Loose Leafing: Bouts of Books and Broken Ankles

Have you heard the one where I spent all of early summer getting ready to move to a new apartment and finally actually moving out of my parents' house?  Then the one where I spent most of mid-summer working like a dog at my job while the lab I work for got moved into its new quarters?  Then maybe the one where mid-August rolled around and I was thinking maybe I can breathe again, read more books, take up blogging again, go on vacation and enjoy myself a little before my favorite season slips away in the blink of an eye?  This weekend I thought there was totally a light at the end of my tunnel.  There was.  Unfortunately, it was a train.

On the very first night of the glorious long weekend I was about the take, I was rescuing a baby from a kidnapper ... I mean, I was rescuing a kitten from a tree... Okay, fine, I was badly underestimating how many stairs I had left to descend to arrive at the bottom of my new apartment's staircase while taking out the trash when I took a tumble and broke my stupid left ankle.  So, here I am with 6 or more wretched weeks stretching out before me of wearing a splint and hobbling around on crutches and generally being a massive invalid, and that's probably the best case scenario.  I feel stupid and in pain and kind of hopeless about the whole thing, and the stairs are no longer just a danger to the clumsy but practically an insurmountable obstacle between me and the wide world.

Happily, my family and friends have already begun to pitch in, bringing me food and medicine and otherwise assisting me in my time of infirmity.  So that's what I can see if I try to look on the bright side.  If I keep looking, I realize I have a million books here to read, and blogging is one of the few things I do that doesn't require much walking, so while vacation and, you know, actual happiness might be slightly beyond my reach, finally rejuvenating the blog (albeit a little morosely) and participating in next week's Bout of Books (how perfectly timed!) seem much more attainable.  So, here's my official letter of intent to participate...

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 14 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

So I'll be trying to do a little more reading next week instead of a little more binge watching TV series on Netflix while hosting my own pity party.  Wish me luck!

So, how's everyone's summer been while I've been slaving away at my life?  Have you ever broken a bone and lived to tell the tale?  ;-) 

Bout of Books: Wrap-Up

Wow, in terms of blogging, I had a lousy Bout of Books.  I wrote my sign-up/un-goals post and then disappeared from the blogosphere utterly.  The good news is, that's because I was actually reading.  I did a little better than I somewhat negatively predicted and read two books instead of a a mere one and I half.  I read...

Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert (325 pages)

and (finally!)

Divergent by Veronica Roth  (487 pages)

That's a total of 812 pages or roughly 2 and a half times what I would read in a normal week.  Not too shabby.  Plus, both books I read were excellent, fast-reading readathon picks and all-around excellent books.

 My mom (Bonnie!) who participated along with me read all 5 books she set out to read.  They are...

The Giver by Lois Lowry (180 pages)

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (163 pages)

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan (211 pages)

Dear Zoe by Philip Beard (196 pages)

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (194 pages)

...for a total of 944 pages.  She enjoyed all five, but Bridge to Terabithia was her favorite.

All this reading has been fun, but now I have to get back to this blogging thing.  How come I can't do all these things at once??          

Bout of Books 11

Here ye, here ye - here lies my intention to participate in the Bout of Books readathon taking place this week.  Last time it helped to re-energize my reading and my blogging, too, so here's hoping it will do so yet again.  My blogging life is toddling along more or less as or better than expected, however my reading life needs a little more love just about now seeing as the TBR books are threatening to overtake the house.

Here is the blurb from their handy-dandy website.

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 18th and runs through Sunday, August 24th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 11 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

My goal?  Well, I hate goals actually, so my goal this time is to have no goals, to put no pressure upon myself to live up to some uncertain standard all you fast readers of the world can achieve with ease.  In my life, I've found that the more goals I have, the more disappointed I become when I can't quite achieve them, and suddenly I'm on the fast track to self-loathing when I haven't read all the books/lost all the weight/done all the exercising/achieved all the career status that I planned, ergo I can't be happy with anything that I have achieved.

I intend to spend more time reading than usual, and I have already actually deleted the stupid TwoDots game off of my phone in hopes of achieving a more stress-free and reading-full coming week.  I'm not sure if I will take the plunge into the mounting pile of review copies that is looming on my desk or whether I'll eschew bloggerly responsibility to, say, inhale the whole Divergent series in one gulp so I can stop being one of the last few dystopian YA lovers of the world to have read that.

