I think that I should post about the reading funk and the book-ban, but I don’t feel like it.  So there.  =P

On Saturday during the read-athon, I finished two books, Stephenie Meyers’s “Breaking Dawn” and Jane Yolen’s “Briar Rose.”  I was within 25 pages of hitting 1,000 pages that day, but I just couldn’t do more.  Since then I’ve read maybe 80 pages of “Capote in Kansas” by Kim Powers.  Although I’m enjoying “Capote in Kansas,” I’m feeling a bit of a reading funk.  In order to try to remedy this, I’m imposing a reading semi-ban through Friday.

I will allow myself to work through “Capote in Kansas” during lunch time or if I get cold enough to take a hot bath at night, but that’s it.  Any time I’m at home, if I want entertainment, it will be television and popcap.com games, all the way.  I may not be as good at getting on LibraryThing or my Google Reader either, so if there’s something I really should see, feel free to email me.

Oh, and don’t expect any reviews this week.  They’ll be back next week.  I may update how this challenge is going, and I’ll likely post for the Tuesday Thingers and Booking Through Thursday memes, but this will be a quiet week here.
Why am I doing this?  Simple.  I figure after a week of TV I’ll be so glad to get back to my books that I’ll forget this funk ever existed.
P.S.
Neither ‘funk’ nor ‘reading funk’ turned up anything interesting in google image search.  =(

I took a fairly long break after finishing “Breaking Dawn” around 2 and have only now finally finished my much shorter book, “Briar Rose” by Jane Yolen, another 224 pages.  

I really should read another 25 pages of something at least, so I can get to a full 1,000.  I don’t think I’m going to make it much longer, however, even though it isn’t all that late here.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it all night, but I didn’t think I’d crash by 9!  We’ll see, hopefully I can at least get to my 1,000.

If I’m not mistaken, the 7th hour of the read-athon just ended.  Since my last update I took a little nap and a couple of breaks, but I also just finished the whole 750+ pages of Stephenie Meyer’s “Breaking Dawn.”  I’m not totally sure what I am going to read next, but I think I may try to go and find something to eat first.  The husband and I may also go over to the pool and get a few laps in.

I’m starting to think I have a cursed relationship with the read-athon.  Last time I was having issues with my blog, having just switched over from Wordpress to self-hosting, and couldn’t post at times.  Now my whole internet keeps going out.  With my last post I even had to restart it a second time just to publish what I had written.

Anyway, more non-stop reading.  My google reader is going to be insane whenever I finally have consistent internet but, what can you do?  I’m on page 543 of “Breaking Dawn,” so I’m approaching the end and thinking somewhat about what I will read next.
I hope everyone else’s technology is behaving better than mine!

I’ve pretty much been reading for the last two hours straight, pausing only to microwave leftover Thai food (yes, pad kee mao is sort of an odd breakfast, I know) and constantly reset the wireless router.  My internet seems to be going out pretty regularly.  I’ll reset it and it will work for about 5 minutes, so I haven’t visisted anyone else yet.  Maybe that’s good, though, I got so distracted seeing what everyone else was doing last time, that I got a lot less read than I had hoped. 

I think a nap may be coming in the next couple of hours.  I didn’t sleep all that well last night and I’m not going to be doing any caffeine today, so I already know I won’t be reading the WHOLE 24 hours.  I’m sort of hoping that if I take enough 30-45 minute naps I can stay up later tonight, though.

So far I haven’t finished anything, but I’m 345 pages through “Breaking Dawn,” by Stephenie Meyer.  It isn’t as bad as I thought it would be based on some people’s reviews.  Perhaps reading all of the books within a month and a half or so (and just reading “Eclipse” yesterday) actually helped my enjoyment.  I didn’t have time (and really didn’t care enough either, but that’s a different story) to wonder constantly what was going to happen next.  That plus some luke-warm reviews kept me from building up the next installment of this supernatural soap opera.  

Back to reading!  If my internet stays on, I’ll try to visit some of you in the next hour.

I didn’t even set an alarm this morning, but my body must have known it was time for the read-athon, because it woke up a nice 15 minutes before the start (allowing me to start not TOO late, since I still had to write this post).  I’m starting on the couch with my pile of books, because my husband is nowhere near ready to wake up and it is too dark to read in our room without turning on a light.  I’ve got a nice pile of books to keep my company, though!

I still haven’t figured out where I’m starting.  ”Descartes’ Bones” is one that I need to just go ahead and finish, but I think I’m going to save that until I’m in the groove more.

In case you hadn’t heard about the read-athon until RIGHT NOW and want to join, click the picture of the woman reading in my sidebar to be taken to the information page.  If you simply want to follow along with what others are doing in the read-athong, check out http://gargantuanbooks.blogspot.com/, a feed of all of the readers’ latest posts.  

Happy Reading!

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

A.J. Jacobs is a secular Jew living with his secular wife in (largely) secular New York.  A.J. began to wonder, however, if his was missing out on something with this whole religion thing.  So many people seemed so into it, after all.  Particularly after the birth of his first son, A.J. began to wonder what exactly would ground his son in the future, or help him to grow up to make good choices.  So A.J. decided he would follow the Bible - the ENTIRE Bible - for a year.

