I was tricked! Bookman and I were in bed reading last night and he began getting drowsy, decided he’d had enough. He keeps the time on the clock covered up because sometimes during the night he has insomnia issues and staring at the clock only makes it worse. When Bookman called it quits I wasn’t really tired but I figured it must be getting late, or late for us at any rate. So he turned off his light and snuggled under the blankets and closed his eyes. I kept going. When I reached the end of the chapter I still wasn’t that tired, but Bookman looked so comfortable snuggled in that I thought is would be nice to be done. So I turned off my light and burrowed into the blankets. I asked Bookman what time it was, he tried to avoid answering me, but I insisted. I thought surely it’s 9:30, or 9:45, but Bookman says sheepishly, 9:15. What!?! I could still be reading, I thought it was later. Well, it’s too late now, he said, you’re snuggled under the blankets, you can’t get back up and read more. You didn’t have to turn off your light. But — I started to protest. But he was right, I didn’t have to turn off my light. I guess I was done.
So, in the end I read a total of 277 pages. Bookman read about 100 Kindle pages. We are going to round it up and make a $40 donation to FirstBook. It was a fun day. I finally read Medea, and in one sitting too which is ideal for plays. And I am almost done with the Tim Parks book, Teach Us To Sit Still. Bookman read, I forget the title but it is Terry Goodkind, the second book in the Legend of the Seeker series.
Next year I will make more of an effort to start on time and to not let Bookman’s cute snuggled up self lure me into turning off the light! Having a short book and a longer book to read worked out really well. I will have to remember that for next time. The food and drink set up was perfect. As was the break for exercise and the occasional breaks for laundry.
And thanks to the cheerleaders who dropped by. Very much appreciated. We’ll see what I am doing when the spring read-a-thon roles around, perhaps at that one I will volunteer as a cheerleader.
I’ve got a bunch of finished books to write about in the coming days. You all can look forward to posts about Medea, Famous Ghost Stories, a graphic novel called Seconds and What Makes This Book So Great.
It is a gorgeous fall day outside and I am going to head out into it. I’m going to try watering my blueberries with diluted vinegar. It just might work. It is also time to clean up and bring in my ceramic froggy birdbath and fountain. There are other garden things to do too. It will be nice to be up and moving around after so much sitting yesterday. Away I go!
Read on a paperwhite kindle, then the light going off won’t matter BUT page counting, how to do that?
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Carol, he counted “kindle pages” which aren’t equivalent to print book pages. Basically, every time he hit the page button.
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Sounds like you had a great read-a-thon! The snuggle kitties are so cute!
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Meghan, it was fun! Thanks!
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This post does show how your “read more than one” approach can work pretty well and 277 pages is very good going. Those sound like interesting posts to read – especially Great Ghost Stories and the graphic novel.
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Ian, it worked out really well, though I thought one of the things I’d manage was to start reading volume three for Proust. Not a good read-a-thon choice as it turns out.
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I knew I was going to run errands on Saturday, so I got some audio books from the library so the time wasn’t wasted. Still, I didn’t make it for 24 hours, although I gave it my best shot. Am thinking I’ll participate in the Spring as well.
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Grad, good call on the audiobooks! I can’t even remember when the last time I stayed up past midnight was so I didn’t even try to make it late. Maybe next time I will fortify myself with a night time cup of coffee and see if that gives me a little extra oomph!
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I’d call it a success! 277 pages is pretty impressive and that’s cool that readers are also donating to charity. Maybe I can try for some sort of very abbreviated reading next time around. Slightly off topic, but as you mention books you have finished–I am back to daily reading of Far from the Madding Crowd–it is now my gym book on my ipad so I hope to make serious progress of it this week and maybe finishing it is in the not too far off future for me as well! 🙂
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Danielle, I am pretty pleased with how well it went and impressed myself with the page total. Back to Hardy! Yay! It’s a good book but I think it needs regular attention or it does get sort of blah. Enjoy!
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