Not even a box of raisins could save me. Although I plowed through one more book and two more hours between blogging and reading, I’m officially calling it quits for the Read. Read. Read-a-Thon now, at 5:30 a.m. EST. I’m been up since 7:30 a.m. yesterday morning, I’ve read for about 14 hours, and blogged and socialized for around 7 hours. I took approx. an hour off for meals. The last book I read didn’t really add to my page count, as it was mostly illustrations, so my record stands at 738.

90 Classic Books for People in a Hurry by Henrik Lange was just what I needed though, since even after a break and a snack I couldn’t handle the thought of actually starting another novel. Instead, via four drawings accompanied by witty text per classic novel, I got the lowdown on everything from The Picture of Dorian Grey, to Life of Pi, to The Trial, to The Big Sleep, to Ulysses, to The Da Vinci Code. I covered some ground, a got a few last giggles out of this grand adventure in reading.

Best wishes to everyone who participated, and to everyone who is still up and active and reading on into the night – luck West Coasters! Thanks again to Bethany for being such a lovely host! I’ll be posting slightly more detailed reviews of the books I read sometime in the next couple of days. For now though, good night. Off to BED!!!!

I keep getting to these late because I’ve been reading entire books between my chunks of computer time – better late than never though. I think I have enough brain power to do the meme hosted by Chick Loves Lit – she wonders where you have spent the majority of your time reading, and is looking for answers to the following questions that can be supplied through things you can actually see from where you are sitting. I’ve indicated those things with italics.

I spent the first half of my day in my bedroom, curled with my cats in bed. Once my boyfriend abandoned the living room and the TV went off I settled on the couch – yes, curled with my cats.

Name of the book you’re currently reading:
Erm, I’m between books, but I might try to read Flush: A Biography by Virginia Woolf next.

Wanting Most:
I would love it if the snowplow would quite going past my house. Granted it’s the first snow, but it’s nearly nothing and even if they need the practice, isn’t once every 15 minutes a little much??

Something you like to do besides read:
I like to take photographs – recently, mostly of my cats!

Fact about yourself:
I recently rediscovered the “one ring to rule them all” replica that I bought back in my serious LOTR fan days…!

Activity you would be doing today if it weren’t for the read-a-thon:
Right now? Sleeping. But for most of the past day I would probably have been curled on the couch watching movies – I’ve been meaning to get to Victor/Victoria for several days now.

Back to reading! Here’s hoping I can make it just a little longer. It’s just past 4 a.m. – to hit the 24 hour mark I need to stay up 3 1/2 hours more!

I really started hitting a wall with my last book, Nobody Move by Denis Johnson. It was a thriller, and as such it was fast paced and somewhat amusing, but I felt overwhelmingly “meh” about it. The end got a little blurry since I kept nearly losing it and tumbling into dream world, and at times I wanted to just give up, toss the book across the room and go to bed. I made it to the end though, and I am forging on!

I have now read roughly 738 pages and have spent around 13 hours reading. Surely I have a few more hours in me? Or at least a few more pages? At the very least I’ll stay awake long enough to go blog hopping and do a couple more mini challenges. I’m a little hungry too – a snack might be just the thing.

Reads4Pleasure hosted a mini challenge a few hours ago – officially another “Breaktime Shindig”, but a real challenging question at the same time. English Major’s Junk Food also hosted one of these mini challenges, and I’m going to attempt to answer both questions before I dive into my next book.

So…Reads4Pleasure asked who our favorite and least favorite characters, from all the worlds we’ve encountered through our reading travels, were. After a little bit of thought I believe that Harry Crewe from Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword is still as much a definite favorite as she was when I first met her as a 12 year old. Harry is just so incredibly bad ass, right from the beginning when she scowls at her glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, until the end when she battles to save Damar. I still wear, with a great deal of goofy pride, the T-shirt a friend made me that says Damalur-sol, and happily explain to the people who frequently ask about it that it means lady-hero to the world of Damar and Harry Crewe.

As for a character that I hate…? This shouldn’t be so difficult, but I;m finding that there are plenty of characters that make me barf a little in my mouth (Heathcliff?! but lets not get into that…!) but not many that I actually hate. Most characters that I come across that are truly awful I put out of my mind as swiftly as I can. It’s not the all-encompassing representations of evil that I find particularly bad – Sauron of The Lord of the Rings is an obviously nasty one – but the small time crooks, the senseless inflicters of pain, the manipulating bastards that are all too real that I find repulsive. Like I said, I don’t care to dwell on or remember them. I’d rather focus the heat of my disgust on, well, Heathcliff…!

Moving on to Ash’s challenge, she wandered what a favorite quote out of your favorite classic novel might be. In a slight deviation from the ‘classic novel’ idea, I was reminded recently, when I was going through a box of stuff my mother packed up for me, of how much I love the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. I wrote down this passage in my little quotes journal in 2003, and it still is lovely and thrilling to me now:

‘De Guiche
I suppose you have written a tragedy -
They all have.

Le Bret
(Aside to Cyrano)
Now at last you’ll have it played -
Your Agrippine!

De Guiche
Why not? Take it to him.

