Social Distancing Readathon #50 - February 26 - 28

Welcome to another readathon!

We generally run from Friday at 5 p.m. to Sunday at midnight in whatever time zone you choose, but feel free to start earlier on Friday and wrap up overnight Sunday/Monday, if that's what you want to do.

Here are some things to track throughout the weekend, if you choose:

Books read from:
Books finished:
Time reading:
Time posting:
Snacks:
Thoughts:
Non-book activities:

Total books finished:
Total read from:
Total time reading:

Who is participating -

1. SilverWolf (SilverWolf28) -- Tennessee, USA
2. Carrie (cbl_tn) -- Seymour, Tennessee, USA
3. Paul (PaulCranswick) -- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
4. Lynda (Carmenere) -- Cleveland, Ohio, USA
5. Cyrel (torontoc) -- Toronto, Canada
6. Anne (AnneDC) -- Washington DC, USA
7. Kerry (avatiakh) -- Auckland, New Zealand
8. Luci (elkiedee) -- London, UK
9. June (June) -- South Carolina, USA
10. Susanna (susanna.fraser) -- Seattle, Washington, USA
11. Ella (EllaTim) -- Amsterdam, Netherlands
12. Dee (Deedledee) -- Nova Scotia, Canada
13. Benita (benitastrnad) -- Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
14. Suzanne (Chatterbox) -- Rhode Island, USA
15. Nancy (nrmay) -- North Carolina, USA
16. Arlie (ArlieS)

Sorry to be late posting this again. My schedule is still crazy from the snow storm.

I've got several books I'd like to finish over the weekend so I'll join in again.

Paul from Kuala Lumpur desperately needing our readathon to make some progress with my unfinished books this weekend. I'm in!

Count me in once again! I need to finish one more for February and get a jump on two books for March book clubs.

I'm in- I have Granta 99 to finish and then I should start a new book!

I'm in! It's the end of the month and I have books to finish.

I'm in, reading & enjoying the latest Montalbano when I should be trying to finish up my planned February reads.

Planning to join in. I'm quite close to finishing 3 books, though it's possible I'll finish one or two even before 5 pm (8.10 am here now).

I'd like to participate again this weekend. I am in search of some new (to me) authors to add to my favorites list.

June

Count me in again. I’ve just finished two Big Serious books and am looking for light weekend reads.

Count me in as well. Reading one lighter, and one Serious Book.
Will be starting right now. It's 21:00 Pm here.

I'm on board.

I was planning to go away this weekend but we've had a bit of a spike in cases here so I'm home...

It is 7:15pm and I am about to start tonights reading.
Tonight I'll be reading The Long Call. I think I may have started it last weekend but I haven't read much since then. Good luck to all.

Checkin Amsterdam 1:28 AM

Books read from: Shuggie Bain and Now May You Weep
Books finished: none
Time reading: 2 hours?
Time posting: 30 minutes
Snacks: some figs and nuts
Thoughts:
Non-book activities: Twitter,

Total books finished: none
Total read from: 2
Total time reading:

Friday night check-in

Books read from: Jim Crow’s Children by Peter Irons. I started listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
Books finished: during the week I finished reading and listening to Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry.
Time reading: 2 hours
Time posting: 15 minutes
Snacks: Ate Japanese food tonight and had a nice quite reading time.
Thoughts:
Non-book activities:driving up to Gadsden Alabama to go to the yarn shop. Of course I bought yarn. I am really enjoying this book and learning a lot about the court cases that ended school segregation.

Total books finished since the read-a-thon began: 105
Total read from: 108
Total time reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 298 hours since April 2020.

I'll try to do better this week than I managed to do last weekend...

I'm reading (or at least dipping into)
The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart
Death and the Maiden by Samantha Norman/Ariana Franklin
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag
Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit
Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles
The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne

I want to start reading:
The Cult of the Constitution by Mary Anne Franks
What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
The Red Horse by James Benn
Black Sun Rising by Matthew Carr
A World Beneath the Sands by Toby Wilkinson
The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel
The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart

And then there are some lurking audiobooks.

