Social Distancing Readathon #153 - February 17 - 19

Welcome to another readathon!

We generally run from Friday at 5 p.m. 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:
Time reading:
Time posting:
Snacks:
Thoughts:
Non-book activities:

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

Who is participating -

1. SilverWolf (SilverWolf28) -- Tennessee, USA

I will join as I can.

I'm in.

Currently reading An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, Helene Tursten

I'm in - I am reading Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey

I am in. Kerry will be out of town for his daughter's funeral, so I am hoping to have a lot of time to squeeze in books.

I'm in. I've had a trying, hectic week, so I plan to stay in this weekend and relax with my poor, neglected books.

>5 alcottacre:
So sorry for your family's loss. Wishing you and Kerry peace and comfort.

>7 nrmay: Thank you, Nancy. It has been a very rough February thus far and I cannot wait for it to be over!

I'm in. My work takes Presidents' Day as a holiday, so it's a 3-day weekend for me.

Friday afternoon

Books:
An Elderly lady Must Not Be Crossed, 2nd in the amusing Elderly Lady series by Helene Tursten
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

breakfast: pear, banana, granola, toast

Other activity:
Going to an exhibit of "Quilts by the Sea" this afternoon.
Tomorrow is the Amelia Island Book Festival. I'll be there!
My niece is with us at the beach for a few days while my nephew is sailing in a regatta in St Petersburg.

Very nice here today - sunny, breezy, 78 F. (25 C.) at noon

>5 alcottacre: My sympathy to you, Kerry and your family. Difficult times.

Count me in. I want to finish up 3 books in February so I'll have my head in the books except when I need to attend the wake of my husbands cousin on Sunday and Funeral on Monday. Monday is a holiday in the US so I'll read once I return home.

Friday evening update

Books read from: Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear. I finished reading Down From the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear by Bryce Andrews and started Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis. I am listening to Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Books finished in this weekend's Readathon: Down From the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear by Bryce Andrews

Book Thoughts: Down From the Mountain turned out to be my first five star read of the year! I really liked this book. It deals with so many aspects of the problem, or is it a problem?, of wildlife encroachment. It was a deeply engrossing book, that examines our encounters with wildlife from a different perspective, that caught my attention from the get go and didn't let up for the entire 268 pages. Add to this the fact that Andrews is a good writer and it makes for thought provoking reading.

Non Book Activities: work - my penultimate week at work.

Time reading: 1 hour
Time posting:
Food: leftovers for lunch
Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 299
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 823 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon back in April of 2020.

I'm going to try and participate, it will be my first readathon.

I want to try and finish Their Eyes Were Watching God and Going Postal, and at least make some progress on Chokepoint Capitalism. I have read a few pages of The Fifth Season so I'd like to spend some time with that one for sure. If somehow I finish all these maybe I will start Quicksilver and jump back into Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow which I abandoned for awhile, but it seems like a lot so I probably won't get to them.

Other activity: I am moving at the end of the month, and although I've made a lot of packing progress, I have a lot still to pack so that is definitely first on my priority list. I also have a few coding projects I'd like to work on a bit. I just got the video game Stray (realistic adorable cats in a cyberpunk dystopia) so I might play that for a bit if I need a mental break. It would also be nice to get out of the house for a bit but I'm not holding my breath on that one, haha.

My condolences to @alcottacre and @Carmenere, please take care of yourselves.

After traveling for the past two weekends, I am looking forward to a readathon weekend. I am rereading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for my RLBG next week. Also reading The Falcon's Malteser and The New Jim Crow.

Love and healing energies to alcottacre and Carmenere

>11 Carmenere: Thank you, Lynda.

>12 Carmenere: I am sorry for the death in your family, as well.

>14 lyricism_: >15 witchyrichy: Thank you, Rio and Karen.

Friday Night Update:

Books read from: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig, and Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson
Books finished: 0
Time reading: ~3.8 hours

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 5
Total time reading: ~3.8

For all that I was hoping, I got little reading in today. Probably because I kept falling asleep - I had 3 naps today. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

>17 alcottacre: How far are you in Snow Crash? I just finished it the other day, it is still bouncing around in my head.

