Social Distancing Readathon #214 - April 19 - 21

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 can join - Kerry from Auckland, NZ.

8pm Friday
Currently reading The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling). Enjoying getting into this chunkster. I have a couple of other reads I'll finish up this weekend.

Looks like another rainy weekend in Ontario... I'm in.

I’m in!
I’ll be reading in Burlingame CA this weekend. We’re visiting our son & his family.
I’m currently swept up in Fairy Tale by S King.

I'm in - currently reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

It is going to be a rainy weekend here too, so I will join in as much as I can!

Friday startup to Weekend Reading
Books read from: Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman. Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams. I am listening to Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian.

Books finished:

Book Thoughts: My main squeeze this weekend is Hour of Land. I am totally engrossed in this book. I am only reading a few pages at a time in the Ruth Ozeki book but I will get back to it. Sandcastle Girls is a tough read. Very bloody and graphic. It is well written but more graphic than I like.

Non-Book activities: So far I haven't done anything today but sit at this computer and plan my High School class reunion.

Time reading today: 1 hour
Time reading this weekend - 1 hour
Time listening:
Time posting:

Food: yogurt and honey for breakfast and leftovers for lunch

Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 411
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 1165 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon in April of 2020.

I'm 'home, home again' and just counting down the hours til I start this evening ... lots of books piled up waiting for me. Fingers crossed other activities don't prevent me from reaching my personal goal: I'd like to hit 12h minimum, and 15h if I can make it. I really, really, REALLY need to work the pile down!

I’m joining in too. Besides a haircut on Saturday, I have nothing planned. Thankfully the grass is too wet to mow so I might as well read.
I’ll be reading Starter Villain (I was sold when I saw a cat in a suit on the cover) and Nana which my son’s GF recommended to me.

>9 Carmenere:
I quite liked Starter Villain!
Another fun one of Scalzi’s with appealing cat-like creatures is Fuzzy Nation.

7pm Sat
I've read more of The Running Grave & started listening to The Magus by John Fowles as my audiobook of The Iliad reset itself back to the beginning so I have to find where I am, not something I can do when driving.

>10 nrmay: I'm very much enjoying Starter Villain. This is my first Scalzi so I'll look into his other works....especially Fuzzy Nation. Thanks for the heads up.

Friday night update:

Books read from: Starter Villain, Nana
Books finished:
Time reading: about 2 hours
Time posting: Saturday 8:45am
Snacks: popcorn
Thoughts: I can see Starter Villain as a funny Netflix limited series
Non-book activities: episode of Survivor and a couple episodes of Sex and the City

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

Friday Night Update:

Books read from: Promises in Death by J.D. Robb, Vermeer’s Hat by Timothy Brook, and At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard
Books finished: 2, Promises in Death and Vermeer's Hat
Time reading: 2.75 hours

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 2.75 hours

Sat a.m.

Books:
Fairy Tale, S King
And read to the grandies -
Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. We’re into retold & fractured fairy tales.
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

Dinner was take-out from Mediterranean Kitchen.

Other activity:
Played with the kids.
Family movie night, watched MIGRATION.

Saturday update
Books read from: Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua. I am listening to Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian.

Books finished: Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman

Book Thoughts: I gave up on Lexus and the Olive Tree. I seldom quit on books, especially nonfiction books, but I am giving up on this one. I have read 140 pages and I know two things reading this book. Friedman is an unabashed cheerleader for globalization and that this book is sadly out-of-date. I should have known there was a reason why it was on my shelves for almost 25 years. It never appealed to me and it still doesn't. The book was written in 1998 and that age shows. The great disasters of 2007-08 haven't happened yet, and so all the evils of globalization as we know it today haven't happened. Therefore, it is easy to be positive about the idea and how it will lift all boats and bring millions out of poverty. Yada, yada, yada. I think I will quit on this book and start reading World on Fire instead. It was written in 2003 and appears to be a sort of answer to Lexus and the Olive Tree. It may also prove to be dated, but we'll see.

