The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week-long read-a-thon that begins 12.01am Monday, January 4 and runs through Sunday, August 10th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional.
For all Bout of Books 15 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.
- From the Bout of Books team
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Books I've read from: 21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff by Steve Stack; Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie; Knots and Crosses (Rebus 1) by Ian Rankin
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~ MONDAY ~
Books I've read from: 21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff by Steve Stack; Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie; Knots and Crosses (Rebus 1) by Ian Rankin
Pages read today: 135
Books finished today: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Running total: 1 books; 135 pages
The menu: Blueberry muffin, mixed tinned fruit and coffee; lasagne and sweetcorn; Graze punnet with dried mango, pineapple and coconut; vanilla rooibos tea; toasted muffins with butter and honey; Terry's chocolate orange minis
Today #insixwords: My best reading day in MONTHS!
11:30am: Well. I nearly started reading at about 12:30am this morning because I COULD NOT SLEEP - but turns out, I couldn't read either (because SLEEPY) so that idea quickly went out the window. I've kicked off my readathon at a PROPER TIME with a chunk of 21st Century Dodos by Steve Stack, breakfast, and now more dodos with a cup of tea in my new FAB mug, because nostalgia breeds more nostalgia. Topics covered so far today have included blackboards in schools, 'answers on a postcard', half-day closing and fish and chips wrapped in actual newspaper. Oh, and you know when you used to buy a CD in Woollies or something, and you had to take the empty case to the desk and they disappeared into a labyrinth of drawers to find the disc in its little cardboard case? Yeah, that.
Quote of the day: "Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be quite the same boy."
- from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
11:30am: Well. I nearly started reading at about 12:30am this morning because I COULD NOT SLEEP - but turns out, I couldn't read either (because SLEEPY) so that idea quickly went out the window. I've kicked off my readathon at a PROPER TIME with a chunk of 21st Century Dodos by Steve Stack, breakfast, and now more dodos with a cup of tea in my new FAB mug, because nostalgia breeds more nostalgia. Topics covered so far today have included blackboards in schools, 'answers on a postcard', half-day closing and fish and chips wrapped in actual newspaper. Oh, and you know when you used to buy a CD in Woollies or something, and you had to take the empty case to the desk and they disappeared into a labyrinth of drawers to find the disc in its little cardboard case? Yeah, that.
3:50pm: Okay, so I got distracted eating lasagne and watching YouTube videos. I turned my laptop off until then though, and read a couple of chapters of Peter Pan. I'm really loving it now I've settled into the style and the sudden surreal moments, though it's still frustrating me that Wendy basically does nothing but darn socks and talk about babies. No "I'M RED-HANDED JILL!" in this original incarnation, nope - because who needs piracy when there's laundry to be done? NOBODY, THAT'S WHO, NOW BE A DOLL AND GET THE DINNER ON.
8pm: I decided to turn my laptop off again and not turn it back on OR have tea until I'd finished Peter Pan - so that's what I did. That's my first completed book of the year as well as my first of the readathon; I had about 100 pages left this morning, or a little over half the novel. So NOW I can read something new, and also treat myself to Disney's Peter Pan on DVD when I go to Tesco tomorrow, if their Disney collection is still there post-Christmas.
I definitely have mostly positive feelings about the novel, although it kept veering off into knowledgeable diatribes about the nature of girls, and into strangely affectionate racist discourse on the hunting abilities of the redskins, and at one point into a seriously Oedipal moment that directly placed Peter as husband and son to Wendy and made it sound like she was doing naughty things to him to calm him down when he had nightmares. (I scrawled the page number in my review notes with 'WTF?!' next to it.) Still, it feels really good to have finally read it; it's such an iconic story, it was a big part of my childhood in its various movie forms, and it's one of the books that's been on my TBR shelves the very longest, since I was only a tweenager or so I would think. Hooray! (Or should I say, 'Oh, the cleverness of me!'?)
I might sign off here for the night actually, and go make some supper (I'm having toasted muffins and honey and a mug of tea, yummy), then sit and read a new novel for a while before bed. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow morning, something I hate hate HATE, so the more I can distract myself this evening the better chance I have of actually sleeping tonight. I'll come back tomorrow to finish off my stats and all the jazz, and get a post up for Tuesday's reading!
- from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