I had read A.J.’s previous book, “The Know-It-All” about reading the entire Encycopedia Britanica in a year, so I expected a fun read, filled with obscure facts, this time about the Bible.  Well, I did get that, but I got so much more as well.  It was really fascinating to read about A.J.’s spiritual journey throughout the year and see how trying to follow the rules of the Bible - which necessitated really trying to UNDERSTAND the Bible - changed A.J. for the better.  It came across not just in the story he was telling, but the way he wrote as well.  I have to admit, I got a little teary towards the end as well.

“The Year of Living Biblically” is fun and spiritual, with irreverant reverance and reverant irreverance.  I think this could be enjoyed by all, religious or not.

Buy this book on Amazon.

The prize summary of the 100th Review Giveaway!

Before I tell you who won, let me give you some numbers.

149 people entered this contest, with a total of 455 entries (from posting on blogs and commenting on reviews).  That’s an average of just over three entries per person.  Kathy of Bermuda Onion and Word Lily had the most entries with 14 each.  Surprisingly (and sadly), this didn’t translate to wins for either of them.

By far the two most popular books were “The Guernsey Literay and Potato Peel Society” and “Sarah’s Key,” with 42 and 40 requests, respectively.  “The Last Queen,” “The Other Queen,” and “Sweetsmoke” came in next around the high 20s and low 30s.  “The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters” got a surprising 7 requests, given that it was added late.  Even the book added very last, “Months and Seasons” had at least one person going back and making it her new choice (plus the late-comers who chose it).

Now, we didn’t quite make 150, so I am not adding a 9th winner.  However, there were so many people with so many entries, that I am adding an extra copy of two books: “Sarah’s Key” and “The Best Place to Be”.  The 5th and 6th place winners will each get 2 books instead of only 1.

The winners:

First, let me tell you how I selected the winners.  I put everyone’s name, email address, number of entries, and book choices in an excel spreadsheet (I will delete it, along with all your email addresses after I notify the winners, it was just the only way to ever find your contact information easily).  Once they were all in and final, I alphabetized, then numbered everyone based on the number of entries.  The first person might be 1 through 5, the second 6 through 7, etc.  I then asked random.org’s random interger generator for 8 intergers between 1 and 455.  Reading right to left then top to bottom the numbers were:

279, 247, 285, 358, 264, 62, 241, 90

Those numbers correspond to:

MJ of Creative Madness
Mari of Mari Reads
Natasha of Maw Books (probably good karma from the huge awareness and fund raiser she did for Darfur)
Shelly of Write for a Reader
Melody of From One Idealist to Your Mother
Caite of Caites Day at the Beach (I didn’t lose yours Caite!)
Margie
Donna of LibrarysCat

I will try my best to give you all at least ONE of your choices.

I’ll be emailing each of you (well, maybe not Melody), to get your addresses.

Those of you who didn’t win, check out my current contest for a copy of Alive in Necropolis!

none

Okay–here was an interesting article by Christopher Schoppa in the Washington Post.

Avid readers know all too well how easy it is to acquire books — it’s the letting go that’s the difficult part. … During the past 20 years, in which books have played a significant role in both my personal and professional lives, I’ve certainly had my fair share of them (and some might say several others’ shares) in my library. Many were read and saved for posterity, others eventually, but still reluctantly, sent back out into the world.

But there is also a category of titles that I’ve clung to for years, as they survived numerous purges, frequent library donations and countless changes of residence. I’ve yet to read them, but am absolutely certain I will. And should. When, I’m not sure, as I’m constantly distracted by the recent, just published and soon to be published works.

So, the question is his: “What tomes are waiting patiently on your shelves?“

To attempt to answer this question, the first thing I did was go to my LibraryThing catalog and scroll through everything tagged TBR.  Here are some books I recognized have been on my shelf unread for quite some time:

• S.: A Novel of the Balkans by Slavenka Drakulic - I bought this book when I was wait-listed for a class on Europe after WWII in college.  I never got into the class, but I kept all of the books, as they looked interesting.  I think this is the only one (other than the textbook) that I haven’t read yet.  It is about war and rape, and I’ve never managed to put myself in the right mood to read it.
• Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century by Robert McNamara - I got this off of a bookstore bargain table at some point during college and have yet to touch it.
• Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein - Like Wilson’s Ghost, this was on a bargain table.  Probably the 3 for the price of 2 table at Borders.  Also acquired in college.
• The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life by Michael Schudson - I’m pretty sure that my mom gave this to me in high school.  Haven’t cracked it yet.

I probably have more, but they aren’t on my shelves.  They are on the shelves in my old bedroom in my parent’s house.  I never had room for them in college, and there was a limit to how many books I could fit around my other stuff in my car to get from California to Chicago.  Every so often when I visit I take another suitcase full home, but usually I brought so many books WITH me to read that my luggage was already at the limit.

Maybe I can smuggle some back with me at Christmas.

What books have been in YOUR TBR pile forever?