Bwah? Why, hello, Twitterlog! You’ve been AWOL for what, over a month? Why did you suddenly decide to reappear?
Well, I’m glad to have the record for the blog, but a post this long is just ridiculous. Let’s bump you off the front page, shall we? (more…)
Reserved:
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart.
Why:
Have read lots of posts about it this year & meant to get to it sooner, but it was this Battle of the Kids’ Books post at SLJ that got me to click to the library hold site. Frankie lost this round to We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, but judge Rachel Cohn’s explanation of her decision made me want to read both books. I’ve got a baseball story in my queue already, so I’ll save We Are the Ship for another day.
***
Borrowed:
The Body of This by Andrew McNabb.
Why:
Came highly recommended by my friend and fellow writer Matthew Lickona. And because I know that Andrew is a smart and sensitive Catholic writer (or a writer who happens to be Catholic), and I’m interested to see how he works with faith and fiction. And because who can resist a description like this?—”…a tough little bundle of shards that can as easily cut and make you bleed as it can reflect the one true light…” (Brett Lott, author of Jewel). “Bundle of shards”? I’m in.
For me, the 48 hours officially ended at 7 this morning. Practically speaking, that meant it ended about 11:45 last night when I fell asleep halfway through Genesis by Bernard Beckett. I found a couple of nice chunks of reading time yesterday, bringing my total up to 8 hours and 13 minutes, plus about an hour of networking time. Finished Catching Fire: wow. More on everything later but wanted to squeak this in under the deadline and now I must dive into my busy day. Visit MotherReader for the roundup!
Total reading time: 8 hrs 13 min
Networking/blog time: 1 hr 10 min
TOTAL: 9 hrs 23 min
Books read:
Sweethearts by Sara Zarr (read 2nd half during Challenge)
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Genesis by Bernard Beckett (first half)
Comments:
Fun, fun, fun. I knew going into this that I wouldn’t be able to drop everything all weekend long and read—couldn’t have even if we hadn’t had a birthday in the family yesterday. But when that unexpected bout of early-morning reading-in-bed presented itself on Saturday morning, I decided to join the Challenge just for fun. And it was fun. I really enjoyed checking in with other participants via Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.
I squeezed in more reading time than I get in a normal weekend by: ignoring my garden (hello, army of weeds), reading during baby naps instead of cleaning, shopping, or Harvest Mooning, ignoring my Google Reader (except for Challenge-participant blogs), and (at one point) standing in the kitchen glued to Catching Fire while Jane’s birthday cake was baking. (Note: this means I left all the baking dishes for Scott to deal with. He gets major props.) I also made no attempt to inch forward on the quilt blocks I’m making for my virtual quilting bee. (But I’m getting there, ladies, I promise.)
The irony, of course, is that I’d have probably been glued to Catching Fire during every available moment this weekend anyway, Challenge or no. That’s what happened with Hunger Games, for sure. I’ll be writing more about them in days to come—but I don’t want to say too much about Catching Fire yet, since it doesn’t pub until September. No spoilers here. I’ll say this much right now: I think it’s even better than the first one.
Hearty congratulations to all the other Challenge participants, especially those who managed to clock upwards of 20 hours of reading time!