Doin' the Dewey Day! April 21, 2012

I thought I would have just one blog post for this event, and just keep updating it throughout the day. All times below are Eastern Daylight Time - USA.

Book and Story Selections For the Readathon

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (Easton Press edition)
Royal Street - Suzanne Johnson (ebook)
Isaac Asimov - The Complete Short Stories
..Franchise, Gimmicks Three, Kid Stuff, The Watery Place, Living Space
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George
.... will update as I go!

8 AM-ish

And away we go! I am really excited about this event - but we'll see as 1AM rolls around LOL

Answers to the questions on the Dewey first blog post

• 1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Coming to you from Northwest Ohio, USA - most fertile farmland :)
• 2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? This is too tough to answer. OK, I'll try.. hmmmm... nope. They are all interesting to me!
• 3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? I am planning on having pizza for lunch-ish, nummmm.
• 4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I have too many books (yeah right), well my LibraryThing catalog is sitting at 1195! and not all of them are in there. That does include some ebooks and many Library of America bind-ups which contain 3 or 4 books each eeghads! I am a computer programmer by trade. I do mostly business web applications for a healthcare organization. I like camping and LOVE campfires burning all day long. Yep sitting by the campfire reading. I am not too much of a gadget geek, but I do have a Sony eReader, Kindle and an HTC smart phone.
• 5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? Just figuring out how all this works with the cheerleaders and all that's going on AND to see how long I can last! LOL

Whaddaya doin'?
Setting up this blog post and starting Jane Eyre! (looks at clock - oops 8:35 already!)

10 AM-ish

I am lovin' Jane Eyre! The last hour and a half flew by and it is now 10:15AM. Takin' a break - having some tea and a strawberry pop-tart.

1 PM

Still reading Jane Eyre. It is quite captivating although not a quick read for sure. I think I will switch to Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson. I am on Chapter 15 of that book. Then PIZZA for some lunch. Do you have lunch in a 24 hour day? More like meal time I guess.

4:35 PM

Still reading Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson. I am on Chapter 23. The pizza has made me a little sleepy. Too stuffed. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Time to make some fresh tea.

6:50 PM

Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson. I am on Chapter 29. Took about a 10 minute snooze which seems to help the with the sleepiness. I also did some mini-challenges! I do seem to be reading kinda slow - oh well, I am in no hurry.

9:20 PM

Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson. Only 40 ebook pages to go. I am gonna finish this book!

10:40 PM

WooHoo! finished Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson. I loved it - 4 solid stars! Gonna go pick out something to read next....

2 AM

Read some short stories by Isaac Asimov. I am going to start Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George.

5 AM (posted Apr 22 @ 12:25 PM)

Well folks the Sandman came and took me away a little before 5AM so I made it through hour 20! The words were just going blah-blah-blah in my head and I knew I was a goner. This was a really fun day. October is the next read-a-thon to plan for!

Help Me Choose!

Fairy Tale Fortnight
Click on the picture to see what it's all about

I wanted to read something for this year's occasion and have lots of books that may fall into this celebration. Maybe you can help me choose... Let's see. Below is a selection I have pulled out of my library (physical and ebook). I am not sure that all of these qualify in the minds of the FTF gods, but here goes.

• The Goddess Test - Aimee Carter
• The Snow Walker - Catherine Fisher
• Storybound - Marissa Burt
• Book of a Thousand Days - Shannon Hale
• Wildwood - Colin Meloy
• Temp: An Accidental Fairytale - A.E. Mayer
• Entwined - Heather Dixon
• The Princess Bride - William Goldman
• Brightly Woven - Alexandra Bracken
• Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu
• Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George
• A Long, Long Sleep - Anna Sheehan
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain

I also have actual fairytale books of which I may pick some tales out of: Grimm, Andrew Lang - Blue, Green, Yellow, Red Fairy Books.

I would like to have this picked out by Thursday April 19. I am participating in the Dewey Read-a-thon this year, and would like to get the book started during that awesome event! Soooo, post a comment if you have a suggestion.

Doing the Dewey!

Hey - I'm going to attempt the Dewey 24 hour read-a-thon this year! Not sure I will be able to stay up the entire time, but I'm gonna try.

If you would like to participate, here are the links:

Main Blog
Sign up post

Start times:
12PM GMT
8AM Eastern Daylight Time
7AM Central Daylight Time
6AM Mountain Daylight Time
5AM Pacific Daylight Time (yawn!)
Lots-a times

Book Thoughts: Pegasus by Robin McKinley

Nope. Got to ebook page 103 and had to quit. What drove me crazy here was the interruptions in a conversation or thought. A conversation would start and then tangent off into this long back-history of a person, place or thing. By the time you got back to the conversation you forgot what was being said or what was supposed to happen in the present.

There was too much back-history explained in the first 100 pages. It would have been much better to have two books. One book that takes place in the past setting up the world and getting to know the historically significant characters. In fact the origination of this society would have made a great book in my opinion and a lot more exciting than the present.

The cover is awesome, but it is not included in the ebook. That really annoys me. I pay for it, give it to me!

Book Thoughts: Flying Colours by C.S. Forester

Flying Colours by C.S. Forester
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third book (in order written) of the Horatio Hornblower series. The series is a beautifully designed Easton Press edtion (not shown). It is an 11 books series that can be read in chronological order or in order written. I have chosen the latter.

This book is much more about what's going on in Hornblower's mind than it is in action. Forester has a excellent way of writing about this and you get to know Hornblower even more and the struggles he faces in his current situation and contemplating his future and that of his two companions.

Book Thoughts: The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was my first Christie book and also the first book in the Miss Marple series (1930). Miss Marple really played a small role in this book which surprised me. Of course, she did figure out who-dun-it and that was what I found strange and rather unbelievable. When she put the pieces of the puzzle together, to me anyway, it was difficult to determine how she came to that conclusion by the explanation given.

I will continue with the Miss Marple series and am hoping that the stories get better with her more involved.

Book Thoughts: The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I ended up enjoying this book very much. Not for the blood, gore and other elements of horror which I will not divulge, but for the writing and the characters. There is an element of the mysterious here and a flavor of Sherlock Holmes. Read this book, but with a warning that it is not for the faint of heart.

I now have the dilemma of deciding on whether to continue the series. The writing and characters compel me, but the subject matter disfavors it. That decision does not need to come now.

Taking down bookshelves?

I am in the process of taking down 2 bookshelves. What? OK, I have a good reason. I bought a piano! I learned on a small Kimball console back in the 1970s. As I got older and moved out of my parents home, I sold it. That was a very bad decision. In 2001 or so, I wanted to start playing again and purchased an 88 key digital piano. Needless to say they are certainly not like an acoustic piano. I have been thinking about getting one recently and decided to just go ahead and do it.

I have a very small home, so this piano will look very large but I really don't care. I am very excited to get it. So I now have stacks of books sitting on the floor and at this point not a real good idea on what to do about them. I am hoping that once the piano is set up there may be room to put one of the shelves back up. I really hate to box them up.

I will take pictures of the piano when it arrives. Should be by the weekend of Feb. 4th.

... Buried in books.

The J.K. Rowling Story

For New Year's day I decided to watch a DVD I got recently: Magic Beyond Words, The J.K. Rowling Story - an original Lifetime movie. This movie goes over Ms. Rowlings early years and up to the publishing of the first Harry Potter book. It is an interesting movie and I enjoyed it.
Note: It is an unauthorized biography.

It is available from Lifetime, Amazon and other places.