At any rate, I wouldn't recommend anybody waste their time reading Lexus and the Olive Tree unless they are undertaking a historical study on attitudes and ideas about globalization. That sounds like a job for an academic, not somebody who just wants to learn about globalization in 2024.

Non-Book activities: I packed up two boxes of books today in preparation for the move. I will enter them into LT and my spread sheet so that I know where they are when I get moved. I have a dinner tonight and so am getting a few things together for it. Then I can sit down and watch TV for a little while.

Time reading today: 1 hour
Time reading this weekend - 2 hour
Time listening:
Time posting:

Food: yogurt and honey for breakfast and leftovers from Taco Casa (a local chain) for lunch

Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 412
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 1166 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon in April of 2020.

>10 nrmay: I stand corrected! I have read Scalzi in the past. I was reminded of Redshirts when I saw a pic of it on the back dust cover of Starter Villain.
Our library book discussion group read Redshirts last year and I remember we all enjoyed it. It was a hoot as I recall.

Saturday afternoon update:

Books read from: The Unexpected Guest, Vermeer's Hat, The Consequences of Fear, Home
Books finished: The Unexpected Guest, Vermeer's Hat
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: cheese crackers
Thoughts: I love spring!
Non-book activities: My neighbor's son and DIL picked up another beagle puppy last night to join the one they got a couple of weeks ago, and I went over an played with puppies for a while last night. This morning I made potato salad, and I have applesauce in the Crockpot now. I've done a couple of loads of laundry, I took a bag of trash to the dump, and I walked the dog.

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: ?

>10 nrmay: Dang. I checked the description/series info & found out Scalzi rewrote H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy. I loved Piper's book & now I think I'm going to have to reread it. And then maybe read Scalzi's take. I have been wanting to try him.

I just joined my first group and this is my first comment on any thread! Happy reading 💕
Books read from: 3
My Best Friends Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Out of the Fog by Clarissa Ross
Cannery Row John Steinbeck
Books finished: 2
Out of the Fog
Cannery Row
Time reading: 10hrs

Who is participating -

1. Angela OMalley (AngelaOMalley72)

>20 AngelaOMalley72: Welcome, AngelaOMalley72! I hope you enjoy your time on LT!

Saturday Night Update:

Books read from: The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson (audiobook), Fairy Tale by Stephen King, At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, and Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler
Books finished: 0
Time reading: ~2.3 hours + listening to audiobook

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 7
Total time reading: ~5.05 hours + listening to audiobook

>17 Carmenere:
>19 ReneeMarie:
I read Fuzzy Nation first and then the original Little Fuzzy. I liked both of them and found sequels to the Piper book. I have Fuzzy Sapiens on my shelf to read soon.

Sunday morning

Books:
Fairy Tale, King.
2nd reading of The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. The 4-year-old likes it!

Book sale this weekend at the public library! I want to take the grandies. 😀

Dinner: Thai take-out

Sunny and cool - 54 F./12 C.
in California at 8am.

Sunday morning/Saturday update:

Books read from: Starter Villain, Reflections on the Psalms
Books finished:
Time reading: about 4 hours
Time posting: Sunday 11:31am
Snacks: gingerbread cookies and tea
Thoughts:
Non-book activities: got a haircut and color - Watched the Cavs in first game of playoffs and then watched the Guardians, also a couple episodes of Sex and the City (haha I never remember there being so much sex in the City)

Total books finished:
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 6 hours

It's cold 40f and gray here in Cleveland, OH. No motivation to pick up the mulch I had planned on doing today. Tomorrow for sure. I shall read :0)

Sunday update
Books read from: Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua. I am listening to Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian.