Yes, I realize how absurd the above list may be, but it's the one I'll use to try to prioritize my reading. My re-reading binge will direct me to the next book in the Ursula Blanchard series of historical mysteries by Fiona Buckley. I've re-read the first four, and am on to #5. i've read about half of these, but not for 15 or 20 years, since they first appeared, so I'm playing catchup.

Friday evening in Seattle

Books read from: Every Reason We Shouldn't
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 3 hours
Snacks: Toast
Thoughts: Hoping for a nice, relaxing weekend
Non-book activities: Paid bills

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 1
Total time reading: 2 hours

Saturday afternoon 5pm in Auckland, NZ

Books read from: The Sicilian Method by Andrea Camilleri, Isabella, the Warrior Queen by Kristin Downey (audio).
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 3 hours
Snacks: fried rice, flat white
Thoughts: so hot today
Non-book activities: walking around the CBD, visit to the Family Research Centre in the Central Library, running errands, shopping for Asian food products including kimchi. Virtual conference.

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: 3 hours

I'm following Family Search's free RootsTech Connect conference this weekend, there's lots of presentations to watch that interest me. I like this virtual event which you can attend at your own pace and have come across quite a few useful tips and information.

Saturday morning 7.40 am

Books read from: 6
Rachel Hore, A Beautiful Spy - finished - 21 pages
Anthony Quinn, London's Burning - forthcoming book, no touchstone - book started - 22 pages
Kerry Hudson, Lowborn - finished - 21 pagee
Lissa Evans, V for Victory - finished - 44 pages
Dorothy Whipple, Young Anne - 17 pages
Sidney Taylor, All-of-a-Kind-Family Dowtown - 1 page

Pages read: 126 pages
Books finished: 3
Books started - 1
Time reading: Not sure
Time posting: a few minutes
Non-book activities: Bejeweled Blitz, FB etc, radio

Total books finished: 3
Total read from: 6
Total time reading: Not sure

Saturday 6:45am - Friday night reading
Books read from: The Long Call
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 1.5 hours
Snacks: Dinner was carry-out fish-fry from a local church
Thoughts: I just want to move on to my next book
Non-book activities: Watched a National Geographic episode on Yellowstone National Park

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 1
Total time reading: 1.5 hours

Saturday morning check-in:

Books read from: Telling the Map, The Fairies of Sadieville, Our Italian Summer, Reykjavik Nights
Books finished: 0

Time reading: 2 hours
Time posting: 6:52 AM
Snacks: coffee, toast with homemade strawberry jam

Thoughts: I need more reading time.
Non-book activities: Basketball and softball games today

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 4
Total time reading:2 hours

I'm in this weekend.

Books:
Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March.
audio book is How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, Julia Alvarez.

food:
I made a roasted cauliflower sheet pan dish with pancetta, olives and parmesan cheese. Breakfast: coffee and a cinnamon roll.

other activity:
got 2nd covid dose yesterday and experienced some side effects last night - chills, muscle ache. Groggy but ok today, I think.
Went to the library and Trader Joe's. Had not been to TJs in over a year.

Saturday morning check-in:

Books read from: Orley Farm, Banker
Books finished: Orley Farm
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: Breakfast was donuts and tea
Thoughts: I hope I'll get more reading done this weekend than last
Non-book activities: Long phone calls with a couple of cousins, sleep, grocery pickup

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: ?

Sat morning
Exercised this morning- the snow is melting! ( but there still could be more snow later in the month)
I finished reading Granta 99 and will start on another from my book pile.

Report on Friday/Saturday morning

Books read from:Difficult Women, The Nickel Boys, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 90 minutes
Pages read: 71
Time posting: 0
Snacks: latte
Thoughts: I did virtually no reading yesterday, and a tiny bit this morning.
Non-book activities: work extended well into Friday evening, zoom social call with college friends, watched 2 episodes of Watchmen, sleep

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 90 minutes

Why is it that I never notice these readathons until some time after local noon on the Saturday involved? (Answer: because Saturday is when I spend the most time on LibraryThing. Doh. Maybe I should develop a habit of checking on Friday.)

Realistically, I wouldn't do all that much reading this weekend, even if I declared my readathon schedule to run from Saturday 5 PM (local) to Monday at midnight. (It's currently 2:18 PM Saturday where I am.) But I'll be looking out for the next one.

