Social Distancing Readathon #316 - April 10 - 12

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

Good morning from California.
I read 300 pages of
THE WAR I FINALLY WON
on the flight yesterday.
I’ll be reading this weekend in between granddaughters’ ball games and activities.

I'm in & should get in a decent amount of reading, with no major plans this weekend. Currently reading The Man-Kzin Wars ed. by Larry Niven & Jews vs. Rome by Barry S. Strauss.

I am in! As far as I know, I have nothing going on this weekend and I would like to make some headway on my library books.

I am in, too. My plans are to finish Crossings by Alex Landragin and to read from some collections of short stories.

Friday Night Update:

Books read from: Shadows in Death by J. D. Robb (audiobook), We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker, A Furious Sky by Eric Jay Dolin, and The Sisters of Sugarcreek by Cathy Liggett
Books finished: 2, We Begin at the End and The Sisters of Sugarcreek
Time reading: ~2.8 hours + listening to audiobook

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: ~2.8 hours + listening to audiobook

Saturday morning update- South Carolina, USA

Books read from: Alex Landragin, Crossings; Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More; and Michael Chabon, A Model World and Other Stories

Books completed: Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
Total books read from: 3
Total books finished: 1

In, but most likely just audiobooks today (working through another George Packer title; unsure what tomorrow will bring. Enjoy everyone!

Saturday report
Books read from: Bending the Law: The Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy by Richard B. Sobol. I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong. Mykonos After Midnight by Jeffrey Siger. My continuous reading book is still Katharine Graham's Washington by Katharine Graham. My computer book is Walking It Off by Doug Peacock. I am listening to Last Chairlift by John Irving.

Books finished: Mykonos After Midnight by Jeffrey Siger

Book Thoughts:
Had fun reading Mykonos After Midnight and now I have another book to pick up at the Library. Exciting.

Activities: nothing so far. Hope to bake some banana bread later today.

Reading Time Today: 4 hours
Time listening:
Time posting:
Food: yogurt and granola for breakfast

Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 577
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 1768 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon starting in April of 2020.

Saturday morning update:

Books read from: Legends & Lattes, The Feather Detective
Books finished: The Feather Detective
Snacks: breakfast was a bacon, egg & cheese biscuit from Bojangles and iced latte from a local family-run drivethru coffee shop
Thoughts: It's a beautiful Saturday in East Tennessee! I'm looking forward to hanging out with Wally today.
Non-book activities: cleaned kitchen, took trash to dump

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2

Next up is Mykonos After Midnight.

Saturday night update:

Books read from: Legends & Lattes, Mykonos After Midnight
Books finished: Legends & Lattes
Snacks: Supper was baked salmon, asparagus, and grapes
Thoughts: It's been a perfect spring day - sunny and warm but not too hot.
Non-book activities: Shopping with a friend, laundry, cooked supper and cleaned the kitchen, watched the Svannah Bananas and Texas Tailgaters. It was one of the most exciting games I've seen in a while!

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 3

Sat night

Books:
Finished THE WAR I FINALLY WON
now reading
THE NIGHT WAR and
WE BEGIN AT THE END

Dinner was take-out from a fancy market near where we are staying in Carmel.

Other:
today’s softball games both cancelled due to rain.
Drove down to Carmel this afternoon to meet friends. Did a short nature walk. Went to the beach - beautiful but very windy.

>12 nrmay:
I loved that series War I Finally Won and War That Saved My Life. They were really good.

Saturday Night Summary:

Books read from: Shadows in Death by J. D. Robb (audiobook), A Furious Sky by Eric Jay Dolin, The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud, and News from Thrush Green by Miss Read
Books finished: 1, Shadows in Death
Time reading: ~2.25 hours + listening to audiobook

Total books finished: 3
Total read from: 6
Total time reading: ~5.05 hours + listening to audiobook

Sunday morning update- South Carolina, USA

I did not read as much as I planned, but I had a full LibraryThing Saturday. I added 2 shelves from my medieval bookcase to LibraryThing. That's about 70 books. I also weeded 17 duplicates from those shelves. Why did I have 4 copies of Njal's Saga?

I realized that the short stories I am reading fit very nicely with the 26 stories in 2026 challenge. Therefore, I joined that challenge and wrote 6 prompt responses.

Books read from: Alex Landragin, Crossings and Michael Chabon, A Model World and Other Stories, and Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

Total Books completed: Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More and Alex Landragin, Crossings
Total books read from: 3
Total books finished: 2
Book Reflections/Responses Written: 7

Friday & Saturday:

Books read from: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, re-read; The Verifiers by Jane Pek; Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas; What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To by Mary Lucia
Books finished: 0
Snacks: quesadilla, pancakes from my favorite recipe
Thoughts: Three of these books (all but the re-read) are for book clubs or author events. I'd seen posters/art from What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To around Minneapolis and really liked it but hadn't realized it was for a book. There's an author event at the library next week. The book is funny and weird like the cover (and title). The writing is a little scattered & I might want another editing pass for it, but I also wouldn't want to smother the idiosyncracies of it, so, I suppose it's fine. Dreaming of You is my first Kleypas and my first 20th century-written romance. It's a bit trying and dated, especially around consent. I have the book club next week at our romance bookstore Tropes & Trifles. It's in the 'bonkers' book club category. I haven't really found it to be bonkers yet, but I'm only half-way through. I fall in and out of like with the book, and it feels like a really long book. The Verifiers is for next month's book club at Tropes & Trifles. The book club category (they host multiple book clubs per month) is 'but do they kiss.' I don't know what that means, maybe is it a capital r Romance or a romantic story? I'd say the second, well, actually I'd say it's not even romantic (maybe anti-romantic, ha!), but it's definitely a mystery. I really like it, even though the main character stresses me out so bad (as amateur sleuths can do). I probably won't finish the Kleypas in time for the April book club, but I'll hopefully finish The Verifiers today (Sunday).
Non-book activities: orchestra concert Friday night, art tour (Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin) with college alumni at the institute of art Saturday afternoon

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 4

Sunday report
Books read from: Bending the Law: The Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy by Richard B. Sobol. I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong. Mammoths At the Gates by Nghi Vo. My continuous reading book is still Katharine Graham's Washington by Katharine Graham. My computer book is Walking It Off by Doug Peacock. I am listening to Last Chairlift by John Irving.