Books finished: Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman. Hour of Land by Terry Tempest Williams

Book Thoughts: I finished Hour of Land late last night. It was for my real life book discussion group and it was a winner. It is part memoir, part travelogue, and part environmental and climate change war cry. The author makes no secret of her environmental activism and her partisanship in environmental and climate change policy. Even so, this is a very interesting book. The author uses photographs to make points in the book and experiments with different literary styles in some of the essays. This makes reading the book very interesting. The author makes no bones about her beliefs and even though she keeps pounding on that nail I never got bored with it. I am hoping that other people will pick this book up and read it and I can't wait to hear what the others in my book group have to say about it.

Non-Book activities: I haven't been able to get e-mail for several days so will have to go to Panera tonight and do the updates required. That is a good thing. It means more reading time. I need to pack more boxes of books, but that can be done later tonight. I also spent a good part of the morning knitting on my shawl.

Time reading today: 3 hours - two last night and 1 so far today.
Time reading this weekend - 3 hour
Time listening:
Time posting:

Food: had my Sunday morning cappuccino from Starbucks and lunch at the Indian restaurant and now will have coffee at Panera.

Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 413
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 1169 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon in April of 2020.

Sunday afternoon update:

Books read from: Henry, himself by Stewart O'Nan; Cover her face by PD James; La sorcière moderne du foyer by Arin Murphy-Hiscock; Payback by Margaret Atwood; Naming Canada by ALan Rayburn
Books finished:
Time reading: 2 hours
Time posting: Sunday 6 pm
Snacks: popcorn
Thoughts: I'm really enjoying the O'Nan book: they are vignettes of everyday life, from backed up drains to sweet Valentine's dates... the small things that make up every day: very relatable.
Non-book activities: hiking and lots of eating: I discovered kanfeh, a delicious Lebanese cheesecake.

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 5
Total time reading: 6 hours

1.30pm Monday

Books read from: The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith, October 16, 1943: Eight Jews by Giacomo Debendetti
Time reading: 2 hours

Snacks: crumpets, iced latte, Thai chicken fried rice
Thoughts:
Non-book activities: Been busy shopping & preparing for Pesach

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 3

Forgot that I'd be spending time on food prep so my reading has been much less than I expected.

Sunday night update:

Books read from: Home
Books finished:
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: blueberry kefir
Thoughts: This is one of the winter's but I'm not sure which one. We've already had dogwood winter and it's too early for blueberry winter.
Non-book activities: I went to church this morning, stopped at the grocery store on the way home, then cooked lunch. I watched a couple of movies this afternoon. This evening I watched a friend's grandson's college band on a Youtube livestream, and I went to a neighbor's house to watch When Calls the Heart.

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: ?

>20 AngelaOMalley72: Welcome! I hope you enjoy LibraryThing!

Still doing outside work during the weekend, not much energy left for reading, but I read chapters in Proverbs and Mark in the Bible, and I got more than half of Other Men's Horses done. I'm really enjoying it!

Books read from: Starter Villain, Reflections on the Psalms
Books finished:
Time reading: about 5 hours
Time posting: Monday 8:05am
Snacks: popcorn
Thoughts: Are the Guardians peaking too early?
Non-book activities:watched the Guardians play Oakland A's and a couple episodes of Sex and the City

Total books finished:
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 13 hours

>20 AngelaOMalley72: welcome! I think you're going to like it here

Weekend summary:

Books read from: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Books finished: none
Pages read: 300

Non-book activities: Went to see my granddaughter perform in her high school musical - a supporting role that afforded her several lines & a few solo singing lines. She did wonderfully & I'm so pleased for her. Watched some Detroit Tigers baseball - winning a series against the Twins is always good.