Saturday afternoon update:

Books read from: Banker
Books finished: Orley Farm
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: lunch was pulled pork and slaw sandwich & chips; orange juice and yogurt covered almonds for a snack
Thoughts: It's a gray and gloomy day.
Non-book activities: walked the dog, laundry, cleaning

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: ?

My first check-in. Thanks, weekend migraine!

Books read from: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, The Brandons by Angela Thirkell, audiobook of The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 6 hours?
Snacks: Chicken tikka masala for dinner.
Thoughts: This whole month has been an uphill battle, in terms of energy and focus.
Non-book activities: Fended off business partner demanding I do six things at once. Did a bit of laundry.

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: 6 hours

>28 ArlieS: I'll let you know when I post the next readathon.

Saturday night check in:

Books read from: Art Matters, Return of the Trickster, The Kid
Books finished: Art Matters, Return of the Trickster
Snacks: Just went to a friend's place for Greek food.
Thoughts: I'm super sad about not being about not being able to go away this weekend but cases in my province spiked a bit this week so it's time to be cautious.

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 3

Saturday 10:15pm

Books read from: The Long Call
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 1 hour
Snacks: Stromboli and boneless chicken wings
Thoughts: The sunshine feels so good!
Non-book activities: National Geographic episode on Yosemite

Total books finished: 0
Total read from: 1
Total time reading: 2.5 hours

Books read from since last update: 3 The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst (audiobook) and some stories from The Murder of Diana Devon by Michael Gilbert
Books finished: 2 (The Memory Police, a full five stars! and the Alan Furst audiobook)
Time reading: 3 hours
Snacks: water
Thoughts: Blech. But Minka the velveteen kitten is curled up on top of my legs on the sofa and purring, which is consoling.
Non-book activities: Listening to "new standards" on WNYC streaming, including lots of Ella, Diana Krall and some other good stuff.

Total books finished: 2
Total read from this readathon: 5: the above, plus The Brandons by Angela Thirkell, audiobook of The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson
Total time reading: 9 hours

Saturday night in Seattle:

Books read from: Every Reason We Shouldn't
Books finished: Every Reason We Shouldn't
Time reading: 3 hours
Snacks: Gnocchi for dinner
Thoughts: A Steller's Jay visited my back deck today to eat peanuts I'd set out for the local crows. Such a gorgeous bird!
Non-book activities: Played Wingspan with my husband and lost.

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 1
Total time reading: 6 hours

Saturday night

Books read from:Difficult Women, The Nickel Boys, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, A Promised Land
Books finished: 1
Time reading: 1 hour 30 minutes reading; 1 hour 45 minutes listening
Pages read: 150 pages
Time posting: 15 minutes
Snacks: lamb chops and roasted vegetables
Thoughts: I did virtually no reading yesterday, and a tiny bit this morning.
Non-book activities: farmers market, yoga, laundry, walk, glass of wine with friend who thinks she needs a friend but really needs a therapist, make dinner, watch Watchmen

Total books finished: 1 (A Promised Land)
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: 3 hours reading, 1 hour 45 minutes listening
Total pages read: 183

Sunday morning check-in:

Books read from: The Fairies of Sadieville and Reykjavik Nights
Books finished: none

Time reading:2.5 hours
Time posting: 7:53 AM

Snacks: Seafood
Thoughts: The library wants my books back and I haven't finished them.
Non-book activities: Basketball & softball

Total books finished: none
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: 2.5 hours

Sunday morning update:

Books read from: Banker, Bruno, Chief of Police
Books finished: Orley Farm, Banker
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: breakfast was donuts and tea
Thoughts: Too tired to think
Non-book activities: Sleep

Total books finished: 2
Total read from: 3
Total time reading:

Taking a break now for Zoom church service.

Sunday- I'll be reading from another issue of Granta and Spring by Ali Smith.

Sunday afternoon check in:

Books read from today: Such a Fun Age, The Kid, Warriors Don't Cry
Books finished: The Kid
Snacks: babaganoush and corn chips
Non-book activities: I went out to enjoy the sunshine and walked for a bit. Now I'm forcing myself to clean out the spare room.

