be cool enough to read on the porch but I've been reading inside so far.

I have been reading on/in my bed as I do most of my reading and my backside is a little stiff so I shall have to move to my rocking chair for some of my reading.
Starting off with my first 3, 3, 3, & 2:15 segments of time I have read:
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch; (4*),
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman; (5*),
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden; (5*),
and am well into Outlander by Diana Gabaldon which is such a chunkster, I am reading bits of it in between the others.

Woo! I'm here, thanks to skittles for linking me to this thread.

Firstly, I almost always read IN bed, although I manage a few pages on the shuttle bus to and from the parking lot and my office. :)

Last night I finished reading The Guns of Navarone, my first Alistair MacLean book. It was different from the movie (which I love), but I liked it fine. My reading slot was almost over, but I decided to start another book anyway, and I wound up staying awake until Wolf Brother was finished. Yippee! Two books complete, and BOTH were ROOT challenges.

This evening's slot was filled with The Enforcer, an autobiography of "Happy Jack" Burbridge. Jack was a horrible, violent criminal, but one day asks God to save him from himself, and so Jack becomes a born-again Christian. Very interesting story, and another ROOT book "off the shelves". Onward...

I'm impressed by the wide variety of reading material we are all tackling during the ReadaThing!

I finally finished The Signature of All Things, though now I need to do some research and fact-checking regarding some of the science in the book. I definitely enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second half, but am glad I made it all the way through . . . I rarely show up at book group unless I've finished the book.

Appreciating that this RaT has gotten me to FINISH three books! (I'm much better at starting books than finishing them!) Yeah me!!

One more Reading Area pic . . . with cat.


>41 VampAmber:
A good thread to bookmark for "how do to things in your posts" (like post images) is:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/177029
(First you upload the image to your Member Gallery, which you can get to from your Profile page, then right-click on the image to "copy image location", then use the image code described in the how to do things thread above.)

I'm tempted to try to upload a video of my cat trying to distract me while I'm reading (which she does several times a day), but I'm guessing any of you with cats can imagine that . . . and those of you without cats could do without any more cat videos :)

I got two hours of reading done at work. I would have read more, but there was a football game on the radio.

and for pure light reading pleasure, I read a good portion of To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn. Light reading with a good sprinkling of humor. (love the Bridgertons)

From 9 pm until midnight I read (and finally finished!) An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer. Yuck. The romance is petty, the characters range from incomprehensible to annoying, and the setting - the battle of Waterloo and its runup - starts off boring and ends up hideous, with vivid descriptions of the dead and wounded from the battle. Not a favorite. I need to read another Heyer, one of the good ones, to wipe this out of my head.

I read sitting on my couch, with my cats hanging about and pestering me. I ate more or less continuously while I read - cheese and cinnamon bread and buttermints (not together, in sequence), and drank water. I've no idea why I was so hungry, I ate dinner only a couple hours before.

My overly used, underly pretty, but very comfy couch. I was once again reading while laying down on here. I was working on Fibromyalgia For Dummies by Roland Staud. Got a few chapters further. Getting pretty close to being done, too. Nothing in this world feels quite like finishing a book you've been reading on for a long time (I started it a few months ago). Though one of my kitties, Pocky, decided to prove the cliche of a cat trying to get in front of what you're reading. She just wanted attention, or so she claimed. Hah! But yes, off to edit the wiki then pass out in bed (hafta drive my fiancee to work in about three hours, oops...). Am I the only one who would love a ReadAThing every month? Might hafta learn me some stuff, so that I can try and make that happen. Good night all.

Hi all! Much reading done thru out the night by the light of my kindle. This enabled me to complete Manon and Mayflower. I'll be able to read sporadically all day and I'll post a pic of my outdoor reading venue.

I've enjoyed all the pics. Really makes me feel connected to other readers.

Loving how we're filling up the timeline!

I put in over an hour last night and again this morning (but failed to make a note of exact times, so I'll just claim an hour of each) and persevered through Dragons of Autumn Twilight. It does improve stylistically (a little) after the first 100 pages, but I'm not going to make myself reread the rest of the trilogy. Enough to know I loved these as a teenager, and I don't love them as an adult. So I'm off to grab something else to curl up with in the attic after lunch.

I'm going to fill in the three next hours, they are still empty. I'll read the Histoire de ma vie by Casanova.

