Bout of Books Day 2

Hey--I want to get more time to read tonight--so I'm not going to make this a super long post.  Just wanted to give my update tonight--because I'm pretty proud that I've gotten as far as I have. I'm glad I actually read!

This is what I read on Day 1:
Book of Mormon read pages 179-186 total of 7 pgs.
Plague Legacy read 13-22% so total 9%
Fablehaven 3 listened to tracks 1 through 4

Last Minute Read-a-thon Wrap Up

It was great for me to be able to continue my momentum with reading from the #readingcram read-a-thon! Though I didn't accomplish as much as I had hoped that I would...I still feel like I got somewhere!

This is what I accomplished:
Insurgent--finished!!! (read about 100 pages)
Fablehaven 2--audio book...I am now on disc 7 of 10...so I'm more than halfway.  I think I was on disc 5 when we started the read-a-thon...so I got decently far!
Plague Legacy: Acquisitions:  I got to 13% last night after having started on this read-a-thon.

I also set the goal to catch up on reviews...while I haven't posted them I have the cued up and ready to go.

Thank you to Vonnie and Maria for a great read-a-thon!

Love it and Hate Covers Challenge

Today's last minute read-a-thon challenge is about a love it and hate it cover.  When The Casual Vacancy first came out this was the cover that I saw....

It just didn't make any sense to me! I bought the book with this cover...and while it hasn't really shown to me why this cover makes sense.  I sure love his cover better.

I would even be good with this cover:

So yeah.....not sure what they were thinking with the original cover.

Day 2 Progress (Yesterday)

Not a whole lot...twenty minutes or so with Fablehaven

5 pages or so with Book of Mormon

Day 3 Progress (Today)

I have gotten about 10% through Plague Legacy

3 pages or so with Book of Mormon

Thirty minutes or so with Fablehaven

Last Minute Read-a-thon

I found out about another great read-a-thon for the end of the year. This is hosted by Vonnie's Reading Corner and A Night's Dream of Books.  I had great momentum from the last read-a-thon--I thought it would be a great way to end the year. So today's post is all about what I plan to read/goals during this time.

Goals:

1. I want to finish Insurgent....and write review
2. Write the reviews from the last read-a-thon so I can get them up here (I never take this long!)

Other Books to Read:

1. (listen to) Fablehaven 2
2. Book of Mormon
3. The Plague Legacy: Acquistions

If I get Lucky:

1. Coiled Snake
2. Allegiant
3. 10 Reasons Why

We will see how this one goes!! I'm excited to keep moving forward

Movie Adaptation Challenge and Day 5 #ReadingCram

Today I had a great hour long discussion with my students about Jane Eyre....it was very fulfilling to see them be so excited to analyze a novel and feel like they knew what they were talking about!

I came home and read some of Insurgent---I really enjoyed Divergent and started this one pretty fast, but put it on hold so I could finish Jane Eyre with my students. I also continued reading/listening to the second Fablehaven.  I am hoping to finish Insurgent this weekend :) And hopefully starting Northanger Abbey on CD as I work around the house with Christmas preparations.

Today's challenge is to pick your favorite movie adaptation of a book.  I have always loved the adaptation of Little Women with Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon. They did a nice job reflecting the book and I never felt like I was really missing.  The book really came alive for me with that movie.

Day 4 #ReadingCram and Spine Poetry Challenge

Today I feel pretty victorious---I finished Jane Eyre which translated to me reading about 150 pages today.  I loved how it was for work....so when I got a couple of free moments today--I could read :)  I loved how on my Goodreads--which I finally updated--I just have been lazy--and I have been able to push complete twice in one week.  That like never happens! This is my most successful read-a-thon yet!

Today's challenge is a Spine Poetry Challenge...I might be able to do a picture of these books if I had Sense and Sensibility in its own book...so maybe I will update this post later with a photo since I still have Fablehaven from the library.  It probably feels more like a sentence....but I'm not great at writing poetry. Thanks to Lori @ Writing My Own Fairy Tale for the challenge!

Jane Eyre with her
Sense and Sensibility went to 
Fablehaven in 
1984 To Kill a Mockingbird

http://juliababyjenreadingroom.blogspot.com/2013/12/reading-cram-day-4-spine-poetry.html

A Teaser Challenge for #ReadingCram Day 2

So day 2 has been busy with work and then coming home to bake 10 lbs. of potatoes.  But I was able to listen to some books while I was driving and baking--which was super nice.  I was able to get eight chapters of the Book of Mormon read-which was great!  I also finished a whole other CD of Fablehaven---I am on the last CD so I'm excited to maybe finish it tomorrow.  Any reading I do tonight before bed will be Jane Eyre--which I have to finish!

Which brings me to the teaser challenge...I am suppose to

Find a random page in the book you are reading, and post 2 "teaser" sentences!

So I open my book of Jane Eyre and I give you:

Very soon--my that is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane, the first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to put my old bachelor's neck in to the sacred noose, to enter into the holy estate of matrimony--to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she's an extensive armful: but that's not to the point-one can't have too much of such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying--listen to me Jane! You're not turning your head to look after more moths, are you?

