End of the Fall 2015 Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon

  End of event meme:

 Which hour was most daunting for you?

     Hour 22.  I made it most of the way through and then just had to give up and take an hour nap.  Maybe I'll make it the whole way next spring.

Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

     The Taryn's Camera series by Rebecca Patrick-Howard is an entertaining, historically interesting set of ghost stories that are relatively quick reads.


Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

     Nope.


What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

     Everything.

How many books did you read?

     4.50

What were the names of the books you read?

 Jekyll Island by Rebecca Patrick-Howard, Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon, Star Wars: Clone Wars: The Defense of Kamino and Other Tales by John Ostrander (author), Haden Blackman (author), Jan Duursema (artist) and Tomas Giorello (artist), The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss and a quarter each of  Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files: Down Town by Jim Butcher, Carlos Gómez (Artist), Stjepan Sejic (Artist).

Which book did you enjoy most?

The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss.  Mostly because this was such an unexpected surprise found in the the  Free Library of Philadelphia's Digital Media Library.


Which did you enjoy least?

 Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris.  This is really a good book and I look forward to finishing it but if I have to pick a least enjoyable book this is it.


 How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

     I plan to participate as a reader.

Hour 20 Book 4-The Bippolo Seed...

I had really hoped to be reading Uprooted by Naomi Novik but what I'veactually read (or rather listened to) is The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss.  I haven't taken a nap and my brain hasn't been able to concentrate on a longer story since hour 12 so it's children's books and graphic novels for me.

I'm trying to conserve money so I decided to check out the Free Library of Philadelphia's Digital Media Library, which has an amazing e-book and audio book collection and is free to anyone living in the state of Pennsylvania, and ran across stories I've never heard before from one of my favorite authors, Dr. Seuss.  This book was a wonderful collection of "lost stories" that thoroughly entertained me for about 45 minutes.  I highly recommend it to any Dr. Seuss fan young or old.

As a kind of funny note, I don't remember ever hearing of Dr. Seuss when I was a child and my love affair with his books began as an adult.  I bought many of his books to read for myself in my very late teens and early twenties justifying it by taking them babysitting with me.  I don't babysit any more, never had any children and my niece is fully grown so I have no choice but just admit to loving Dr. Seuss in my own right now.

Hour 19 Book 3-Star Wars: Clone Wars: The Defense of Kamino...

After a bit of a break reading Marvel's Daredevil fan fiction since I find fan fiction very relaxing, I've returned to book reading with the graphic novel Star Wars: Clone Wars: The Defense of Kamino and Other Tales by John Ostrander (author), Haden Blackman (author), Jan Duursema (artist) and Tomas Giorello (artist).  This book, though no longer considered to be canon, describes some of the early difficulties of the clone wars.  The graphics are beautiful and the stories compelling.  

I have difficulty holding actual books because of Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that can cause among other things joint pain, fatigue and neuropathy, so I find myself reading almost exclusively on the computer and or a Kindle.  Graphic novels have turned out to be surprisingly readable in digital format especially on an almost 24 inch screen computer.  I am beyond delighted to be living in the 21st century when nearly every book is in the form of an e-book.  Of course, I would much rather be reading physical books. ebooks just don't have the same feel to them, but the fact that I've not had to give up reading as things have gotten worse is a true blessing of our times.

Book 2-Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible

Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon is a witty and charming children's book.  Written in a wonderful tongue-in-cheek fashion this author continues to remind me of Mercer Meyer for older children.  In this retelling of sleeping beauty, Harriet proves herself to be anything but a normal fairy tale princess who's willing to accept her fate without a fight.  Neither the curse fate nor her princess fate goes down easy and she quickly proves herself to be more obstinate than those around her expect.  The following early quote is a good example of both the princess and the style of the book:

Her deportment teacher tried to make her walk around with a book on her head to improve her posture. He was later found in the library with a book stuffed in his mouth, and Harriet was grounded for a month.

I discovered Ursula Vernon in an earlier read-a-thon and have been reading her books ever since on read-a-thon day because they're easy, well written and make me laugh.

Fall 2015 Mid-event survey.

Mid-Event Survey:

1. What are you reading right now?

Listening to Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris



2. How many books have you read so far?

two


3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?

Not sure yet.



4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?

Fair bit of family and mostly just went with it.  It is very hard to convince your almost 80 year old mother not to try to talk to you while your listening to an audio book.


5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?

That I haven't had a nap yet but that will be changing shortly.

Fall Read-a-thon 2015 1st book-Jekyll Island

Jekyll Island by Rebecca Patrick-Howard is the fifth book in the Taryn's Camera series.  It centers around around Taryn going to Jekyll island to paint two unrestored cottages.  While there she becomes involved in the mystery of a hotel fire in which many people died more than a century ago and the ghosts won't let her rest until she uncovers the truth.  The only problem is that the case was solved and a man hung for the crime 100 years ago.

This book follows the same format as most of the other books in the series by having both a much older paranormal mystery and a modern one.  Like the previous books I found the modern one horribly annoying and really wish the author would simply leave these out as they aren't all that interesting and detract from the story.  The paranormal ones continue to be both interesting and varied.

Interspersed with the wonderful ghost stories is some really good history of the island which the author clarifies in an author's note so that you'll know what is historical and what is fictional.

These continue to be wonderful, quick and imaginative stories and great entertainment.  Taryn is a fascinating and realistic character especially considering the subject matter.  Her relationships are more unidealistic than I've read in most other books so if you're looking for romance this probably isn't the series for you.

This was a great choice for the read-a-thon and I can only hope that the author will write another book before spring.

Mini-challenge: Cover Escape-peaceful

This looks so isolated and peaceful which would be perfect for a read-a-thon and not the way my day is turning out.

Fall 2015 Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon opening questionaire

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Williamsport, Pennsylvania USA


2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Jekyll Island by Rebecca Patrick-Howard 

This is a part of the Taryn's Camera series of paranormal mysteries and it just came out this week in time for the read-a-thon.


3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Magic cookie pie which I made yesterday and haven't had a chance to try yet.


4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

This is my 6th read-a-thon and aside from some cooking I did yesterday I'm not much more prepared this one than last.  Not too worried about it though as I had a great time in the spring despite not being prepared at all. 


5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today?

Nothing really.  Spring went fairly well and I'm not changing it.