Bout of Books: Friday

HAPPY WEEKEND!

 

I finished my third book last night (literally - like 2 am... I can't even recall when was the last time I was up that late because of a book). I had a feeling that I will like Mary Roach and I am so happy that I do, and now I intend to read her other books as well. Packing for Mars was all kinds of interesting, captivating and inspirational. I'm so happy I read it. It also counts for my TBR Pile Challenge 2014 as an alternative choice, and that is not a bad thing.

 

Next I think I will pick up Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson. I would have picked Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but Jan is still reading it. Why Be Happy... is a shortish kind of book and also from the TBR Pile Challenge list, so I'm hoping I can get through it during the weekend. I also noticed this would be my third non-fiction pick this month (and year), which is already more non-fiction I read in total in 2013 :p

The books I read on Friday: Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Pages read on Friday: 187
Books finished so far: 3

What do my cats think about the books at hand:

 

Still-life with a lonely cat.
What Robert thinks of Bout of Books by now.

 

Flavour of the day: That perfect, moist-from-the-inside crispy-from-the-outside oatmeal-raisin cookie Jan brought me from Subway.

Bout of Books: Challenge - Create a Story!

 

Create a Story challenge is hosted by Mandi Kaye over at Never Too Fond of Books. The challenge rules are following:

1. Open your current book to the last page you read.
2. Using the last word of every line, create a poem or story. You must use every word (but they do not have to be in order), and you may add punctuation as necessary. If a word is split between the end of the line and the beginning of the next one, you may choose whether or not to use it.
3. Create a post (or tweet or video) that showcases your masterpiece. If you don’t have anywhere else to post it, you can add it as a comment here and use the comment link as your entry.
4. Add it to the linky.

My first thought was "this sounds fun but potentially more complicated than I anticipate". Given that the book I am reading is Packing for Mars and the chapter I am in is titled "Houston, We Have a Fungus: Space Hygiene and the Men Who Stopped Bathing for Science", I realised this is going to be fun indeed (and potentially really gross!).

So the words that I got from the last page I read were in the following order (I added all the split words as well):

 

plagued, ever, of, habits, migrate, men's, bacteria, cases, armchairs, hair, swollen, old-timey, around, "furuncle", is, a, out, normally, unwashed, buttocks, getting, hot-tub, the, the, an, Arizona, soup, the, to, until

 

And here's the "story":

A "furuncle"

 

Old-timey armchairs migrate to the bacteria plagued Arizona until the cases of normally unwashed men’s hair is getting out of an ever swollen hot-tub around a soup habits.  The buttocks!

I am sure the result would be quite different if I was reading something more poetic... But this was a fun challenge, I'm still giggling! :)

Bout of Books 9.0: Thursday

I finished Dead Souls, which brings my finished book count to very impressive 2! (Kidding of course.) But I am very happy still, because this means I'm 1/6 through my Russian Literature challenge for this year, and it's also the first chunkster I read this year (and it's, like, 10th of January only).

 

After that I tried to get into The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, but Packing for Mars just continued glaring at me with its shiny cover with the astronaut on it, so in the end I thought "sod it!" and gave in to the call of the space exploration. It's so good!  

The books I read on Thursday: Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Pages read on Thursday: 165 (50+105+10)

Books finished so far: 2

What do my cats think about the books at hand:

 

Robert expresses his opinion on The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and thinks I should read Packing for Mars
instead. I am happy to oblige.

 

Flavour of the day: Hmm a tough one... I'd say that herb-crusted oven salmon with cheesy cauliflower-broccoli gratin I had for lunch. Followed by whipped cream-raspberry jam pancakes. (Yep, I'm living the life.)

Bout of Books 9.0: Wednesday

Good morning, Bout-of-Bookers and everyone else!

 

Wednesday was a pretty good reading day, again - I am glad that Bout of Books is going nicely for me this time around. I read a good chunk of Dead Souls and am almost finished (sleep got me first, though...) My copy of Packing for Mars came in the mail as well, and maaaan... If one of my goals wasn't reading from Bout of Books pile only... I did read a bit and will probably read a bit more - in very small amounts. So fascinating and I'm already liking Roach's style.

 

Last weekend Jan finished The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (David Mitchell). In the end of 2012 I read Cloud Atlas, and loved it. He read Cloud Atlas, and loved it as well. Now he says that The Thousand Autumns was even better and I want to start it, like, right now. On another note, I usually read a book first and then he picks it up at my recommendation, so the situation with The Thousand Autumns is quite unique in our household (though I'm very proud of him for reading and like to think that I inspired it quite a bit when I started reading a lot again after creating this blog).

