Bout of Books 22 Update – Day 1

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Yesterday (first day of the read-a-thon) didn’t exactly go as planned. I have a feeling the whole week will end up being like this but I worked like a 14 hour day yesterday, so there wasn’t much time left for reading unfortunately. I did the best I could but this week isn’t going to be my best showing for the read-a-thon participation.

Update

Monday

Time spent reading: (Approximately) 1 hour
Number of pages I’ve read today: 107 pages
Total number of pages I’ve read:  107 pages (Day one! Ha)
Books read: Finished A Harmless Little Plan by Meli Raine (review post to come) and read a little more of The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll
Challenges: I did not do the challenge for yesterday, I was too focused on work during the day

Stay tuned for continued progress made in tomorrow’s post on my Tuesday update!!

Bout of Books 21 – Sign Up Post

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So for one of my goals this year to help me focus more on reading and having concentrated time for reading, I am participating in all 3 Bout of Books reading challenges / read-a-thons this year! The first one is next week (luckily its before my busy season at work officially starts).

For those of you who don’t really know much about Bout of Books, it is basically a week-long, no pressure read-a-thon that has been going strong since 2011! Here is a description directly from the Bout of Books blog:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 8th and runs through Sunday, January 14th 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 21 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

The Bout of Books Read-a-Thon was created by Amanda @ On a Book Bender on a complete whim in August 2011. It took on a life of its own and was such a hit that Amanda decided to do it again and turn it into a somewhat regular occurrence.

  • Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, usually from 12:01am on a Monday through 11:59pm on a Sunday in whatever time zone you are in.
  • It is low pressure, meaning participants are only asked to push themselves to read more than they normally would during any given week. There is no competition between readers.
  • How much time a reader wants, and can commit, to read, tweet, or network with fellow bloggers is left to individual preference. All challenges and giveaways are optional.
  • Networking with fellow bloggers is actively encouraged, though never required.
  • Use Twitter to post updates throughout the read-a-thon. Everyone will be tweeting with the #boutofbooks hashtag.

Since I’m so behind in my reading schedule, this will be a great week to devote to reading and catch up!

Time Devoted to Reading

I plan to read at least 2 hours each day during the week, with hopefully additional hours on Friday. Also the Saturday during Bout of Books I have Goal Day planned but then I have other family plans in the evening so I’m hoping for a good 4 hours of solid reading. And then Sunday I don’t have anything planned other than house work so hopefully a solid 4 hours that day as well.

My Goals

My goals for this read-a-thon are that I’d like to participate in as much as I can: the daily posts plus reading every day.

Books to Read

 

Hopefully I’m actually able to get through all (or at least a few)of those, if so I could at least catch up with one week of books which would be great. I have a long list of backlog books that I have to catch up with still from 2016 and 2017, but hopefully those will happen over the rest of the year. I’m really looking forward to this week-long reading challenge devoted to reading ! If you do want to join make sure to add yourself to the page’s Sign Up Post by Tuesday, January 9th at 11:59pm! Happy reading!

National Readathon Day – January 24, 2015

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During my perusal of Facebook the other day I came across a link to a site on Penguin Random House’s website discussing something called “Nation Readathon Day”. According to their website “40% of American adults are either at or below basic reading proficiency, and 14% are fully illiterate.” In recognition of that, Penguin Random House, Goodreads, Mashable and the National Book Foundation have banned together to create this fundraiser in the hopes of funding “efforts to educate, tutor, create and sustain a lifelong love of reading.”

Anyone can get involved simply by reading on January 24th between noon and 4pm. You can create your own FirstGiving fundraising page to try and raise more money towards helping this effort. Or you can show your support by just making time to read and spreading the word that you believe in the transformative power of literature. And since I certainly believe that books can feed the soul, I will be participating in National Readathon Day!! Hope to see you all getting involved as well.