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25
The Sunday Salon 10.25.09
2009 at 11am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
We all know I usually relish my lazy Sundays on the couch, and I’m sure today will be no different, except that I spent 19 out of the last 26 hours on this couch, and I’m starting to worry that my ass my have permanently fused itself to the leather. Seriously.
I was really hoping to make it all the way through my first 24-hour read-a-thon yesterday, but after 19 hours of reading with only a few short breaks and no napping, I had to call it quits at 3am. I was starting to lose it, and if you don’t believe me, just scroll down and read my last update. Here’s a quick recap:
I kicked off the morning with three hours of Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving. I slow down when I read Irving because I want to absorb the details and savor the language and allow myself to be pulled completely into the story, and Last Night in Twisted River hasn’t disappointed so far, but it didn’t do much for my page count because I do read Irving more slowly and deliberately than I read most other authors.
That’s okay, though, because the read-a-thon wasn’t about quantity for me. I can admit that I’m a snobby reader, and if I was going to spend 24 hours reading, I wanted to spend them reading good books.
So, of course, after three hours of Irving (which I then put on hold until after the event), I picked up Nicholas Sparks.
I made it through 172 pages of The Last Song, happily tweeting along at #IHeartTheSpark until my brain just couldn’t take any more. I had to switch to something with substance.
So I read Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother, then I jumped into Same Kind of Different as Me, which was wonderful, but damn, if I had known it was going to be an emotional read, I wouldn’t have read it in the frazzled-nerves portion of the read-a-thon, and I felt pretty accomplished for finishing those two heavy-ish books.
But my brain was turning to mush, so I figured it was a good time for more Nicholas Sparks, so I read another 100 pages, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore.
So here I am, on Sunday, snuggled in my jammies on my favorite corner of the couch, and I still have 100 pages of The Last Song to finish before I can move on to my book club’s selection for this Wednesday, Gossip of the Starlings, and then, someday, finally finish the Irving.
Aside from the read-a-thon, I had a pretty quiet week here at the blog. It was the first week of my new job, and I just didn’t have much reading or writing time. I did review Vera and the Ambassador, though, and I’m hoping to have a full week of reviews if I can just motivate myself to write about the books I read last night.
Before I wrap up, I just want to give a shout out to the cheerleaders who faithfully commented and tweeted and kept me motivated throughout the read-a-thon. It really did make a differene, an I SO appreciate it.
So tell me, did you read-a-thon? What are you up to this weekend?
No related posts.
I readathoned! Did readathon? What is the past tense of readathon when you verb that noun? I spent Sunday refusing to change out of PJs until 4:00 when I’d been spit up on in sufficient quantity that I coudn’t justify not changing, then Daniel and I went to the library and picked up some Indian food for me because my husband was downtown last night for something to do with a program he uses at school. I read “The Good Good Pig” some and watched a bunch of shows about cakes on TV.
19 hours is fantastic! I’m totally impressed! I hope the new job is going well.
Great read-a-thon update … and Nicholas Sparks is a perfect choice for when your brain has turned to mush!