I took this opportunity to sign up for two blocks not taken for Sunday. 3pm and 7pm EDT. I'll more likely read if I set aside a specific time.

I will begin A Clash of Thrones at this time.

This is an older pic but I can assure you, only the book has changed. Here's my reading place this afternoon

I will also be reading for the next several hours on another long bus trip back to NYC. I am hoping the lack of distractions will force me to focus on the brilliant and difficult The Passion According to G.H.

This is why I do ReadaThings, not Readathons . . .
I was going to try to read during the empty slots today, but then my cat decided that I should do many loads of laundry today, so she got sick on as many things in the bedroom as she could manage . . . YUK!

But other people filled in the reading slots . . . YEAH!!!

Will still try to do SOME reading, but for someone with CFS/ME (me), being hit with a pile of housework is pretty exhausting, so may be spending most of the day napping/resting (when not doing laundry, 3 loads down, several more to go).

Thanks for the RaT Relay Team for keeping things going!

>51 Louve_de_mer:
Done ! I just spent three hours with Giacomo Casanova : not a nice guy, but a really good writer.

Finished Jo Nesbo's Cockroaches an hour or so ago. I loved the first 3/4 of the book, but then the plot got so complicated that I couldn't follow it, although as I'm feeling unwell, that might be me, and not the book. Read yesterday at work in between customers, yesterday evening, and this morning in bed.

I think I'm going to start Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James next, although there is a possibility that I might try out a Richard Castle book instead. My son picked me up a copy of Storm Front (the first Derrick Storm book), and as I love the show, I may give it a read today.

Enjoying the ReadAThing! Love seeing everyone's reading spaces!

I just read from 1-2 pm Eastern time. I read more of The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt and also read some of A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman.

I love the pictures. I just found out this was going on. I listened to Savannah or a gift for Mr. Lincoln by John Jakes. A spur of the moment choice while at the library.

Agent Garbo by Stephen Talty has been my focus for the last few days (managed to finish it up this morning). The title character's fascinating -- a Spaniard who hated Hitler so much, he went to the Nazis and volunteered to help spy for them in England, and then proceeded to make up fake reports from Lisbon! The British eventually took him on as a double agent, and worked with him to create 27 imaginary subagents that could then pass on misleading and/or outright false information about the Allies' plans. Though I wanted to know more about the mechanics of how things actually worked, I did find out more about Garbo -- and, inevitably, have also found the names of other operations I now have to go read about too.

Other reads this weekend: A.J. Jacobs' Drop Dead Healthy, the current "funny-book-to-read-at-nighttime" selection, and David Sax's Save the Deli.

Loving all the pics of where you all do your reading. And the diversity of books being read is so huge!
In my late slot last night I continued on with Outlander and felt like taking up some free reading time this A.M. so I read a Susan Hill I have been looking forward to: The Woman in Black. (3 1/2*) It was good but not as good as some of her others I have read. I do enjoy her writing very much however.
My 1st actual reading 'shift' of the day is due to begin now. Hmmm, what to choose.............

Edited to say that I oopsed! I accidentally moved my afternoon reading slot up by 2 hours & read from 3:00 to 8:00 instead of 5:00 to 8:00. Better for me anyway as I got three really good books in:
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell; (4*); loved it!
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons; (4 1/2*); loved it a lot!
Young Man With a Horn by Dorothy Baker; (5*); loved it to the moon & back!

I don't believe I read in Outlander at all. I must do that in my slot tonight.
A wonderful day of reading spent in my rocking chair & on my bed. I even made myself a diet vanilla Pepsi out of my hubby's soda pop. I don't drink the stuff but it just sounded good today and it went with my books very well. :-)

I've been reading The Cats of Seroster this evening, another childhood favourite - but one that has stood the test of time. It's surprisingly dark and brutal for a book I remember reading very young, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it b

>56 ahef1963:
I love that show (Castle)! Had no idea there were actual books . . . I thought it was just a fictional writer and fictional books only on TV :)

Just checked . . . apparently the books came later . . . once the show was successful . . . as far as I can tell there is no actual "Richard Castle" outside of the TV series, but ABC and Hyperion books found a way to cash in :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_%28TV_series%29#Tie-in_works

Nothing I'd planned to read seemed interesting enough...so I grabbed Henry and the Clubhouse, and thoroughly enjoyed myself!

