Social Distancing Readathon #86 - November 5-7

I hope this is ok. I'm 5-9 hours ahead of the US and I have a few distractions from my reading on this weekend so want to start early. I've also added "Pages read" and "Total pages read" but please feel free to delete if you don't want to keep a count of these.

Welcome to another readathon!

We generally run from Friday at 5 pm to Sunday at midnight in whatever time zone you choose, but feel free to start earlier on Friday and wrap up overnight Sunday/Monday, if that's what you want to do.

Here are some things to track throughout the weekend, if you choose:

Books read from:
Books finished:
Pages read:
Time reading:
Time posting:
Snacks:
Thoughts:
Non-book activities:

Total books finished:
Total read from:
Total pages read:
Total time reading:

Who is participating -
,
1. Luci, London, UK (elkiedee)
2. Stasia, Sherman, Texas, US (alcottacre)
3. PawsforThought, Sweden (PawsforThought)
4. June, South Carolina (June)
5. Cyrel, Canada (torontoc)
6. Benita, Alabama (benitastmad)
7. Chris (ChrisG1)
8. Suzanne, Providence, Rhode Island (Chatterbox)
9. Dee, Nova Scotia, Canada (Deedledee)
10. Paul, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (PaulCranswick
11. Susanna, Seattle, Washington (susanna.fraser)
12. fuzzi, North Carolina (fuzzi)

I am going to participate this weekend for the first time in a good long while!

I’m in. We have a public holiday this weekend so I got off work at lunch.

I’d like to finish the books I’m in the middle of, but I have a big birthday party to go to tomorrow so we’ll see how much time I have for reading.

I also would like to participate for the first time in a long while. I went to the library this morning to get a new supply of books so I probably won't finish any. My husband is away for the weekend. That should give me much more reading time than normal.

I'm in. I am finishing More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman

I will be participating again. I will have the last of my knitting classes on Saturday, but I will still have time to do some reading.

I'm in again. Just starting The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb and continuing through The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. The wife is working & we're in the midst of the rainy season here in Oregon, so I can think of nothing better than curling up with the books this weekend.

#86, wowza. Don't know how much I'll get done, but....

I've got a big/growing stack of books, and need to read Justine by Lawrence Durrell ahead of a book group meeting next week.

I'm in! I just finished a book on my commute home.

Books read from: The Guest List, Stuff You Should Know
Books finished: The Guest List
Time posting: 6:24pm
Snacks: Having some salad - but I have chips for later!

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2

>1 elkiedee: Thank you!! I haven't been feeling good this week and forgot about the readathon.

Books read from: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, and Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
Books finished: 2
Pages read: 500
Time reading: ~3.5 hours
Time posting: 10 minutes
Snacks: Snack mix
Thoughts: Thoughts were primarily on the books I was reading and the LSU/Alabama football game tomorrow
Non-book activities: Talking to my husband, Kerry

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4
Total pages read: 500
Total time reading: ~3.5 hours

Count me in again!

Books read from: Never Say You Can't Survive, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through
Books finished: Never Say You Can't Survive
Time reading: 3 hours
Food: fried chicken
Thoughts: I hope this shoulder pain flareup doesn't last all weekend.
Non-book activities: Laundry, work

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: 3 hours

Im about to leave my office to begin my weekend. Will be in trying to finish off a number of the books I have already started.

Saturday morning check-in:

Books read from: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London and A Shilling for Candles
Books finished: none

Time reading: 4 hours
Time posting: 7:00 AM Saturday
Snacks: Cheez-its

Thoughts: I'm reading the Inspector Alan Grant series by Josephine Tey. They were written in the 1930's so they are somewhat dated but the mysteries and the writing are good. I like a good police procedural.
Non-book activities: watching college football

Total books finished: none
Total read from: 2

Total time reading: 4 hours

Saturday morning update

Books reading from: Still slowly reading Color of the Sea by John Hamamura and am deep into a book of linked short stories that make up a novel titled Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories by Ellen Litman. I should finish my recorded book that I am listening to in the car - Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris.

Books finished in the last week: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
Time reading: .5 hours so far today and that will likely be all for today
Time posting:
Food: will have coffee and a croissant in the car
Thoughts: I am headed out the door for my last week of the sock knitting lessons. I didn't get anything knitted on the sock this week so I will be a bit behind.