 

And on the final nerdy note, Wednesday, January 8th, was the birthday of our beloved Wilkster (also known as Wilkie Collins). Hooray! 

The books I read on Wednesday: Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach (I literally could not keep my fingers from it...)
Pages read on Wednesday: 227 (218+9)

Books finished so far: 1

What do my cats think about the books at hand:

 

Robert reading Dead Souls - I didn't have the heart to tell him that he has the book upside down :)))

Flavour of the day: Champagne. Yep, that's how I roll.

Bout of Books 9.0: Tuesday

Good morning! Tuesday was a very successful Bout of Books day. I started one of my Russian classics, Dead Souls, and this book is nothing of what I expected. I think I expected something like "devastating downfall of a tortured Russian soul, caused by moral degredation and mental poverty", but instead, I'm reading a quite funny satire with highly comical characters. Can't say I am complaining though, it certainly makes a good Bout of Books read. I'm almost half way through, so we'll see how today goes!

 

My copy of Dead Souls.
In Estonian we write Russian names differently (Tšitšikov - Chichikov), so the whole affair with the unpronouncable
Slavic names gets even more complicated :p

 

The books I read on Tuesday: Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Pages read on Tuesday: 194

Books finished: 1

What do my cats think about the books at hand:

 

Mammucat with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Apologies about the quality.
Jan took this out of my TBR pile, so unless he finishes it this week, I won't be reading this Harry Potter book during
Bout of Books.

Flavour of the day: Coffee with a little bit of coffee-flavoured cream liqueur (mmm...)

Bout of Books 9.0: Monday

Bout of Books has started! How exciting is that? Very exciting.

 

My first day was somewhat of a weird reading day, as the weekend getaway to Estonia resulted in a small chaos in my blog reader (300 posts). So mainly I was reading blog posts yesterday, but I actually also managed to finish a book - though not one from my pile, but the book I had started before the readathon.

 

The books I read on Monday: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovich

Pages read on Monday: 82

Books finished: 1

What do my cats think about the books at hand: Robert thought nothing of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair - it is a fairly slim book and it is not a hardcover. Maybe he will be more attracted to Dead Souls, a very old hardcover that I own.

Flavour of the day: Christmas candy, some pies made by mum, cheese curds, smoothies, probably something more - it was a catastrophe (I always am amazed at how much food exactly we are capable of dragging home from Estonia...)

Bout of Books 9.0 [Goals and book pile]

 

Happy new year, bookish people (and everyone else, although I doubt the latter will end up in my blog)!

 

My first post of 2014 will be the goals and the books to choose from for the Bout of Books 9.0 readathon. Of course I will not attempt to read all of these or from all of these, but I will pick my readathon books among those:

* The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch (on Kindle) - seriously, I need to get reading this one!

* Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol (Russian Literature Challenge, Classics Club) - I want to read a Russian classic in January and this is the only one I have at home at the moment.

* Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde (Eclectic Reader Challenge) - it's been a while since I read a Thursday Next book.

* Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson (TBR Pile Challenge) - it's a short book and I have a good feeling about it.

* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K. Rowling - I really want to continue with HP books as well.

* The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley (Eclectic Reader Challenge) - it just strikes me as a pretty good readathon read.

* The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black - a YA pick from my shelves.

* Bullerby lapsed, Astrid Lindgren - a re-read of my favourite children's book, which should be such a fast read.

 

I have listed some goals as well, although I shall follow them quite loosely because the main goals of the readathon are simply to read a lot and to have fun while doing it. But I will also attempt the following:

 

1. Read books from my Bout of Books pile only (above). - Self explanatory. I just need some borders when taking part in a reading event.

2. Finish 3 books. - I base this on 3 books I finished last readathon in spring. This should be pretty doable, depending on the books I pick.

3. Post daily. - I know some people prefer making one general post and updating it as they go, but I found that for me, the daily updates as separate posts is more motivating. Since I don't really post that often (=daily) in regular circumstances, I hope people won't overly mind  my posts popping up in their readers.

4. Participate a few challenges that seem appealing. - I enjoy certain type of challenges, so I will be keeping an eye on them.

5. Prioritise reading over Internet! - This is one of the most important goals for me as I tend to get lost in the Internet space way too easily.