Finished up Forbidden Disclosure a few minutes ago, and now I'm trying to decide what to start next. I have over a thousand ebooks to pick from, just from my Kindle app collection alone, so I think I'm not going to get to add my name to this hour. Sad face.

Kinda disappointed in the book, actually. I'm normally addicted to the rich guy/poor girl romance novel trope, but this one fell a bit flat this time. It felt too cliche, you know? *shrugs* That's a hazard of the free romance novel genre, though. They don't have to be the very best thing ever to be published. I'm glad I read it, because it had its cute points, but it's gonna get deleted and never seen or heard from again on my Nook HD. , which is still pretty good.

Now if I could just pick my next book... My comfy, comfy couch awaits me to curl up on it and read some more.

>62 LucindaLibri: Yes, it is just a fictional writer of fictional books. The Castle books are "written by" the TV character "Richard Castle." They're the fake books that he's the author of in the show. Since it's so popular, someone decided to write the actual things, and since the first one went over well they've been doing all the rest.

I finished The Mermaids Singing last night.

Unfortunately had an exciting evening. My ISP cut off our internet. When I called the help line with the reference number I was told one of our email accounts had been hacked. I was on the phone with them for 30 minutes, this after having fought through waiting cues to talk to them for about an hour. Supposedly all is well now, but that cut into my reading time!

>66 majkia: oh, that stinks! >:(

After I'd signed off, I looked at my TBR stack, and read Glen Rounds' Stolen Pony, a simple story that lovers of horses, dogs, cowboys, and the like, should enjoy. It is about a pretty pony that is stolen by horse thieves, but abandoned once it is discovered that the pony is blind. Assisted by his friend, a dog, the pony tries to find his way home. Cute story, I liked it.

Yesterday, I completed my 3 slots and then another this morning.
I have to say that I too enjoy the Readathing format more than readathons.

Manon and mayflower are 5 star reads for me and Clash of Kings is off to a great start.

It's been nice fellow readers. Hope we meet again soon!

Thrilled to see that all but one of our timeslots are/were filled for the entire four days! I'd call that a successful ReadaThing!!

It is my habit on "National Holidays" to read some United States History. On the Fourth of July I started A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This is definitely NOT the sanitized history we got in school. Much of the details make me rather ashamed of my country. So much so, that I can't read much more than a chapter at a time. This morning I read the chapter about the Mexican-American War (1845-1848) . . . during which the US continued its march of "manifest destiny" and took over what used to be half of Mexico. Last night I read the chapter on "our" battles against the Native American tribes. The next chapter is on slavery. I'm hoping to keep reading in this book today until I get to the sections on labor uprisings and the Haymarket "affair/riot/massacre" in Chicago in 1886 which eventually inspired "Labor Day". . . . though I'm not sure I'll make it.

Last night I also realized that my "Currently Reading" list contains no fiction, so I checked out what's next in some of the "series" I've been reading:
Willa Cather: A Lost Lady
Louise Erdrich: Tales of Burning Love
Ellen Hart (Jane Lawless Mysteries): An Intimate Ghost

So if the US History gets too depressing, I'll read one of those.

SO, enjoy the final 9.5 hours of the ReadaThing!

>66 majkia: glad you got it all worked out. My ISP (a local company) has no service on the weekends at all, so I would have been out of luck. Early in August my modem started flaking out (disconnecting every six minutes) and it took a several days to get it all sorted out.

Sorry chaps - the gap is mine; I got called into work today so my planned reading slots fell through. I'm hoping to get a bit more reading done tonight though!

This morning, finished The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs by Greil Marcus (fabulous for music lovers of a certain age...). Later, will continue in the ARC of The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, strange & wonderful as ever. Happy holiday weekend for some of us laborers!

>70 imyril: I was talking about an empty slot, but it's gone now. All gaps got filled in! Yippee!!

wow! how great is that?

I just discovered late last night that another ReadaThing was occurring. Friday morning I finished reading No Right to Remain Silent, a powerful account of the Virginia Tech tragedy by a Lucinda Roy, faculty member who had tutored Seung-Hui Cho and tried unsuccessfully to have him receive help at the university counseling center. This account describes Roy's experience, both with Cho before the shooting and with helping the University afterwards. The title refers both to the Administration's blocking the Community and Panel looking into the case from learning what really happened and from Roy's belief that she had to tell the Panel what she knew about the situation. Roy also discusses the problems of obtaining help for mentally ill persons and of gun control. Having read this nearly 5 years after it was published, I think a more appropriate subtitle would have been "What We Have NOT Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech" instead of the one on the book, "What We've Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech.