Well...time to keep reading!

www.rarebookschool.org

Day One of #ReadingCram

So it is 10:00ish at night at the end of the first day of the read-a-thon. Earlier tonight, I went to the host's websites (Julia and Dana) to look and see what the challenge was for today--and realized that I inadvertently did that yesterday!  Today's challenge is to list your TBR pile.  But then I went to fellow read-a-thon-er Kate's blog (she is how I found out in the first place) and saw that she gave an update on on how the read-a-thon went for her today--and I was like DUH! Great idea! So I was thinking a bit of that and a checklist for the next two weeks of what would be AWESOME to get through is a great thing for today (even if it isn't the least bit doable).

Reading Currently: Jane Eyre, Fablehaven (on audio), Book of Mormon, Insurgent
What Did I Get to Today: Fablehaven (this one will be easy because it is in my car) and Book of Mormon
Total Pages: Tricky with the audio book--I got through about one CD...I was on track 3 of the 6th CD when I got in the car this morning and when I got home tonight I was on track 3ish of the 7th CD.  The Book of Mormon I'm reading on my Kindle which is trickier with pages too....but I got through 4 chapters
Life Outside of Read-a-thon: Work from early this morning to the early evening, visit with some of my neighbors, dinner with the husband, caught up on some blogs I follow, went to and watched my students play a volleyball game, came home and wrote this :)

Alright really fast these are the books I will finish (hopefully)

1. Jane Eyre
2. Fablehaven
3. Insurgent
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. Emma
6. Persuasion
7. Mansfield Park
8. Northanger Abbey
9. Lady Susan
10. Coiled Snake
11. The Plague Legacy: Acquistions 
12. Fahrenheit 451
13. Gulliver's Travels
14. Their Eyes Were Watching God
15. The Three Musketeers....just to make it a nice even 15 

Honestly if I get through five of these I will be very impressed with myself :)

December Read-a-thon

So I am super excited for this read-a-thon hosted by Dana and Jenny. It is about time that I have an excuse to read and read and read :) It is cold and now that I'm done with the concert things start to settle down and little bit.  Work will still be crazy--but I would love to read more.  The purpose of this read-a-thon is to get through the TBR pile from 2013---which I never seemed to stop allowing to grow!!! I had sooo many visions this year of reading soo much. So as I result I have a lot of goals for this month.

1. Absolute number one is to finish reading the Book of Mormon--I am a bit behind, which is unfortunate but such is life.
2. Finish Jane Eyre this week--because I told my students that was when it was due...but I am behind on that too!
3. Finish Insurgent so I can get it back to the library
4. Finish Fablehaven because I'm soo close
5. I had a goal to get through all of Jane Austen....so that might still be attempted....
6. But I also need to figure out how many books I have until I reach my goal of 30 books this year.....

So bottom line: I am going to read read read read read! :)

To Kill a Mockingbird Post #3

This is the edition that I have been reading,
picture thanks to the Goodreads!

So I have a small confession about this read-in....I am behind!!! As I have been moving and still struggling with my health, I haven't read as much as I wanted.  So I will post again in the future with some more stuff from the end...but with today being the last day of the read-in, I wanted to talk a little bit more about stuff that teachers can point out.

Harper Lee has a very unique writing style..and I like to point a couple of quotes that highlight this style. This first quote comes from chapter six when Dill and Jem decide to sneak up to the Radley place and peek in the shutters.  When the story starts....you notice the writing to this has slowed down.  She used specific words and punctuation to slow down the reading.

Dill stopped and let Jem go ahead.  When Jem put his foot on the bottom step, the step squeaked.  He stood still, then tried his weight by degrees. The step was silent.  Jem skipped two steps, put his foot on the porch, heaved himself to it, and teetered a long moment. He regained his balance and dropped to his knees. He crawled to the window, raised his head and looked in (71) .  

 And then as you keep reading....we learn that there is a shadow moving towards them.  You notice here that the reading starts to speed up.

Dill saw [the shadow] next. He put his hands to his face.  When it crossed Jem, Jem saw it. He put his arms over his head and went rigid.  The shadow stopped about a foot beyond Jem. Its arm came out from its side, dropped , and was still. Then it turned and moved back across Jem, walked along the porch and off the side of the house, returning as it had come.  Jem leaped off the porch and galloped toward us. He flung open the gate, danced Dill and me through, and shooed us between two rows of swishing collards (71).

If you pick up on the verbs that they are more urgent.  The words come a lot faster too.  It is a great technique! There are other moments in the book too that really point out her writing style...but this is one of my favorites.