Total books finished: 3
Total read from: 5

mid-day Sunday in North Carolina

books:
finished Murder in Old Bombay, Nev March. :)
starting 2 new books -
Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Jacobson and
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks (audio book)

Food:
breakfast cinnamon roll, coffee.
dinner - hubby making sheet pan shrimp boil; recipe from damndelicious.net, for a late dinner when my sister arrives tonight.

Other activity:
Sunday papers.
My sister arriving with her 2 cats; I'm minding them while she's in Florida for a couple weeks. Her husband and son are doing the Everglades Challenge, a 300 mile boat race from Tampa to Key Largo.

weather: mild 61 F. (16 C.), partly sunny.

It's Sunday evening here (7.45 pm) but I'm going to do a post for yesterday now and another one in a couple of hours for today, probably.

Some time between my last post at 7.40 am on Saturday and late on Saturday night

Books read from: 6
Anthony Quinn, London's Burning - forthcoming book, no touchstone
Dorothy Whipple, Young Anne
Sydney Taylor, All-of-a-Kind-Family Downtown
Anne Enright, Yesterday's Weather
Ellen Wiles, The Invisible Crowd
Brit Bannett, The Vanishing Half

Pages read: 118 pages
Books finished: 0
Books started - 0
Time reading: Not sure
Time posting: a few minutes
Other book stuff: a few updates on LT and Goodreads, choosing books to start
Non-book activities: Bejeweled Blitz, FB etc, radio, a Zoom meeting

Total pages read: 244
Books read from: 9
Books finished: 3
Books started: 1

Sunday 3:30 pm

Books read from:Difficult Women, The Nickel Boys, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, A Promised Land
Books finished: 2
Time reading: 1 hour; 2 hours 30 minutes listening
Pages read: 185 pages
Time posting: 1 hour
Snacks: breakfast: pumpkin pancakes and coffee; lunch: leftover Thai curry with rice
Thoughts: I seem to spend Sundays lamenting that tomorrow is Monday.
Non-book activities: folding laundry, skipping virtual church, making bread dough, reading newspaper

Total books finished: 3 (A Promised Land, Difficult Women, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry)
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: 4 hours reading, 4 hour 15 minutes listening
Total pages read: 368 pages

I'm still hoping to finish The Nickel Boys today, I have about 100 pages left to go.

Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

Books read from since last update: 3 The Murder of Diana Devon by Michael Gilbert, Five Little Indians and the Brandons by Angela Thirkell
Books finished: 0 this period
Time reading: 5 hours
Snacks: soda, a piece of cherry pie.
Thoughts: It's been exactly a year since the first COVID-19 case in Rhode Island. Thinking about how much has changed in that time period.
Non-book activities: When the latest migraine threat abated, watched an episode of the 1980s BBC dramatization of Fortunes of War. It was SO good, and stands up well. Great dialogue.

Total books finished: 2, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst
Total read from this readathon: 6: the above, plus a bit of the audiobook of The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson
Total time reading: 14 hours

Books read from since last update: 3, Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, Black Sun Rising by Matthew Carr and The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
Books finished: 1, Five Little Indians
Time reading: 2.5 hours
Snacks: dim sum dumplings, ordered in from local chinese place.
Thoughts: Not many thoughts today.
Non-book activities: Talked to my father. Checked in on e-mail. Looked at stack of unread books and hoped that more of them would be as good as the ones I've finished this weekend.

Total books finished: 3, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, Five Little Indians by Michelle Good and Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst
Total read from this readathon: 7: the above, plus The Murder of Diana Devon and a bit of the audiobook of The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson
Total time reading: 16.5 hours

Sunday evening update:

Books read from: Bruno, Chief of Police
Books finished: Orley Farm, Banker, Bruno, Chief of Police
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: dinner was pear, cheese & crackers, tea
Thoughts: It's been a successful readathon!
Non-book activities: watching a Hallmark movie, cleaning kitchen

Total books finished: 3
Total read from: 3
Total time reading: ?

Sunday night update:
Books read from: Now May You Weep
Books finished: none
Time spent reading: 1,5 hours?
Thoughts: i liked the quotes starting each chapter from Stevenson and Robert Burns. Find something to read by those two?
Non-book activities: washing clothes, email, phonecalls, a walk outside. Too much really.