Non-book activities: knitting class
Total books finished since the read-a-thon began: 174
Total time reading for the Read-A-Thon since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 461 hours since April 2020.

Saturday morning check in:

Books read from: Stuff You Should Know, Ghost Wall, The Anthropocene Reviewed
Books finished: The Anthropocene Reviewed
Time posting: 11:31am
Snacks: coffee

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4

Saturday midday check-in

Books read from: audiobook of Why Religion? A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels; The Devil's Handshake by Murray Davies (the latter is a re-read)
Books finished: none yet

Time reading: About 6 hours
Time posting: nothing
Snacks: chicken noodle casserole thing, leftover.

Thoughts: The Pagels book is thought-provoking on a very existential level, the role of religion and religious "tales" in our attempts to make sense of our lived realities. Dreading having to tackle more of the intractable MS I'm working on right now, as I've been reworking the same stuff for weeks/months.
Non-book activities: Dealing with after-effects of flu shot. Yuck.

Total books finished: none
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: Abt 6 hours

Saturday afternoon check in:

Books read from: Stuff You Should Know, The Children of Red Peak
Time posting: 4:07pm

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 5

I started Sargasso of Space last night.

Books read from: As Bright as Heaven bu Susan Meissner, Jews in Nazi Berlin edited by Beate Meyer et al, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky by Margaret Verble, and The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 368
Time reading: ~3 hours
Time posting: 10 minutes
Snacks: None
Thoughts: Thoughts were primarily on the college football games I was watching while reading
Non-book activities: Talking to my husband, Kerry

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 9
Total pages read: 868
Total time reading: ~6.5 hours

I will be back later to post this evening's reads, but I am off to take a break for a bit.

In the middle of Saturday night/early hours of Sunday morning. Busy weekend here, but have managed to fit in some reading.

Books read from: 6
Harriet Evans, The Beloved Girls
Nadifa Mohamed, The Fortune Men
Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies
Elaine di Rollo, A Proper Education for Girls
Charlotte Gordon, Romantic Outlaws
Lucy Caldwell, Intimacies

Books finished: 0
Pages read: 180

Food:
Friday tea: Chicken dippers, pasta, cucumber
Diet coke in the pub
Breakfast: Pain au chocolat, cherry flavoured French set yogurt, a slice of gouda
Lunch: Meeting my dad outside his home for the first time in nearly 2 years. Chicken shish and apple juice at a Turkish restaurant in Crouch End
Chocolate bar and crisps
Community centre cafe, while watching firework display from Alexandra Palace a few miles away at one of our more local parks: hot chocolate and "lemon drizzle" cake (lovely cake but not much lemon drizzle to it)
Lots of cups of tea

Thoughts: It's cold!
Non-book activities: Social Media, What'sApp, pub with friends, meeting dad for lunch, watching fireworks at a distance (the budget options
Book related activities:
- renewing, returning and borrowing library ebooks
- charity shop crawl - think I checked out all but one of CE's 10 or 11 charity shops including a specialist one selling Books and Music not clothes and bric a brac etc as well Oxfam Books - bought about 9 books though these include at least one duplicate and an upgrade.

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 6
Total pages read: 180

Saturday night check-in

Books reading from: Read nothing in Color of the Sea by John Hamamura today. Read only a little in Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories by Ellen Litman. I finished listening to my recorded book Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris. I started reading Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez. This one is for the November Nonfiction challenge here on LT. The November category is politics, business, and economics so I thought this would be a good time to read this book. I started listening to Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid. This was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection last year and I have been wanting to read it.

Books finished in the last week: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep, Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris.
Time reading: .5 hours so far today and that will likely be all for today
Time posting:
Food: a very good pizza for lunch at the right price for a small pizza. Two tacos for supper. No coffee all day. How am I making it through this day?
Thoughts: I finished the last lesson on knitting socks. I hope to get a pair of socks done in time for a Christmas present but from now until Christmas Day I am on my own. So far the sock I am working on looks good. Other Black Girl was a good read. I thought this was going to be a work of contemporary literature but it has some real twists in it that also through it into the realm of magical realism or suspense/thriller. I am a bit puzzled as to which of those the author intended this book to be. But even if I am a bit confused, it was a good book with lots to say about being a black woman in the USA. I am going to have to mull this one over for a day or two before I try to write any kind of review of it. I listened to it, and I can say that the cast of readers was excellent and made the book come alive. Very good recorded book.