During the 10:00-noon slot today I was reading The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig, which a book group I'm in will be discussing later this month. This book started out slowly for me, but is picking up as more action is occurring.

>71 ReneeGKC: Hey Renee, I just wish listed The History of Rock and Roll in 10 songs. Sounds like something I'd really enjoy!

Still ploughing through The Gift of Rain which is a bit of a tome but interesting enough nonetheless. Spent some time reading Squire Terence and the Maiden's Knight by Gerald Morris as well. Not looking like I'll get anything finished before the end of the day though.

In my 3 hour time slot last night/this A.M. I read more in Outlander and began Mia, another lovely by Robert Nathan. I do so love his writing. It sort of takes this reader to a lovely 'nether-dream-world'. I finished it this morning in my time slot and hope to complete the tome by Diana Gabaldon in my last afternoon slot.
This has really been lovely Read-a-Thing especially as we have had gloomy days all weekend up until this lovely morning.

Thank you so much for setting this up for our enjoyment.

>72 LucindaLibri: Hurray!

>77 rainpebble:
no bows necessary, but love the little image :) LOL!

My first ReadaThing! I've mostly been reading Jennifer Haymore's Secrets of an Accidental Duchess, a historical romance I got an ARC of a couple years ago but hadn't gotten around to reading. I loved it! Will definitely be adding more of her Donovan series to my "to read" list. I also finished re-reading Frequently Asked Questions. I love Unshelved!

I read a little in bed, and a little in the bath, but mostly on the couch in the living room while my husband played Mass Effect 2. Occasionally, one of my cats would come join me for a while.

I read some on Friday night, for a few hours on Saturday, and all afternoon and evening on Sunday. Other than reading, I went to a friend's to play Cards Against Humanity, saw Ghostbusters in the theater, and did a bunch of household stuff. :-)

>80 rooner: Dear gods, do I love Cards Against Humanity. I have a lot of really weird/twisted friends, too, so that makes the game that much better. And I'm planning on seeing Ghostbusters in theaters myself on Thursday. I can't wait. I was too young to see it in theaters when it originally came out (I was only a few months old), so getting to see it in theaters now is great.

As for reading, my finacee is playing video games, so this seems the perfect time to read a book. I started a new Victorian-set romance novel last night (I didn't fill a time slot for it, though, because I only got a half hour in before going to bed), and it's pretty cute so far. I have an addiction to historical romance novels, so yay. Or maybe I'll read a library book? Because I do need to finish them soon. *shrugs* Guess we'll see when I come to log it in later. *goes to check the timeline* Wait, it's over in an hour and a half? Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! Good thing I can still plop my name in the 7pm slot.

>81 VampAmber:
Feel free to keep reading! :)

I read some more in A People's History of the United States, but now I've got to go some things and may not make it back in time to "officially close" the ReadaThing. So if anyone wants to extend it until tomorrow I say GO FOR IT!

It's been a great RaT!! Thanks to Everyone for participating!!

Thank you so much for all of the organisation that went into getting the RaT off the ground. I've enjoyed myself (even if I didn't get tofinish anything. :)

>82 LucindaLibri: Oh, I plan on keeping reading until I'm six feet under. I was just sad that this event was over. I liked talking to everybody and seeing what all they were reading.

Also, sad face, because I didn't end up reading for the last hour of the ReadaThing. My stomach insisted that I feed it, and by the time I was done cooking, serving, and eating, there wasn't enough time left to get in any reading from 7pm-8pm.

I know I'm late responding; the weekend was busy. However, I did read for all my slots, continuing with "The Man Who Loved Dogs." I'm nearing the end. Onward!

Thank you lucindalibri for giving us a ReadAThing - and thank you everyone for making it bubbly and fun!

See you all when the next one comes around...

I didn't get to read much, but I did enjoy it. Finally got in one good solid block of reading...starting 2 hours after the RaT finished! Oh well. Read Good Omens, in its entirety, between 7 pm and midnight PDT. So it doesn't count for the RaT but it was fun anyway.

Yes, where are my manners? Thank you to everybody who made this, and all the other ReadaThings past and future, possible. It was tons of fun.