Day 15: My Lot in Life

So I'm cheating today....the actual 15 prompt is about a day in the life with a prompt to do photos...hmm needed to know that before my day was over.  I'm really bad about planning ahead.  So....that will be tomorrow's post.  I will post tomorrow's prompt today instead.  Sound like a plan? Good because you don't get a choice :P So the prompt is:

Something difficult about your "lot in life" and how you're working to overcome it

Hmm....I feel like I have a lot of difficult things about my life right now.  I've talked a lot the past month about the mysterious pain in my abdomen that has prompted ER and doctor visits left and right--so I could talk about that.  I also have talked a lot this year about how being a teacher for me right now is really hard---so I could also talk about that. I could also just talk about how hard life is in general....but that seems so negative and rehashing old feelings and just having a poor pity me session.  So lets skip to the how I'm working to overcome both problems!

I am really trying to be patient and positive about everything.  I still have my moments....like last night just breaking down crying because I want the pain to go away.  But I am just trying to take every day as it comes.  Even though I don't feel 100% all the time I can put what I can where I can.  Even though work is really hard right now and being sick is just making it harder I can have a good attitude and do what I can each day. I have to constantly remind myself to not beat myself that it will get done when it gets done....my grading mostly.  Though I have to say that with the house too....cleaning just gets done when it gets done.


Bout of Books Update 2:
Still trying to read.....yesterday was a spend time with the husband day so I didn't get as much in--but I'm definitely reading more than I would during weekdays which was the whole point!

My Classics Club List!

I thought that I had joined The Classics Club already...I follow them on Twitter, did the read-a-thon earlier this year, and read fellow member's blog posts.  However, I realized earlier this week that I am not officially a member, because I haven't joined officially or created my book list!  So today I am rectifying that situation.  I am going to post my list of 50 books below.  I am going to try to read all of these books by the end of 5 years (so December 31, 2017) and then start with a new list of 50, especially if I finish early.  I like that I can easily read 10 in a year. Though as I make this list...a lot of them are goals for this year. In terms of how I made this list--it included ones that I want to read this year but also ones that I have always wanted to read but never have. Well, I am considering myself already started...so I have linked my review from Sense and Sensibility below.

1. Sense and Sensibility  by Jane Austen  review
2. Persuasion by Jane Austen
3. Mansfield Park  by Jane Austen
4. Emma by Jane Austen
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
6. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen review
7. Lady Susan by Jane Austen
8. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
9. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
10. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
11. Anthem by Ayn Rand
12. We the Living by Ayn Rand
13. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte review
14. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
15. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury  Finished sometime in Fall of 2014 
16. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
17. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
18. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
19. Animal Farm by George Orwell
20. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
21. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
22. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
23. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe
24. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
25. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
26. Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
27. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
28. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
29. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
30. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
31. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
32. The Brothers of Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevesky
33. The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
34. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
35. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
36. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
37. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
38. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
39. Beloved by Toni Morrison
40. 1984 by George Orwell review
41. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
42. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
43. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
44. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
45. Dracula by Bram Stoker
46. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
47. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
48. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
49. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
50. Echoes from the Macabre by Daphne DuMaurier

Classics Club Readathon Wrap-up

So now that the Read-a-thon is over, I am finally getting on to do a quick wrap up.  I haven't gotten too much farther from last night, I had some deadlines that I needed to meet.  So this will be a really quick post.

1. What book(s) did you read during the event? Sense and Sensibility
2. What book(s) did you finish? Didn't finish it yet, according to my Kindle I am about 24% through
3. What did you like about our event? I liked the excuse and motivation to get some reading done.  With everything that I do for school, I rarely get to read for myself unless I have got a completely free day.
4. Do you have suggestions for future Readathons through The Classics Club? Maybe have everyone start on a certain day and time for their own time zone...for example, everyone could start at 8 am on January 5th their time.  
5. Would you participate in future Readathons? Yeah I probably would

Thank you Wikipedia for the image.
This is a scene from ch. 12 in which Willoughby cuts a lock of Marianne's hair.

Classics' Club Readathon: Sense and Sensibility

http://theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/the-classics-club-readathon-starting-post/

So today is the first-ever Read-a-thon by the Classics' Club.  Now, I have seen these things before and have admired people's determination to read ALL day--they are going for 24 hrs!  I did sign up, however, I molded it to my particular style today.  I had A LOT of grading to do (which btw is still not done--ugh) so my reading of Sense and Sensibility was going to be my break.  It actually worked out very well to do that because I would grade for an hour, read for an hour, grade for an hour.... you get the idea!  I thought that I would take a different break to blog and then maybe get a bit more reading in before bed.

Oh and since I didn't do a start-up post...better late than never...here are the questions for the Classics Club to come peruse and see tomorrow for the wrap-up :)

1. Snacks and Beverages of Choice: Did the pretzels and Sprite thing today
2. Where are you reading from today? Home...all over.  I have the audio, Kindle, and print versions to choose from.  Audio for the treadmill and cleaning portion, Kindle for the eating portion, and print for everything else
3. What are your goals for the Readathon? Get some reading and grading done :P
4. What book(s) are you planning on reading? Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
5. Are you excited? Of course!! I get to start one of my reading goals for the year: The Complete Works of Jane Austen