Once Upon a Read-a-Thon: Monday

By now you're SURELY all aware that I do enjoy a good read-a-thon (The books!  The chatter!  The copious amounts of junk food!).  During the week-long Bout of Books read-a-thon in May I was at work for six of the seven days, and spent AGES doing challenges and participating in Twitter chats, which were a lot of fun but not a whole lot of use on the reading front.

Happily, during this three-day read-a-thon my sister is at home (she's finished her degree, woohoo!) and has very kindly offered to work today for me, and tomorrow is my day off anyway, which MEANS that I can sit at home scoffing pizza and reading to my heart's content for over half of the total read-a-thon time, hooray!  Hopefully I can finally get back into my reading groove after several weeks of culling and clearing books, and several days of feeling ill and sleeping!

For more details about Once Upon a Read-a-Thon, check out the Sticky Note of News at the top of the page!  There are also links to the three host blogs there if you want to find out more! 

What I hope to read

First up, I'd really like to finish all three of my current reads: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (a library book), There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff (also a library book) and The World of Karl Pilkington, a book of scripts (plus extras) from the hilarious The Ricky Gervais Show.

I'd also like to finish perhaps one other book?  It doesn't have to be a classic, or an epic novel, but it'd be nice to feel like I'd toppled another book from Mount TBR by the end of Wednesday!  I'm not going to plan ahead on that one - I'll see how I get on with finishing the other three first and go for whatever I fancy when the time comes!

How I'll post

I'd normally have a 'master post' and do all my updating there - but since this one is quite short and I'm home for so much of it, I've decided to do a separate post on each of the three days (this will be Monday's, obviously!).  I'll publish each day's post first thing in the morning, and update it throughout the day with what I'm reading, how I'm doing, photos, whatever takes my fancy really!  Since this is my opening post too, I'll add links to Tuesday and Wednesday's posts here so we can all find everything easily!  I'll also be updating on Twitter using the hashtag #OUreadathon - my handle is @Bookshop_Girl.

• For Tuesday's post - CLICK HERE!
• For Wednesday's post - CLICK HERE!

Please feel free to link up your own read-a-thon posts in the comments of any of mine this week, so I can come and visit and cheer you on!

Day the 1st: MONDAY

What I've been reading:  The World of Karl Pilkington by Ricky Gervais et al; There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff 

Books finished:  None yet!

Total number of books finished:  0

Number of pages today:  118

Total number of pages:  118

Today #insixwords:  What the hell happened?  Read, woman!

Today's updates

7:00am

Here we go!  I have no idea what the official start time is here in the UK, but I reckon it'll all even up in the end anyway, especially since I'm at work on Wednesday.  So I'm starting now!  I've got a warm chocolate chip muffin, a big mug of coffee, a book and a cozy bed, so I'm all set.  I think I'll start with a bit of The World of Karl Pilkington and go from there...

10:00am

Breakfasted, fell back to sleep... nearly had to go to work when my sister's bad shoulder went...  Fortunately it, er, came back(?), so I made more coffee, a bit of toast with some tuna mayo on it (the marmalade was hiding at the back of the fridge and I was too lazy to go fishing for it, hehe) and carried on with Karl Pilkington. 

Impromptu page count: 30

10:37am

Okay, I seriously need some focus here.  Hence another huge mug of coffee.  I've been, like, "Oooh, I know, I'll go look for that Julian Smith book video for the read-a-thon... Okay, maybe I'll just watch a couple of his other videos first... Right, I'll post it on Twitter... Speaking of Twitter, here are some more read-a-thon updates... Read-a-thon, that rings a bell... Oooops, READING!"  I'll try harder in the run-up to lunch, I swear!  ;)

1:15pm

Finally, I seem to be settling into my books properly!  I've read a bit more of Karl Pilkington and then moved on to There Is No Dog in the hope that a novel will draw me in and I'll read more quickly.  I think getting OFF the bed was probably a wise move too, since I seemed to spend a large amount of time on there with my head on a teddy bear staring into space and yawning.  I have stonebaked fajita chicken and pepper pizza (thank you, O Local Co-Op) and yet more coffee (and *coughs* a bag of marshmallows) to keep me going, which is doing wonders for my concentration.  Onwards!

3:45pm

HOW THE HELL IS IT THIS TIME ALREADY?!  (And shut up, it was only a LITTLE nap.  A little tiny snoozy dreamy nap.  And I only watched one behind-the-scenes Sherlock documentary that I found totally by accident on YouTube.  Just ONE.)  I made yet more coffee and ate a Danish pastry to wake myself up, and I've carried on reading since then.  The BAD news is that my wisdom teeth are starting to make me feel like a chipmunk again, so I might have to take something for those soon so I don't wind up with a cracking headache.  *sighs deeply*  Back to There Is No Dog...

Impromptu page count: 71 

Mini Challenge: Cover Reveal

Today Bailey at IB Book Blogging asks:

1. What is your favourite cover that has been revealed this summer and why?

2. Do you rely on the cover to help you choose whether you want to read a book or not?

I'm actually not a big follower of 'Cover Reveal' posts.  Occasionally if I know a series is renowned for its lovely covers I'll get excited about a new one (like Lauren Kate's Fallen series, for example), but otherwise I'm not too bothered!  I did have a quick look around, however, and found THIS:

It's for Leif by Abbi Glines, book 2.5 of her Existence series.  I have never read these books before, I have no idea what they're about, but I'm extremely tempted to find out based on the sizzling HOTNESS of this cover.  The sharp suit?  The black rose?  THE HOTNESS?!  Count me in!

Which, I guess, answers the second question too.  I think we all use covers to help us choose our books - no matter how much we might wish we didn't!  There are just so many books out there, I use everything I can to help me pick what to read and what to leave!  That means reviews, blogger buzz, blurbs, reading lists, awards and, yes, covers.  And what I look for in a cover shifts too.  Back when beautiful ballgowns were new on YA covers, for example, they really stood out and appealed to me.  Now that they're everywhere, it takes something different again to stand out from the rest of the books on the shop shelves.  Let's face it - you'd definitely look twice at THIS guy in a line-up!  ;)

9:00pm

Phew, hasn't the day flown by?  I've had dinner (yummy risotto, mmm), eaten strawberries with several scoops of homemade ice cream (vanilla and mocha both on the go right now, double mmm), and had a loooooong chat with my sister about our possible girlie holiday this year.  Between the shop and the agoraphobia, it'd be our first overseas holiday in about 10 years - can you say Read-a-Thon By Default?  Seven days of eating, swimming, sunbathing, eyeing up hot people in swimwear - and ploughing through a stack of awesome books?!  BRING IT ON!  So now it's back to my book for as long as my evening tiredness will allow.  I might have one more bout of sweet things and coffee yet, see how far they can carry me!

11:00pm

Okay, I give up.  My teeth hurt, my eyes are burning and I don't think I'll last much longer tonight, so I'll take some painkillers and sign off for now.  I do actually feel like I've read 'better' over the last couple of hours anyway, so hopefully I'll go into tomorrow with more concentration and get a couple of these books finished...  In the meantime, check out my stats for the day up top, and stay tuned for a new post in the morning!

How did YOU get on over the first day of the read-a-thon?  Topple any good books?  Did you read as much as you wanted?