So far I have completely ignored all the books I listed before. I decided to work on a Hebrew e-book I found awhile ago,
נסיכת האלים : (יצאנו להציל את נסיכת הממלכה ובטעות פרצה מלחמה בין האלים)
I have been learning this language on and off for a few years now and have tried so many things including a textbook, a TV show, YouTube videos, listening to music, Duolingo, and lots more. I even tried TikTok but the algorithm doesn't like to be told what to do, it just gives me stuff it knows I really want to watch like absurd humor, politics/sociology, and music theory/history stuff. I am making very slow progress but I am much better than I was when I started.

The book is supposed to be humorous fantasy (possibly YA? I'm not sure). The title translates as "Princess of the Gods: (We tried to save the princess and accidentally caused a war between the gods)". It took me nearly an hour of going back and forth with my convenient live-in native speaker, looking up words and phrases, asking questions about grammar, pronunciation, and meaning and repeating stuff until I got it, but I got through the first paragraph!!

So far, a giant branch crashed into the worker's quarters of the palace early in the morning and almost hit the 21-year old royal gardener in bed. He's used to spells and monsters, but this is too much. He is wondering if it's related to the "cursed" tattoo on his forehead that he was born with (so I guess a birthmark?) of a branch.

Doesn't seem like much now, but that took an hour. The branch tattoo reminds me of Harry Potter a bit, and I am wondering if this is going to be a parody. The word for "branch" can also mean "carrot" and there is a cabbage on the cover, so I am wondering if there is some wordplay going on... At this rate, though, it's going to take me years to find out. It's not even 9PM here so I'm going to go back to one of the other books, probably Going Postal.

Books read from: 1
Books finished: 0
Time reading: ~1 hr
Time posting: 20 min

>16 alcottacre: >12 Carmenere: Thank you, Stasia.

Friday Night update on Saturday morning:

Books read from: Spare
Books finished: 1
Time reading: 4 1/2 hours

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 1
Total time reading: 4 1/2

>18 lyricism_: I am less than halfway through, Rio, and I can already see why it is still bouncing around in your head.

Hi Everyone! I find these read-a-thons a great motivator for sitting with my books.
Yesterday was meditation group, but I've sat this morning with Petit Traité sur le racisme by Dany Laferrière in honour of Black History Month. I'm learning tonnes even if it's sometimes a very heavy read.

Books read from: Petit Traité sur le racisme by Dany Laferrière
L'enfant perdue by Elena Ferrante
Books finished:
Time reading: 3
Time posting: Saturday morning
Snacks: kouing amann (pastry from Brittany, France)
Non-book activities: Meditation

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: 3

Saturday morning update

Books read from: Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear. I started reading Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis. I am listening to Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Books finished in this weekend's Readathon: Down From the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear by Bryce Andrews a five star read.

Book Thoughts: I started reading Silver Pigs last night and read for over and hour. I am half done with the book. This is the first in the Marcus Didius Falco series and it is a bit rough around the edges. It is a new series for me as well. I am reading it for the Mystery group read challenge. That group is starting two new series this year and this is the second of the new series. (the other is the Irene Huss series by Helene Tursten.) The introduction to the series was very interesting and described the author's problem in finding a publisher for a historical mystery series set in ancient Rome. It made me do some thinking about what publishers think the public will purchase and then then a series like this one comes along and the public likes it and turns it into a little money maker for the publisher. It is a very interesting, but fickle process. Sort of like a huge guessing game.

Non Book Activities: I will be cooking today. I have little food prepared and I will need to have something to eat during my last week at work. I haven't decided what to cook, but am thinking that something for desert would be nice. I can pick up Arby's roast beef sandwiches for the week and get by on those, but having a nice homecooked desert would be nice. It was cold here today. I set my nighttime temperature at 55 degrees and this morning I hit 55 inside the house. The furnace kicked on about 7 AM. I had been awake since 5 AM but laid there listening to the radio and dozing off.

Time reading: 1.5 hours
Time posting:
Food: Indian food with friends last night.
Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 299
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 824.5 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon back in April of 2020.

Friday evening:

Books read from: Black Love Matters edited by Jessica P. Pryde, Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 43 mins.
Snacks: peanut butter Bob's better bar, chocolate truffle cashew milk ice cream
Non-book activities: played Two Dots on my phone, updated and organized my tbr spreadsheet

Saturday afternoon update:

Books read from: The Silver Pigs
Books finished:
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: lunch was leftover burrito & refried beans and a tangerine
Thoughts: It's a beautiful, sunny day outside. Looks a lot like spring!
Non-book activities: supper & visiting with friends last night, research, YouTube, picked up trash in neighborhood, laundry, cleaning, dropped dog off at groomers

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 1
Total time reading: ?