Cyrano
(Tempted)
Really –

De Guiche
He is himself a dramatist;
Let him rewrite a few lines here and there,
And he’ll approve the rest.

Cyrano
(His face falls again)
Impossible.
My blood curdles to think of altering
one comma.

De Guiche
Ah, but when he likes a thing
He pays well.

Cyrano
Yes – but not so well as I -
When I have made a line that sings itself
So that I love the sound of it – I pay
Myself a hundred times.‘

There you have it. Back to reading now – I’ve read for about 11 hours give or take some meal breaks, and have spent going on 5 hours blogging and socializing. Three books down, over 500 pages read – I’m pretty pleased with my progress so far! Now only…7 hours left? Imagine that.

I feel like my math can’t possibly be correct (not a shocking supposition when my math record is examined…), but if I started reading around 7:30 this morning and it is now 10:30 p.m. than I really have been read-a-thoning for 15 hours!! Amazing. The halfway point swept past me while I was in the middle of eating dinner.

So where am I now? I finished my third book – Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. – which at 191 pages brought my total for the day up to 542 pages. Sa-weeeeet!

Cat’s Cradle is definitely my favorite Vonnegut thus far, but I’ve only read two others. I was momentarily worried when I started it because I didn’t know if my brain could handle too many odd plot twists, and I nearly put it down, but suddenly I was 20 pages in and I was hooked – smooth reading from there. Loved this part – so appropriate for the read-a-thon:

‘I turned to Castle the elder. “Sir, how does a man die when he’s deprived of the consolations of literature?”
“In one of two ways,” he said, “petrescence of the heart or atrophy of the nervous system.”
“Neither one is very pleasant I expect,” I suggested.
“No,” said Castle the elder. “For the love of God, both of you, please keep writing!”‘

Not sure what I want to read next. I’ll poke around online for awhile and see what everyone else has gotten up to since I was last in the blogosphere, finish my 10 o’clock snack (lovingly prepared by my boyfriend before he fell asleep on the couch!), and watch the first snow of winter dust Bar Harbor, ME.

Bethany of Dreadlock Girl Reads is our amazing host for this read-a-thon, and she’s been doing a great job of frequently updating with links to memes, funny videos to give your brain a break, and book give-away winners – at the expense of her own reading time. She pointed the way many hours ago to a breaktime shindig hosted by fellow read-a-thon participant I Heart Monster, and I’m finally getting around to joining the “Ditch the Naughty, Embrace the Nice” party.

A big part of a read-a-thon is supporting your fellow readers, since most of us are sitting in our houses shut up in a room, probably spending large amounts of time by ourselves – with books of course!

In my efforts to get round to as many blogs as I can to post at least one encouraging comment, I have run into a problem that is increasingly frustrating to me – the blog host Blogger hates me! Certain blog formats just eat my comments, regardless of how I try to post them, whether it is through my WordPress ID, just leaving name and URL, or even going under Anonymous… Makes me sad.

So in order to hit two cans with the same rock, I’m going to participate in I Heart Monster’s meme (the idea of which is to dish out some choice compliments to bloggers that are new to you) and also send out the love to some of the read-a-thon participants that I’ve missed.

Here goes!

Cessie of Cessie’s Book Journey is blogging from China, and she has a really lovely blog design – very open and airy. Best of luck with your read-a-thon endeavor!

It’s very festive at Reads4Pleasure! Glad things are going well for you during this read-a-thon.

Lanie and Julie of Lose Your Cred have a super fun, colorful layout, and I love their team-concept. Good luck ladies – keep READING!!!

Michelle of The True Book Addict is hanging out with her Mom today – hurray for shared read-a-thoning!. The header on her blog makes me smile in a new a special way, now that I have cats of my own with which to share my addiction. Nice work Michelle.

And of course I must direct some love to Leila at bookshelves of doom, since she has been an inspiration to me in the field of reading and has kept a blog that I adore for quite a long and lovely time. Hurray for reading, keep up the good work!

And now, having brought my “time spent on the internet” up to approx. 3 hours for the day, I really must get back to reading!!

Phew! Things are rockin’ and rollin’. I finished my second book – A Mercy by Toni Morrison – a 167 page novel that brings my total page count to 351.

(Blahh!! My genius cat Briggs just made my computer crash by stepping on the keyboard in a surprise attempt to get my attention. He’s pretty smart – can’t he recognize the difference between positive and NEGATIVE attention?! I guess we’re both still learning…and fortunately the computer responded to mouth to mouth resuscitation!)

I liked A Mercy, but it was a difficult book – heavy subject. As a read-a-thon book it was a great though, since the story progressed through shared narrative from several characters. My attention was securely held, and I was suitably impressed with Morrison’s writing. Another success.

I spent a little over an hour on the computer around noon, and have taken a breakfast and a lunch break – food provided by my amazingly supportive boyfriend, who is tolerating my long disappearances into my bedroom and cheerfully calling me down for meals a minute before they hit the table. He’s also nicely impressed with my reading accomplishments! Other than those brief interludes I’ve been reading pretty much straight since around 7:30. I still have plenty of energy and my enthusiasm hasn’t flagged at all yet.