Non-book activities: knitting class and driving back and forth to Gadsden
Total books finished since the read-a-thon began: 175
Total time reading for the Read-A-Thon since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 462 hours since April 2020.

Saturday night:

Books read from: Donut Fall in Love
Books finished: Donut Fall in Love
Time reading: 4 hours
Food: chicken nuggets (I'm not exactly a nutritional superstar of late!)
Thoughts: Shoulder pain still recurring to an annoying degree.
Non-book activities: Attended a memorial service for a friend, which was a blend of heartbreak and camaraderie.

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 7 hours

Books read from: As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner, The Velvet Rope Economy by Nelson D. Schwartz, Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, and The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Books finished: 1
Pages read: 399
Time reading: ~4.5 hours
Time posting: 10 minutes
Snacks: Tortilla chips and guacamole
Thoughts: The LSU/Alabama game
Non-book activities: Talking to my husband, Kerry

Total books finished: 3
Total read from: 11
Total pages read: 1267
Total time reading: ~6.5 hours

Be back tomorrow!

I am almost at the end of More Than I Love My Life.

Sunday morning check-in:

Books read from: Stuff You Should Know, Ghost Wall, Invisible Women
Books finished: none
Time posting: 11:50am

Non-book activities: Last night I had friends over to watch offbeat Christmas movies. My co-worker and I are doing a FB Live on Dec. 3rd to talk about Christmas movies we have in the library collection.

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 7

Welp, Scribd arbitrarily removed my access to some of the books I had started reading late yesterday after finishing the two I had been reading. I can't access them again until November 20th, including one or two that I had read significant amounts of. I'm beyond irritated.

I did manage to finish the Pagels book (very good) and a re-read of the Murray Davies book. But I think I'll stop reading now (I'm too irritated by this) and focus on some work instead. Blast Scribd. They claim to provide unlimited access, and the reality is it's anything BUT. The idea should be that during a trial period, you probably shouldn't piss off people who might be subscribers to your service. Which they really have done by wiping out 2/3 of my 'saved' items and leaving me with five books they arbitrarily decided they would kindly let me read. It's all there in the tiniest of small print, whereas in the big print they claim it's unlimited. I don't care if people are up front about limitations on borrowing or waiting periods or whatever -- just TELL me so I can plan. And don't cut me off a week after I pick a book, and am midway through it.

Sunday morning update

Books reading from: Read nothing in Color of the Sea by John Hamamura today. Read only a little in Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories by Ellen Litman. I started reading Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez. This one is for the November Nonfiction challenge here on LT. The November category is politics, business, and economics so I thought this would be a good time to read this book. I started listening to Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid. This was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection last year and I have been wanting to read it.

Books finished in the last week: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep, Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris. Domnall and the Borrowed Child by Sylvia Spruek Wrigley.
Time reading: 1 hour so far today
Time posting:
Food: I had my regular Sunday morning cappuccino from Starbucks but it took an hour because of the big game this weekend. I plan on going to eat lunch at the Indian restaurant. I am not planning on cooking today. Yeah!!!!

Non-book activities: talking on the phone.
Total books finished since the read-a-thon began: 176
Total time reading for the Read-A-Thon since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 463 hours since April 2020.

I finished More Than I Love My Life and have started Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Sunday evening -

I was away this weekend but I've been reading.

Books:
Almost done with Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker. Sad, but timely and good.
Picked up Rainwater, historical ficton by Sandra Brown. About 3/4 done.

Dinner: husband fixing pork loin florentine.

Other activity:
Loved the storytelling festival this weekend. It was inspirational, therapeutic, and fun! I've been going to different ones for years and this was the first since before COVID.
Stopped to see my sister on the way home.

weather: clear and 57 F. (14 C.) after sunset.

Books read from: The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Jews in Nazi Berlin edited by Beate Meyer et al, The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky by Margaret Verble, The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, The Velvet Rope Economy by Nelson D. Schwartz, There There by Tommy Orange, and Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Return of American Power by Robert D. Kaplan.

