All Good Things Come to an End

 It's time to call it. 

I got more listening time on Curse of the Pharaohs: 2.25 hours, to be precise. 

I finished off Lia and Beckett's Abracadabra : 2.73 hours

Started Legends and Lattes : .08 hours

Altogether I read for 15.22 hours. This has been a fun reading weekend and I'm already looking forward to next year's. 

Happy reading everyone!

How Saturday Went

I stayed up too late reading last night, so didn't log my Saturday progress. 

Since there was yard and housework that needed doing, I finished off an audio book that I was listening to : Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. 

I spent 2.75 hours listening to this. 

My next audio book was book 2 in the Amelia Peabody series : Curse of the Pharaohs 

I got 3.16 hours of listening on this book.

As time permitted I continued with Lia and Beckett's Abracadabra. Total time for that book was 1.5 hours

My total reading time for Saturday was 7.41 hours

It was a great day of reading!

Time for Sleeps

 Well, I gave it my best shot. It's getting hard to keep my eyes open, so off to bed I go. Hoping to be up early to get a fresh start on reading. Have a great night, everyone.

Time spent blogging: 12 minutes (10:16-10:28)

Read from 10:28-10:50 - 32 minutes

2023 Half-Birthday Reading Weekend

 Back in the day there was the 48 Hour Book Challenge hosted by Mother Reader. Then there was the 24 in 48 Read-a-thon. With those coming to an end, my husband and I started a tradition of a Half-Birthday Reading/LEGO weekend. 

He and I both have birthdays near the start of the year. With his birthday, my birthday, and another family member's birthday falling in the first three months of the year, that was a lot of cake! Not great if you're trying to watch your sugar intake. So, we started a new tradition where-in he picks his favorite cake for his birthday then roughly six months later I pick a cake. We'll sequester ourselves with books (for me), LEGO sets (for him), and loads of snacks and enjoy a fun, relaxing weekend.

It's 10:16 p.m. on Friday evening and I'm officially getting this thing started before I fall asleep! Book #1 is Lia and Beckett's Abracadabra by Amy Noelle Parks. Let the fun begin!

How It's Going

 I was planning to post more frequently today, but life happened. While I did get a fair amount of reading in, I just wasn't able to post until anything until now. Reading was a combination of print and audio. 

While running errands and doing some tasks around the house I finished off Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers. 

I did get to sit down and enjoy some reading time as well. A Universe of Wishes was my book of choice.

 I'm liking it so far. In addition to reading stories with diverse characters, I'm discovering some new authors whose writings I want to explore further. 

Here are my reading totals for last night and today:

A Universe of Wishes : 3 hours, 27 minutes

Whose Body? : 1 hour, 10 minutes

Since I need to be awake and alert for Church tomorrow, it's time to call it a night. 

Happy Reading, everyone!

It's Reading Time

 The 24 in 48 Read-a-thon is back! I'm so excited to be participating. There was 24 in 48 Read-a-thon held in July of last year, but I had a hard time concentrating on reading due to all the things going on in the world. So I didn't get very far. I'm hoping to get far more reading in this time around.

Since books that celebrate diversity is the theme of this challenge I'll be starting with A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology edited by Dhonielle Clayton. I didn't used to like short story collections, but they've grown on me in the last few years. This sounded like an interesting collection and I look forward to diving in.

That said, let the reading commence!

Happy Reading, everyone!

Book #2

My next read for the 24 in 48 was Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 by Helaine Becker. Here's my review:

I picked this up after Katherine Johnson's recent death. I wanted to see if it would make a good Christmas gift for a young girl I know.

The author detailed the culture of the time and Johnson;s approach to math in a way that's easy to understand. I also appreciated the simple, clear illustrations. In the end, I decided this will make a good gift indeed.

Now to search for my next read.

Happy reading, all!

Social Distancing Readathon

The fine folks over at 24in48 are hosting an informal readathon this weekend. No prizes or time proofs, just a good old fashioned reading session.

I planned to read a lot more than I have so far and it's a good thing no time proofs are needed. I tripped and fell on Friday and broke a bone. Between that and the general weirdness of the days, I'm a bit out of it and haven't been keeping track of my reading time.

I did finish a book, though. Here's my review of The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe.

Why I picked it up: I like memoirs and books about books, so this one definitely caught my eye. 

Why I kept reading: Schwalbe quickly drew me into his mother's life and world. I enjoyed getting to her and "sharing in" their book discussions. 