Once again, off to cheer on other blogs – best wishes to everyone who passes by here!

Four hours into my first read-a-thon (I wasn’t able to start until 7:30 ) and I’ve read one book – 184 pages. I’m glad I started with the Mary Wesley – Second Fiddle was a lovely bit of comedy set in an English village populated by eccentric and endearing characters. It is racy and laugh-out-loud funny, and even a bit thought-provoking. A very pleasant read.

Since this is my first read-a-thon I have no set goals for total time spent reading or books finished – I’m setting my first record today. Now I’m off to poke around some other blogs and cheer for participants, then back to the books. I’m thinking I might tackle the Toni Morrison next.

Although there is a tiny possibility that I will get politely asked to leave my apartment because of this, look at who has joined my family:

Briggs, the Enormous Cat. He’s huge and adorable and loves to hang out with me, especially when I’m trying to use my computer – he gets a kick out of trying to walk back and forth across my keyboard!

Bree, the Princess. She is about two times smaller than her brother, but her personal space bubble is much larger! She is elusive and even a little skittish, but she warms up to us by the evening and will join Briggs and I for a couch party – for just as long as she chooses.

We’ve had the cats since about mid-November, but we only fessed up to them a day ago. I can’t imagine our very nice landlords will really have a problem with them since they are completely house broken and they don’t scratch the furniture or make any other types of havoc – and the landlords let a family with a dog live in this same apartment last winter, so… The cats’s past owner didn’t want them anymore and she was so desperate to be rid of them that she was threatening to put them down!! In spite of the no-pet policy of our housing situation, my boyfriend and I just HAD to take them.

I haven’t had cats before, since my Dad is allergic to them, so the past few weeks have been a learning experience – although an easy one. I’m quickly getting over my slight aversion to cats – they’ve always made me a little self-conscious because I’m pretty sure they’re smarter than me, or possibly aliens. I found a book in the spring which only confirmed my feeling that there was something about cats.

Briggs and Bree don’t frighten me, although they occasionally fix me with a stare that is somewhat unnerving…! They’re so pretty, fabulous cats though, so if they’re willing to put up with me, I am more than willing to be their minion. They certainly are wonderful companions when it comes to curling up with a book, and a cat!

My first Read-A-Thon is swiftly approaching! Our host, Bethany of Dreadlock Girl, posted more info and suggestions for prep and book choices recently. She recommended finding short books that were light – chic lit or YA – and stocking up on lots of snacks and fun beverages.

I have a rather late work shift the night before (Midnight Madness Sale…) so I don’t plan to get up excessively early on Saturday – maybe 7ish. Then, since it’s how these things go, I’ll be reading for as close to 24 hours as possible, blogging a little, and cheering on my fellow participants. Sounds fun, right? It does to me, anyway!

I have a good amount of books hanging around my house that I plan to pick from, but just for good measure I went to the library this morning and picked out a couple more. Looking at my tentative pile now, I think I missed the memo about ‘light reading’…!

The short story stack should be easy enough, and I’m pretty sure the Persephone titles will be quick and fun (YES, I got my first Persephone books – Flush, and Cheerful Weather for the Wedding!!!) I don’t expect much trouble fromThe Next Queen of Heaven either.

As for the others… Well, Bethany did say the most important thing is to read books that you really want to read, and I definitely want to read all of them – I may not get through them all during the Read-A-Thon though!

Light by Eva Figes is about a day in the life of Claude Monet – it’s supposed to be luminous and richly descriptive (also “unhurried” which may be not quite what I’m looking for at the moment…!)

I may not even touch Cat’s Cradle, but I figured I would toss it in there just in case.

I’ve never heard of Mary Wesley, author of Second Fiddle, but this quote by the Washington Post Book World – “Charm being in short supply in modern fiction, it’s no wonder that the witty novels of Mary Wesley have been greeted with delight” as well as the promise of a cast of “eccentric minor characters” caused me to shrug and try it.

A Coin in Nine Hands, a book about an attempt assassination of Mussolini, with a series of secondary stories set in Rome, “city of life and imagination”, written by the French author Marguerite Yourcenar – “one of the great figures of modern French letters”… I’m intrigued.

More Bolaño so soon? The Skating Rink is the only book of his that my library owns, so I might as well. And it’s about a murder! In a seaside town!

I was delighted to find another book by Denis Johnson – Nobody Move -since I enjoyed his novel Fiskadoro so much earlier this year. An outrageous thriller about a cat-and-mouse game over $2.3 million, set in Bakersfield, CA. Could be good.

And finally, dare I try Toni Morrison, via A Mercy? I’ve never read anything by her, although she is constantly shuffling about my list of authors to explore. I put down half a dozen other books about slavery, but this one just seemed to grab me. I’ll have to find out why.

So that’s my stack. We’ll see what I get through. Considering the slow and methodical way my reading has been going this year – I’ve been averaging about 3 a month – I am super excited about a STACK, and the idea that I will actually get to read a bunch of books on Saturday is fabulous.

Wish me luck (and tell me what you think of my selection…!)