Exciting news, too, folks, my mom, who was recently overtaken by an obsession with BookTube and, consequentially, a mad scramble to buy all the brilliant YA books she's been missing all her life, is also going to take part with me this time around.  I may or may not be hoping this is an indication that I might be able to persuade her to do the next Dewey's 24 Hour thon which I am always harping on her about.  But I digress, my mom (or "Bonnie" as she insists I refer to her for the purposes of this blog post) has, like, real goals for the Bout of Books (I guess somebody has to.).  In this, her first official Bout of Books she intends to read the following:

She says, "Is that enough?"  Jeez, I hope so or she'll put my slow reading self to shame.  Also, I told her she'll probably have to budget some time for weeping.  Seriously, have you read any of these?

Here's hoping for a week of extra-excellent reading - wish us luck!

Bout of Books Update #1

It feel like I've been reading for a long time, so it must be time to finally post a Bout of Books update.  Honestly, I'm pretty happy with my progress.  I'm sure my reading totals will pale in comparison to most people's, but in comparison to my average week, this week has been a big win so far.

Books Read:

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink (finished off the last 45 pages)
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis (56 pages of graphic novel, which really is  good for a readathon morale boost)
Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern (342 pages)

Reading Now:

Out of the Blue by S.L. Rottman (70 pages down)

All told (in case you didn't just whip out your calculator), that's about 513 pages, which isn't too shabby considering I work full time and haven't been able to get much reading time in there, spent most of Tuesday night celebrating my grandmother's birthday, and, also, I am that person who needs close to eight hours of sleep at night in order to successfully mingle with the rest of the human race.

More importantly, I'm pretty happy with how well I've been doing at keeping to my modest time management goals.  I started early (the Bout of Books is not just one week, it's a way of life, amIright?), abandoned stupid computer games/social networks I don't even like, sacrificed the overage of naps in favor of reading on the front porch, and have generally made reading more of habit instead of squeezing in a few pages before bed.  And, that, my friends, is just what I was going for.  Here's hoping I can keep it up, but even if I can't, I still count this week a success already.

What have you been reading this week?

Bout of Books 10

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 12th and runs through Sunday, May 18th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 10 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team.

Bout of Books is one of these book blogosphere events that I always see happening, and think "I should do that next time," and then subsequently miss the next event.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  This time, with the next week not looking as terribly busy as most weeks tend to be, and next weekend still being fairly open to book-reading activities, I'm not going to miss it.

I didn't sign up as a reader for this spring's Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon, but I, without a doubt, sorely need to get more reading done.  I've arrived at one of those moments, while I'm trudging toward the finish line of Five Days at Memorial, where I feel like there are just too many good books - in my house, in the world, coming out this summer, this fall, next year - and how will I ever read them?  Rather than causing me to focus and, you know, read more books, this kind of just makes me flutter around in a low-grade state of overwhelmed panic.

Enter Bout of Books, from what I gather, a more relaxed week-long Readathon that will (ideally) help me to put more priority on reading in the day to day when I am most prone to distraction.  The reality of the thing is, even if I read more than usual, I'm probably not going to put away more than one or two books this week, because I am, indeed, the world's slowest reader, but I will be satisfied with moving in the right direction in terms of getting a little more reading into every day.   As such, I don't have a specific number of books or pages I'm planning to read - these types of goals always lead me into disappointment.  Rather, I have a collection of reading time management goals that I hope will serve me this week and into the indeterminate future beyond this lovely event.

• I will turn the time that I usually spend distracted by the more pointless diversions of all my electronic gadgetry and the wonders of the internet into reading time.  Here's a fond "See ya later!" to Facebook (which I don't even like but *still* sucks up my time), Words With Friends, and the Microsoft Solitaire collection.
• I will curtail unnecessary naps in favor of reading.  I am a great lover of naps both needed and not.  A good nap is a great thing when taken sparingly.  The napping has been less sparing lately.  And yes, I realize how pathetic this sounds.  I'm admitting I have a problem, people.  I'm told that's the first step. 
• I will redirect the freakish amount of energy I put into acquiring books into reading them.
• If I'm stuck in a waiting room, it will be with the written word, not my iPhone.
• I will take back some of my lunch time at work for reading.  Sorry, fitness and working when I don't really need to be - this is not your week!
• I will start early.  Like today.  Sure, that's kind of cheating, but I'm a slow reader, I need every advantage I can get.  Plus, what's better than an excuse to read more for one week than an excuse to read more for one week plus one weekend?  ;-)

Will you be participating in the Bout of Books?  And, even if you aren't, do you have any tried and true suggestions for cramming more reading into the nooks and crannies of your week that I should know about?