Books finished: 2
Pages read: 458
Time reading: ~3.5 hours
Time posting: 10 minutes
Snacks: None
Thoughts: Nothing in particular
Non-book activities: Talking to my husband, Kerry

Total books finished: 5
Total read from: 13
Total pages read: 1725
Total time reading: 10 hours

A very productive readathon for me!

Sunday night:

Books read from: Consolation Songs, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through
Books finished: none
Time reading: 2 hours
Food: beef stew for dinner
Thoughts: I don't like Standard Time. Late fall/early winter days are short enough this far north without abruptly making it dark an hour earlier.
Non-book activities: Emptied out our front bathroom because we've got a contractor coming in tomorrow to rebuild it.

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: 9 hours

Sunday night update

Books reading from: Read nothing today in Color of the Sea by John Hamamura today. Read only a little in Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories by Ellen Litman. I started reading Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez and think this one is going to another one of those supermacho frat boys memoirs. I am not sure how this is going to work. I will keep reading and find out. I started listening to Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid and listened to a good bit of it while doing my grocery shopping and a few errands this afternoon. This was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection last year and I have been wanting to read it.

Books finished in the last week: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep, Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris and Domnall and the Borrowed Child by Sylvia Spruek Wrigley.
Time reading: 1 hour this afternoon
Time posting:
Food: I had my sunday lunch at the Indian restaurant. It was crowded today and I am not accustomed to eating around that many people. I am not planning on cooking today. Yeah!!!!
Thoughts: UA has removed its mask mandate, so I could go to work tomorrow with out one. However, in a chance discussion with the student who works for me I discovered that she is not vaccinated and does not plan to get vaccinated. That means I will have to keep the mask for the hours that she is in the office with me.

Non-book activities: talking on the phone. Most of the day.
Total books finished since the read-a-thon began: 176
Total time reading for the Read-A-Thon since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 464 hours since April 2020.

Second and final update. This has been a busy weekend and between doing other things and doing some reading I've also been napping quite a bit.

Books read from: 6
Harriet Evans, The Beloved Girls
Nadifa Mohamed, The Fortune Men - FINISHED 07.11.21
Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies
Elaine di Rollo, A Proper Education for Girls
Charlotte Gordon, Romantic Outlaws
Lucy Caldwell, Intimacies
Tahmima Amam, The Startup Wife
K M Peyton, Snowfall
Ruth Jones, Never Greener

Books finished: 1
Pages read: 253

Thoughts: It's still cold!
Non-book activities: Social Media, What'sApp, Bejeweled Blitz, TV and radio
Book-related
- Some LT and GR updates, including adding some charity shop and Kindle purchases. Finding places to put the new dead tree books, hopefully where I can find them again. I'm quite excited about some of them.
- trying to plan my next library trip, tomorrow or Wednesday I think

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 9
Total pages read: 413

Monday morning final update:

Books read from: The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb, The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

Books completed: The Ballad of Frankie Silver
Total pages read: 500

Non-reading activities: watched college football on Saturday

weekend wrap-up

Books:
Finished Ghost Boys by Jewell Rhodes. Heartbreaking but wonderful.
Still reading Rainwater, historical fiction by Sandra Brown. NOT her usual.
Started The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Bradley. historical fiction, WWII in England.
Still listening to Badlands by C.J. Box

Breakfast: granola, banana, HB egg, toast, milk and coffee.
Sounds like a big breakfast but I'm ready for lunch.

Other activity:
Enjoying a relaxing day today - the last one for awhile as things start getting busy tomorrow, to continue through the holidays!
Sent postcards.
about to go water my patio pots and baskets; fill the bird feeder.

thoughts:
considering a trip to Savannah in Dec to attend a couple music events.
planning what dishes to offer up for Thanksgiving, at my sister's house this year.

Sunny and 70 F. (21 C.) in Charlotte
Have a great week everyone!

Weekend wrap-up:

Books read from: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London and A Shilling for Candles

Books finished: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

Snacks: pimento cheese sandwich

Thoughts: Garth Nix only writes YA books so there is too much chasing, fighting, etc. for adults However, the world-building and description in The Left-Handed Booksellers of London was great. I hope there is a sequel.

Non-book activities: The Great British Baking Show

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/336673