In the end: I loved this book. I got to know a really interesting person and it made me recall memories of my own mother's last days and our last times together.

Highly recommend!

Now, on to the next read. It's going to be a picture book because A) that's what's next on my shelf and B) I want to finish at least one more book during this challenge!

Happy Reading, all.

Challenge Completed

And with that it's time to put my challenge to bed. Here's how today went:

Jackaby - 1 hour 22 minutes

The Mummy Case - 1 hour 58 minutes

That puts my reading at 3 hour 20 minutes for today. Also, I finished Jackaby, which was one of my goals for this challenge. Considering the unplanned circumstances that arose this weekend, I'm calling this a successful challenge. It's been super fun and I hope to participate again next January.

Total Reading Time for the challenge: 5 hours, 13 minutes. 

Not bad considering I didn't think this summer's challenge would happen for me. Thanks to the gang at 24 in 48 for all your hard work in hosting this event. You guys rock!

Here are my reading time proofs for today.

Time Tally So Far

As I suspected, not much reading got done today. Some of it was due to my choices of browsing Twitter and playing Candy Crush. Some of it was due to fun family outings that truly blessed our houseguest. It was a great day overall, even if too much time in the sun tired me out.

Oh, before I forget, I settled on an audiobook for this weekend's challenge. The "winner" was The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters.

Now...the tally. Here's how things are shaping up so far.

Friday July 20th
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - 30 minutes

Saturday July 21st
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - 11 minutes
Jackaby - 22 minutes
The Mummy Case - 50 minutes

Total time so far: 1 hour 53 minutes.

Here are my proof of time screen shots

         
  

Off to try and squeeze in a bit more reading before heading off to bed. It's been a great, but tiring day.

Happy Reading my friends!

24 in 48 Challenge #2

It's time for the second 24 in 48 book challenge of 2019. Well, almost. Still another 29 minutes until start time. Would you believe I'm still working out my strategy? Some of my reading plans got changed at the last minute, for good reasons, though. I think the strategy for this go 'round is "family first and go with the flow."

I'll be blogging here as time permits. Books will include Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jackaby by William Ritter, and a yet to be determined audio book. I plan to count my time using both the Bookly app and the Beanstack Tracker app and will post screenshots through the weekend to confirm my times.

To all who are participating, happy reading!

And That's a Wrap

Alas, the January 24 in 48 challenge has come to an end. It was a great and much-needed weekend of reading. Here are the final tallies (assuming my math is correct).

Murder at Honeychurch Hall - 1 hour 28 minutes (finished)

Curse of the Pharaohs - 1 hour 51 minutes (finished)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald the Original Screenplay - 2 hours 43 minutes (finished)
Murder Simply Stitched 2 hour 52 minutes (in progress)
At Home in Mitford - 5 hours 12 minutes

Extracurriculars (Blogging, catching up with #24in48 on Twitter, Challenges on the website) 2 hours 34 minutes

Total reading time - 14 hours, 6 minutes
Total "extracurricular" time so far - 2 hours, 44 minutes
Total time spent on challenge so far - 16 hours 46 minutes

Here are the Bookly screenshots as proof of time.

I'm sad the weekend has come to an end. Thanks to the  24 in 48 coordinators for a great weekend. Looking forward to participating again when the next one comes around.

Audio Book Day

Sundays are the day I typically do tasks that will get our household ready for the week. So, that made it a perfect day for an audiobook. I made a great deal of headway on At Home in Mitford, adding 3 hours and 15 minutes to my total.

This brings me up to 14 hours, 31 minutes spent on the challenge.

With just about 3 hours to go in the challenge, I'll be switching between print and audio while waiting for dinner to cook and then doing the dinner clean-up. Oh yeah, and some more catching up with fellow participants online. Looking forward to enjoying these last few hours of this book-filled weekend.

Calling it a Night

No matter how hard I try, my eyelids keep closing. I want to get a good night's sleep so I'm alert for church tomorrow, so am calling it a night. Here's how my challenge is shaping up so far

January 25th

Murder at Honeychurch Hall - 1 hour 28 minutes (finished)

January 26th
Curse of the Pharaohs - 1 hour 51 minutes (finished)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald the Original Screenplay - 2 hours 43 minutes (finished)
Murder Simply Stitched 1 hour 36 minutes (in progress)
At Home in Mitford - 1 hour 4 minutes

Extracurriculars (Blogging, catching up with #24in48 on Twitter, Challenges on the website) 2 hours 34 minutes

Total reading time so far - 8 hours, 42 minutes
Total "extracurricular" time so far - 2 hours, 34 minutes
Total time spent on challenge so far - 11 hours 16 minutes

Here are my reading time proofs for yesterday and today:

   


 

   

      

And now it's time to officially be done for today. Until tomorrow, happy reading all.