Books finished: Mykonos After Midnight by Jeffrey Siger

Book Thoughts:
Had a great book discussion today with my Zoom book group. We read Deacon King Kong and everybody liked it. Lots of food for discussion in this book. I started a novella published by tor.com and it won't take long to read it. Then I can go back to reading I Contain Multitudes.

Activities: Took a day off today. Slept in and read.

Reading Time Today: 4 hours
Time listening:
Time posting:
Food: mexican pastry for breakfast. goldenrod Asparagus for lunch.

Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 577
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 1772 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon starting in April of 2020.

>17 benitastrnad: Good to hear about Deacon King Kong. I have that one sitting on my shelves, unread. I really need to get to it some time!

Sunday Night Synopsis:

Books read from: A Furious Sky by Eric Jay Dolin, The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud, and So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Books finished: 1, The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
Time reading: ~2.9 hours + listening to audiobook

Total books finished: 4
Total read from: 7
Total time reading: ~7.95 hours + listening to audiobook

Weekend Wrap-Up- South Carolina, USA

Books read from: 5 Alex Landragin, Crossings, Michael Chabon, A Model World and Other Stories, Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Sharyn McCrumb, The Ballad of Tom Dooley, and Grails: Quests of the Dawn, an anthology edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin E. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer

Books completed: 3 Alex Landragin, Crossings, Michael Chabon, A Model World and Other Stories, and Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

Book/Short Story Reflections/Responses Written: 9

LibraryThing Activities: I have added all of the books from my medieval bookcase to LibraryThing (around 120 books). I was able to weed 28 duplicates.

Note: Since I am retiring in a few months, I am starting to bring home books from the 5 bookcases in my office--hence the high number of duplicates.

Sunday:

Books read from: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, re-read; The Verifiers by Jane Pek; Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas; What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To by Mary Lucia
Books finished: 0
Snacks: quesadilla, gf df chocolate cookies 'n creme ice cream
Non-book activities: laundry in the morning, writing with my writing group in the early afternoon, washed my hair mid afternoon, attended a concert in the evening (my sister attended an adult rock music camp this weekend for women and nonbinary people where you didn't have to have any musical experience; she learned a little guitar and rocked out for one song with the band she was assigned to)

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 4

>13 benitastrnad:
I really liked them too, Benita, and my current book - THE NIGHT WAR - is yet another by K B Bradley.

Weekend wrap-up

Books:
THE NIGHT WAR
WE BEGIN AT THE END

Dinner at an Asian dumpling place.

Other activity:
All softball games were cancelled this weekend due to rain. We did get to see the youngest (6) play a basketball game.

Partly cloudy, 53F/12C in California.
At home, highs are in the 80s for the next week.
Spring is lovely in North Carolina and l prefer not to travel then, but offered to mind the grandies next weekend while the parents take a short trip.

Wrapup
Books read from: Bending the Law: The Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy by Richard B. Sobol. I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong. Mammoths At the Gates by Nghi Vo. My continuous reading book is still Katharine Graham's Washington by Katharine Graham. My computer book is Walking It Off by Doug Peacock. I am listening to Last Chairlift by John Irving.

Books finished: Mykonos After Midnight by Jeffrey Siger. Mammoths At the Gates by Nghi Vo.

Book Thoughts:
I finished reading Mammoths At the Gates this morning. It was one of the novellas published by Tordotcom. These novella's are fantasy or Sci/Fi and they are great fun. Short and fun recreational reading. This was book 4 in the Singing Hills Cycle. I had requested it from ILL and got fairly fast. When I went to enter it in LT as having been read, I discovered that I had not read book 3 in the series, so I turned around and requested it from ILL.

Activities: I am going to bake my bananna bread this afternoon and use one of my fancy Nordicware pans. The one with the flowers and bees on it.

Reading Time Today: 42 hours
Time listening:
Time posting:
Food: the last of the goldenrod Asparagus for lunch.

Total books finished since the Read-A-Thon Began: 578
Total Time Reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 1774 hours since I started doing the weekend Read-A-Thon starting in April of 2020.

Weekend Summary:

Books read from: The Man-Kzin Wars ed. by Larry Niven, Jews vs. Rome by Barry S. Strauss, The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly
Books finished: The Man-Kzin Wars, Jews vs. Rome
Pages read: 450-ish

Weekend recap:

Books read from: Legends & Lattes, The Feather Detective, Mykonos After Midnight, My Name Is Leon
Books finished: Legends & Lattes, The Feather Detective
Thoughts: I finished The Feather Detective in plenty of time for last night's book club meeting. That was my top goal for the readathon, so it was a success!

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 4

Late wrap-up: delightful domestic disruption keeps me distracted ... but I did get a few hours in on open audiobooks this weekend, completing 3 books. Didn't track hours et al, so just listing the completions:
- 1066 and Before All That: The Battle of Hastings, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman England - Ed West
- Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal - George Packer
- We Were One: Shoulder-to-Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah - Patrick K. O'Donnell

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/383730