Sunday evening update:

Books read from: To Calais, In Ordinary Time
Books finished: 0
Time reading: 2 hours
Snacks: made chili for dinner
Thoughts: This is a deeply weird book, but it's interesting, so I'm going to push through it.
Non-book activities: Cooking, listening to podcasts

Total books finished: 1
Total read from: 2
Total time reading: 8 hours

Final report:

Books read from: In the Teeth of the Evidence
Books finished: Orley Farm, Banker, Bruno, Chief of Police, In the Teeth of the Evidence
Time reading: ?
Time posting: ?
Snacks: tea
Thoughts: A very successful readathon weekend!
Non-book activities:

Total books finished: 4
Total read from: 4
Total time reading: ?

Sunday night check-in. Road trip report.

Books read from: Jim Crow’s Children by Peter Irons. Recorded book was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling which I finished and I started listening to book 4 in the Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling, but I doubt I continue with it because there are other more interesting books I want to listen to right now. The reason I started it was because it was the only thing I had in the car and I had another two hours to Tuscaloosa.
Books finished: I finished listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
Time reading: 3 hours. And almost 11 hours of listening time.
Time posting: 15 minutes
Snacks: Ate supper at Waffle House in Gadsden, Alabama. I had their famous Hash Browns. I had them smothered, covered, chunked, and scattered. After that I was good to go for the remaining two hours of the trip.
Thoughts: I think the Harry Potter books are over-rated. Simplistic plots with way too much time spent on writing backstory and not enough on character development. I am within 50 pages of finishing Jim Crow's Children and should knock that one off tomorrow. This is an excellent book on the subject of school desegregation.
Non-book activities: Got the niece married off. It was a beautiful wedding with the Smokey Mountains doing their part to make it smokey and so very very atmospheric. It was lovely, and amazing. The only thing is - why does every Southern wedding have to have 10 -12 bridesmaids and groomsman. I have never seen that many in weddings outside of the South. And when will the world get over having those stupid flower girls and ring bearers. In my opinion, there is nothing cute about having toddlers crawling up an aisle. Ranks right up there with having dogs in wedding pictures. I am just not into cutesy things.

Total books finished since the read-a-thon began: 106
Total read from: 109
Total time reading since the Social Distancing read-a-thon began: 321 hours since April 2020.

weekend windup

books:
still reading Small as an Elephant about a boy abandoned by his mother.
Also reading Micro Shelters by Derek Diedrickson.
Saw the very interesting interview with Colson Whitehead on 60 Minutes last night so I checked out the ebook of The Underground Railroad. I think I will also like The Nickel Boys.

NC weather: raining, 59 F. (15 C.)

Monday update for Sunday

Just a few more chapters to go on The Long Call. I'll definitely finish it today.

I never did get back to this later.

Sunday to midnight or shortly thereafter

Books read from: 9
Anthony Quinn, London's Burning (Netgalley copy of forthcoming book - no touchstone)
Dorothy Whipple, Young Anne
Sydney Taylor, All-of-a-Kind-Family Downtown
Anne Enright, Yesterday's Weather
Ellen Wiles, The Invisible Crowd
Brit Bannett, The Vanishing Half
Anne Tyler, Clock Dance
Peter Lovesey, The Tooth Tattoo
Rachel Holmes, Eleanor Marx: A Life

Pages read: 232 pages
Books finished: 0
Books started - 2
Time reading: Not sure
Time posting: a few minutes
Other book stuff: a few updates on LT and Goodreads
Non-book activities: Bejeweled Blitz, FB etc, radio, a Zoom meeting

Total pages read: 476
Books read from: 12
Books finished: 3
Books started: 3

Today I've finished Young Anne and All-of-a-Kind-Family Downtown, and read a couple more stories from the collection Yesterday's Weather and a few pages of other books, not part of the Readathon as such but quite a nice reading start to March. Lots of Zoom meetings of various kinds coming up over the next few days.

>51 nrmay: I think liked The Nickel Boys more than The Underground Railroad though I probably gave them both the same or similar ratings. It may have been just reading mood, though!

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/330321