One Fantastic Book and One Book Without a Single Death

Since I finished both my print book and my audiobook, it was time to start a new one of each format. Also, I decided it was time to change things up a bit since my reading's been in a bit of a rut lately.

For that change of pace I went with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald the Original Screenplay as the next print book. It's in a screenplay format, so is an easy read. What I also liked about this one is that the stage direction helped clarify some things from the movie for me. Like with the movie I came away feeling shocked by one of the character's decisions, hopeful for the future of two of the characters, and curious all over again to see how the last scene of the book/movie will be explained in future films.

Earlier this month a close relative passed away. At that time I was in the middle of a murder mystery. The next book on my TBR pile was also a murder mystery, so I've had quite a bit of death to start off my year. For my next audio book I decided to go with something light and chose At Home in Mitford, by Jan Karon the first in the Mitford series with Father Tim as the main character. It's got humor, quirky characters, and a gentle tone which is just what I need to balance out my TBR pile. I'm about 53 minutes in so far. Since my laundry's done and my eyes need a break before starting the next print book, I'm going to post this update and give this one a listen. 

Happy reading to all my 24 in 48 friends!

Total Reading time so far: 6 hours 2 minutes

Total "extracurricular time so far: 2hrs. 20 minutes

Total time spent on challenge so far 8 hours, 22 minutes.

Another book finished.

Since I'll likely be curled up on the couch all day, I wanted to make sure and get some exercise in early in the day. So, a long walk it was. After that I grabbed second breakfast at Starbucks and headed back home. During that time I finished off the audio book I was listening to, Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters. This added another 1 hour, 51 minutes to my reading time.

I've also spent 1 hour, 10 minutes in "extracurriculars" (logging my books, reading the 24 in 48 site, and catching up with the challenge on Twitter).

Time to assess my stack and jump into the next book. 

Total reading time so far: 3 hours, 19 minutes

Total "extracurricular" time, 1 hour 10 minutes

Book Complted

The first book I dove into for the 24 in 48 was Murder at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison. I was nearly done with it, so used the first few hours of the challenge to finish it off. It was a well-written mystery with lots of attention to detail. Even better, I didn't guess the culprit ahead of time. I highly recommend this to fans of Downton Abbey and also fans of mysteries set on English country estates.

After finishing the book it was time for some shut-eye so I could get a fresh start today. 

Total reading time so far: 1 hour, 28 minutes.

Now to get started on today's book logging and reading. Have a great day, everyone.

24 in 48 Readathon January 2019

It's time for the first 24 in 48 Readathon for 2019! My year has gotten off to a hard and topsey-turvey start, so I very much need this weekend of reading to rest and regroup from all that's happened. I've got my stack of books, a cozy blanket, and my family is all tucked into bed. 

Looking forward to the challenges over at the 24 in 48 website as well as peeking in on other participants social media to see how things are going for them. This is going to be a great weekend. 

Time to kick off this weekend and get a couple hours in before my eyelids won't stay open any longer. Happy Reading to my fellow participants. 

Time to Call it a Read-a-thon

I know there's an hour or so left, but my reading has come to an end for this go-round. It was an almost all audio book read-a-thon for me since I was on my way home from a 10 day road trip.

Here are my reading stats:

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks - 6 minutes while getting ready for sleeps
Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters - 10 hours 20 minutes
Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper (was in the middle of it, so finished it off) - 3 hours 29 minutes
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper (got almost half-way through before arriving home) - 4 hours, 40 minutes

Total reading time: 18.6 hours (if my math is correct)

Thanks to the 24 in 48 Hour readathon leaders for all your hard work. I had a great time!

Until next time, Happy reading everyone!

All the Reading So Far

I started last night with the book Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks. Granted, I was reading while brushing my teeth for bed, so I didn't get very far. Only about 6 minutes. 

Today I was on the road beginning at about 10:30, so audio book it was Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters to be specific. I got 8 hours, 29 minutes in. 

I did take a couple driving breaks throughout the day and used the time to answer some of the challenge questions, which was fun :) 

All told I'm up to 8 hours and 35 minutes of reading. It's been a long day, so I"m calling it quits for the night. Happy Reading, all.