Midday Saturday:

Books read from: The Dating Playbook, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Books finished: The Dating Playbook
Time reading: 4 hours
Time posting: 1:00 PM
Snacks: leftover pizza for lunch
Thoughts: Still being semi-lazy post-surgery, but tonight I think I'm going to try to cook for the first time.
Non-book activities: Laundry, follow-up appointment with surgeon yesterday

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: 4 hours

Saturday night update:

Books read from: The Silver Pigs, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Books finished: The Silver Pigs
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: crackers & cream cheese, peanut butter, cauliflower
Thoughts: Where did the day go?!
Non-book activities: picked up Adrian from groomer, stopped to see a friend and walk the dog on the way home, genealogy research

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: ?

Saturday Night Update:

Books read from: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers, The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig, and Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson
Books finished: 1, Tarka the Otter
Time reading: ~5.2 hours

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 6
Total time reading: ~9.0 hours

Today was a little better reading wise than yesterday was - I only had 2 naps today. Tomorrow I will be ending the auction that I have been running on BGG, so I will be busy with that and all it entails, plus Kerry will be home, so probably not a lot of reading time. I am hoping to finish The Whistling Season tomorrow though.

Sunday morning update:
Books read from: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson; L'enfant perdue by Elena Ferrante; Mind your Manners by Claire Wallace
Books finished: Petit Traité sur le racisme by Dany Laferrière
Time reading: 4
Time posting: Sunday morning
Snacks: Felix and Norton cookie - yum
Non-book activities: Beautiful hike in Limerick Forest (Eastern Ontario) followed by tea at the Brigadoon in Oxford Mills

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 7

Sunday morning update:

Watching tennis and entering research articles into a database as a favor to a good friend and mentor. Read a bit earlier this morning: The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I plan to finish it today.

I spent most of yesterday reading and finished two books: The Falcon's Malteser and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The latter is a reread although long enough ago that I haven't entered it in LT (so pre-2005) so I am counting it as a first time ;-)

I am listening to The Librarian of Crooked Lane and got in 20 minutes during the very chilly dog walk this morning.

Saturday:

Books read from: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng, Birds of California by Katie Cotugno, The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He, Black Love Matters edited by Jessica P. Pryde, Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels
Books finished: 0
Time reading: ~6 hrs.
Snacks: baked oatmeal with applesauce, chocolate coated cashews, homemade granola with vanilla cashew milk ice cream, banana, tomato soup, rice & turkey
Thoughts: Why are all these books breaking my heart?! Stop! (Don't stop.)
Non-book activities: neck pt exercises, played Two Dots on my phone

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 5
Total time reading: ~6 hrs., 45 min.

Sunday afternoon update

Books read from: Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear. I started reading Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis and I finished listening to Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid and started Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby.

Books finished in this weekend's Readathon: Down From the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear by Bryce Andrews a five star read. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Book Thoughts: I finished listening to Daisy Jones and the Six and am disappointed in this novel. It came highly recommended by several librarian friends of mine and a couple of the members of my real life book discussion group. It was OK, but not the knockout novel that I expected. I hit 300 books read since I started participating in the weekend read-a-thon. Great balls of fire! How did that happen.

Non Book Activities: I am cleaning out my office today. A former student and her daughter stopped by to help me start getting all the postcards off of the walls. We took down alot of them, but there are still a bunch left to do.

Time reading: 1.5 hours
Time posting:
Food: I had a wonderful southwestern style food with friends last night. We had a big potluck and the meat for the meal was simply amazing. Great flavor and the appetizers that went with it were so very good. We had great conversation and the party didn't break up until about 10 PM. Good food - good friends. What could be better. I finished the evening by reading for about a half hour in Silver Pigs, so I ended the day with a good book.
Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 300
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 826 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon back in April of 2020.

Sunday afternoon

Books:
Just finished An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Swedish novelist Helene Tursten.
I will look for more of hers!
Next up - The School for Good and Evil.

