Bout of Books Wrap-Up Post

They think it's all over... it is now!  This is a rather late post, because Monday at the shop was pretty busy, and yesterday was GLORIOUS so I spent the whole day in the garden.  Unfortunately I spent a chunk of it taming my nemesis (or as normal people might call it, weeding my rockery) so it wasn't all reading and relaxing.  Still, it paves the way nicely for my 25th next Tuesday - I know the day's clear now the gardening's done!  :)

So, the read-a-thon.  I didn't get anywhere near as much reading done as I'd hoped, but I don't mind too much because I had a lot of fun, and I WAS working six days out of the seven.  It's not always easy to settle into a book when you're surrounded by customers - I did try, but sometimes I found myself reading the same page over and over because someone was chattering away near the desk, or I was keeping one eye on what someone's children were doing!

What I Read

I finished The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists by Gideon Defoe, as planned.  I'd already read a few pages of Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk before the read-a-thon started, but I finished that too.  I'd hoped to finish Alan Moore's V for Vendetta by the end of Sunday, but only got about halfway through that one.  I wasn't too worried though, because all three books were FANTASTIC!  My first Pirates! book, my first Palahniuk and my first graphic novel, and all three exceeded expectations.  Perfect!  Plus I'm now one step closer to being able to watch V for Vendetta on DVD, finally...  The 'master post' with my goals for the week and each day's updates/chatter is here.  My final stats were:
Pages read: 463
Books read from: 3
Books finished: 2

When I Wasn't Reading

Well, I didn't listen to 'Open Book' or do my bookshop profile, as mentioned in my original goals - though I did take some photos to use alongside the article, which is a start at least!  I managed to sort out my bookish wishlist (I try and do it every year before my birthday, just in case!), wrote a review of The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists, and made quite a lot of headway with getting all my books listed for my new Mount TBR page.  Still lots to do there, but I made a good start!

Twitter

This was definitely one of my biggest non-reading time drains this week, oops!  I suspect I'm not the only one to have fallen prey to the lure of #boutofbooks!  I also participated in one and a half of the Twitter chats (the shop closed halfway through the last one so I had to get going) and they were all fast, frenetic and a lot of fun! 

The Challenges

I loved the challenges for this read-a-thon, despite the fact that I went seriously overboard on the first couple and dented my reading time by a good few hours, oops!  On Day 1 I kicked off the challenges for the week with a post about read-a-thons: what I like about them, what my read-a-thon traditions are, and a tongue-in-cheek guide to getting the most out of the experience!  Day 2 was all about getting into the mind of the reader, so I posted about my compulsive book-buying and answered the 'This or That' bookish quiz.  Day 3's challenge asked us to take an existing book cover and re-title it.  Of course I went off on a bit of a tangent, as always...  Day 5 was possibly my favourite challenge, even though I'm not a 'shoe person' - I chose to match the beautiful cover of The Secret Life of Trees by Colin Tudge to an array of interesting leafy-themed footwear (and an umbrella, jut because it was nice).

Next time

I'll definitely be signing up for the next Bout of Books read-a-thon!  You can follow the Bout of Books blog if you fancy joining in the next one - there's currently a poll running to decide when it will be (sometime in August), and there'll be an announcement as soon as a firm date is set.  Next time I'm going to try to use my evenings and early mornings to read more (I kept sliding a bit this week!), and keep my challenge posts a little more low-key to save time.  I'll also try to finish any longer/more challenging books before the read-a-thon starts, so I can topple a handful of books instead of just one or two.  Not that the books I read this time weren't great, but my page count was a bit demoralising at the end of the week!

Over to you readers!  If you were a Bout of Books-er, did you hit your goals?  What did you like best about the read-a-thon, and what was your favourite book that you read over the week?  If you didn't join in this time, have we persuaded you to sign up in August?  *smiles slyly*  You know you want to... :)