Sunday Night Update:

Books read from: Fairy Tale by Stephen King, At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, and Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler
Books finished: 2, Fairy Tale and At the Feet of the Sun
Time reading: ~3.4 hours

Total books finished: 4
Total read from: 7
Total time reading: ~8.45 hours + listening to audiobook

Books read from: Conquerors, Roger Crowley; The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart; The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944, Ian W. Toll; and, Armada, Ernest Cline.
Books finished: 2
Time reading: Fri: 2.25h, Sat: 3.5h, Sun: 7.25h, totaling 13h

Snacks: not so memorable, but dinners pretty delish: leftover homemade Cataplana, steak, and Turkey w/sweet pots

Thoughts: Is it ever too early for the Guardians to peak?! (former 'lander, always thinking "Go Tribe!", and looking forward to visiting my folks there next week!) And my sons are good men despite their mother's crazy (maybe that should be capital "C"), and hearing their voices as they called home this weekend (so happy!) has me counting my blessings. And yes, they were talking about their heartbreaks of the moment, but they are each in a good place. I can't express my gratitude to (universe or insert fave deity here) enough for this.

Non-book activities: a baby shower! Not related at all but so excited for a young couple expecting their first, and twins!

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: 13 hours

>34 PocheFamily: I am set to read The Piano Shop on the Left Bank this month for one of the TIOLI challenges. I hope you are enjoying it!

>35 alcottacre: Loved it! It is a peaceful book. I played piano only when I had access to one. I'm not brilliant, certainly not as talented as ANY of the characters described in the book, but I totally 'get the vibe' and appreciate the beauty of the sound. The book is a love letter to the instrument, really, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. As a side note, having read a lot of exhaustive NFs, I much prefer this author's style: still a bit exhaustive, but because you're on a journey of discovery with the author, it's like taking a trip and peeking into other people's passions. If that makes sense.

>36 PocheFamily: I am glad to see that you enjoyed it. This will be a re-read for me, but it has been several years since I originally read it. Yes, it makes sense :)

Weekend Wrap-up
Books read from: Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua. I am listening to Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian.

Books finished: Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman. Hour of Land by Terry Tempest Williams

Book Thoughts: I got a really good start on World on Fire and am liking this take on the globalization of democracy. It was written in 2003 and I think it is an attempt to answer the question of why they dislike us so much. I am just reading the first part where she is talking about who "they" are and explaining the place of colonialism in so many of the world's problems today. I am reading a chapter on Brazil right now and she introduced readers to the concept of pigmentocracy. This is a system of placing people in order importance to an economic system based on how dark a persons skin color is. Very interesting reading at this point, but I am only 75 pages into the book.

Non-Book activities: I packed another box of books last night and will try to do two more today. I spent Sunday evening watching Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office, Call the Midwife and Doc Martin while knitting on my shawl. It as a nice relaxing Sunday evening.

Time reading today: 1 hour on Sunday night.
Time reading this weekend - 7 hour
Time listening:
Time posting:

Food: had my Sunday morning cappuccino from Starbucks and lunch at the Indian restaurant and now will have coffee at Panera.

Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 413
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 1171 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon in April of 2020.

I finished Other Men's Horses last night. It was a winner!


Other Men's Horses by Elmer Kelton

An engaging narrative of a young Texas Ranger on the trail of a man who allegedly killed a horse thief. There are several side plots that don't confuse but enrich the story, including a woman in search of her husband, and a Buffalo Soldier on the run for the shooting of a white man. It's a really good tale, recommended even if you've not read any previous books in the series.

>39 fuzzi:

I’ll read that. I love a good western!
I see my public library has the first one in the series.

>39 fuzzi: I have that book & should be reading it in a couple of months as I work through the Texas Rangers series.

Late with my wrap-up

Books
Nearly 3/4 way through S King’s Fairy Tale.
Next up is book club selection for next month - Pretending to Dance, by D. Chamberlain.

Other activity:
Lots of family time. Another movie night. We watched Toy Story 3.
Many hours spent at the park and monitoring scooter and bike riding.

>40 nrmay: there's some grim aspects to the series, but keep on. I think they get better with each addition to the series.

I like Andy, very much.

>41 ChrisG1: I suspect you will enjoy it.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/360348