Bought 3 new books at the Authors' Expo and Readers' Extravaganza yesterday!

Brunch outside at a patio restaurant with our niece this morning.

Other activity:
Book festival was wonderful!
I really enjoyed presentations by Jeannette Walls, Kate Quinn, and David Balducci.
Also liked the writer's workshop on biography and memoir. This was a great free event.

sunny, 69 F. (21 C.) in Fernandina Beach

Sunday evening
I've started Les Villages de Dieu by Haitian writer, Emmelie Prophète - it's a beautiful but tough read; lots of violence and desparation. I'll likely finish today with Elena Ferrante.

Books read from: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson; L'enfant perdue by Elena Ferrante; Mind your Manners by Claire Wallace; Les Villages de Dieu by Emmelie Prophète
Books finished: Petit Traité sur le racisme by Dany Laferrière
Time reading: 3
Time posting: Sunday evening
Snacks: More Felix and Norton cookies because who can resist? not me.
Non-book activities: Birding (saw Bohemian Waxwings which are not common in this season) in Richmond Conservation Area, near Ottawa Canada

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: 10

>32 nrmay: that festival sounds dynamite!

Sunday night:

Books read from: Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, The World We Make
Books finished: The World We Make
Time reading: 5 hours
Time posting: 7:45 PM
Snacks: Pork chops in gravy with cheese grits and sauteed kale for dinner
Thoughts: Might have overdid just a tiny bit this weekend. I'm glad I still have one more day off.
Non-book activities: Laundry, cooking

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 9 hours

Sunday night update:

Books read from: The Third Man
Books finished:
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: tangerine
Thoughts: It's been an unusual weekend. I barely picked up a print book, but I did have quite a bit of time to listen to audiobooks.
Non-book activities: church, cooking lunch, short walk with dog, visit with friends, cleaning kitchen, Zoom book club, more cooking and cleaning kitchen

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: ?

Sunday Night Update:

Books read from: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig, and The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Books finished: 1, The Whistling Season
Time reading: ~2.5 hours

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 7
Total time reading: ~11.5 hours

As I suspected, the BGG auction took up most of my day, so I got little reading done. Ah, well.

Monday morning update (I'm calling it here; a bit late but it may still count as the weekend since it is a holiday here)

Books read from: Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, נסיכת האלים : (יצאנו להציל את נסיכת הממלכה ובטעות פרצה מלחמה בין האלים)
by מיכאל שמואל אלבוים
Books finished: 1, Going Postal
Time reading: ~6 hours
Non-reading activities: We had company Saturday night and a spent I a long time yesterday digitizing (by scanning in) old journals to reduce the amount of stuff we will need to move.

>38 lyricism_: I am definitely counting today as part of the readathon.

Was up early to finish The Awakening by Kate Chopin and then read a chapter of The New Jim Crow. Heading out for a lunch date at the Mexican place downtown but then a free afternoon and evening to read. Ah, sweet semi-retirement!

Midday Monday, with what feels like an appropriate reading update for Presidents Day:

Books read from: Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Books finished: Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Time reading: 2 hours
Time posting: 1 PM
Snacks: chicken sandwich for lunch
Thoughts: I don't think normal people become President of the United States--it takes a kind of ambition, arrogance, and drive that few have. But that presidential abnormality comes in destructive and constructive forms, and I think LBJ was an unusual blend of both.
Non-book activities: Sleeping late

Total books finished: 3
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 11 hours

Sunday:

Books read from: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng, Birds of California by Katie Cotugno, Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels
Books finished: 0
Time reading: ~4 hrs., 30 min.
Snacks: chocolate chip Bob's better bar, banana, homemade chocolate blackberry cake, Wavy Lays, Swedish Fish, lime soda
Non-book activities: neck pt exercises, played Two Dots on my phone, video call with my niece at college, phone meeting, watched In the Flesh on Hulu

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 5
Total time reading: ~11 hrs., 15 min.

Monday evening, Presidents Day. 3 cheers for Biden and his visit to Ukraine.

Books:
put down The School for Good and Evil. : \
started The Man Who Died Twice, 2nd in the Thursday Murder Club series.

Seafood dinner out with my nephew and his wife. They go home tomorrow.

Other activity:
Took a nice nature walk at the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve and visited the Fort Caroline National Memorial exhibit.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/348863