>87 jjmcgaffey: Oh, Good Omens! That's one of my favorite books! Do you also read Pratchett's Discworld novels? I love how he used Death from those for Death in Good Omens. It amused my inner fangirl so.

My RaT reading consisted the following:

August:
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch; (4*),
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman; (5*),
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden; (5*),
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill; (3 1/2*)
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell; (4*)
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons; (4 1/2*)
Young Man With a Horn by Dorothy Baker; (5*)
____________________________________________________________

September:
Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg; (5*)
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote; (3 1/2*)
Mia by Robert Nathan; (4*)

and I read more than half of Outlander by Diana Gabaldon throughout the RaT; so far I would rate this one at (4 1/2*)

Thank you so much for all of the interesting comments, conversation & photos. But I especially want to thank LucindaLibri for hosting the party. It was lovely and I got to read some really good books.

double posted; sorry

>88 VampAmber: Actually, I think it's the other way around - since Good Omens was written very early in his (their) career(s), I suspect Death on the Discworld was at least inspired by this Death. I've read a few of the Discworld novels, but Pratchett is one of the authors I enjoy only in small bits. One book is good, two (in six months or a year) is too much.

>89 rainpebble:
WOW! That's an impressive set of reading!

Thank you, lucindalibri!! A great ReadaThing!!

>91 jjmcgaffey: Really? Did not know that. Death is my second favorite character in the Discworld novels (only after Rincewind), so I love learning tidbits about him. I've never tried binging on them, but I can stand a few a year. Part of that's because I adore absurd humor, though, so that could be our difference. I also love the Hitchhikers books, as well as David Wong's books (which is absurd in a much cruder sort of way).

>94 VampAmber: The edition I read (ebook, from the library) has a foreword and two afterwords (Gaiman about Pratchett and vice versa) about how this brand-new author and this writing journalist met, hit it off, and started collaborating. I think in all three it says that they weren't yet TERRY PRATCHETT and NEIL GAIMAN - they were just new authors. Which is kinda neat.

Yeah, my tolerance for absurdity is pretty low - higher for books than video or live shows, but not very high. Piers Anthony is another that I enjoy in very small quantities. I do love the Hitchhiker books, but I don't try read them all in a row...

I read the Hitchhiker books all in a row, because I have the Ultimate Guide. It is definitely not recommended. By the end of the 3rd one I just wanted it to be over already. lol.

I tried reading the first Hitchhiker book, and just couldn't "get into" it. Like jjmcgaffey, I can take Piers Anthony in small doses, although I read the first three books of the Adept series all in a row...of course, I was a teenager then... ;)

I liked the first few Hitchhikers, but then it started to get old. It might've been better more spread out, but then I've never been one to dislike gorging on an entire group of something I love, so I'm inclined to think that if it gets stale on me then, it'd get stale on me any time.

Nope; Death appeared in Colour of Magic, published in 1983. Good Omens was released in 1990. But I can understand the error: It sure seems as though Death has been around a very long time.

>99 NatalieSW: Huh. OK, I guess he'd written a few Discworld novels to be this new author. It was a guess, and looks like I guessed wrong.

I have to admit I enjoyed listening to the radioplay of Hitchhikers that played on NPR back in the 1980s much more than the books . . . usually I would rather read, but not in this case.

I read Black Christmas in my lie-berry chair (no pic) from 7:59 to 9:01. I suppose I dither and hum more than I realized when I'm reading; I got through more pages with a closer, timed application.

Someone is killing the young women of Murdock's senior high school class. In the days leading up to Christmas, during a blizzard, the killer taunts the town sheriff with grisly clues. The last time there was a murder in town was 1958...there have been three today.

The book isn't meeting my first, favorable impression of it. The pace gets bogged down in too much exposition, and the characters all lead bitter lives full of guilt and regret that I get to hear too much about. Bummer. I'm about half-way through. The book isn't bad enough to jet, but I am glad that it was published before authors felt that every horror book had to be more than 400 pages. Seriously, it doesn't even work for Stephen King, and he's got 'the knack.'

Still, it touches on some of my favorite things in horror and suspense fiction- snow, Christmas, an agreeably high body count, a psycho killer, and a trashy, lurid cover.

ETC grimmer nd sich.

Whoops - better shift this. You posted in the wrong Logbook - you want it in the October RaT Logbook at http://www.librarything.com/topic/182145 .

Great post, though! Exactly the sort of thing we want to see in a RaT Logbook.