Saturday, December 23rd, I began my Readathon at 7:00 a.m., and spent the first hour reading my “grandson’s” dissertation, “If You Do Not Like the Past, Change It”: The Reel Civil Rights Revolution, Historical Memory, and the Making of Utopian Pasts. He is a cultural historian and an expert on how films depict history, but even though his dissertation is a very scholarly work, it is surprisingly readable. Throughout the day, I would return to this huge red book, and covered the end of chapter two and all of chapter three, a total of 130 pages.
By 8:00, I wanted a break and some breakfast, so while I had my coffee and muffin, I read the morning edition of The Houston Chronicle, skimming most, but closely reading two feature articles and all of the comics.
At 8:45, I read on the novel, Manhattan Beach, and over the course of the day, I read approximately 130+ pages.
By 9:00, my e-mails and texts were pinging in, so I dealt with them, plus reading a few blog posts until 9:30 when I returned to Manhattan Beach. It was becoming really interesting by this point.
From then until noon, taking a few minutes out to put dinner in the oven, I read a few chapters of Finish Strong by Richard G. Capen to include some non-fiction reading.
At lunch we had unexpected company, whom, of course, we invited to eat with us, and I broke my Readathon until 3:00 p.m. in order to enjoy a Christmas visit.
Back to the dissertation at 3:00 until 4:00 p.m. when I took a break to clean up the kitchen, grab a snack, and deliver Christmas goodies to neighbors, which, again, required a bit of visiting time.
By 4:30 I was in the mood for Manhattan Beach again, followed by a few pages from Finish Strong when I came to the chapter break of the novel, and then, on to the 5:30 evening news and a light supper.
At 6:00 p.m., I decided to switch to the Kindle app on my laptop and read S. Higbee’s Running Out of Space (I was propelled through several chapters at time-warp speed because of the fast paced action). The book is an exciting adventure in the future on board a spaceship (and other places). By 8:15, I needed to catch my breath and breathe in some of Earth’s familiar oxygen, so I returned to Finish Strong. Overall, I managed to read chapters 4-11 of this very inspiring, very readable book. The only drawback was, while on this book, I often found myself stopping to copy down some parts of it for my quotes book.
Around 8:00 p.m., I secured the house, turned on the outside lights, and prepared myself to finish my reading in bed. Until 9:00, I read on the dissertation, and followed with two of Neil Gaiman’s essays from his The View from the Cheap Seats. As I became sleepier and sleepier, I decided that approximately 10 hours was a respectable accomplishment for a readathon, and although I didn’t fulfill my goal of finishing a whole book, I did make a good dent in four books on my TBR list.
In spite of not finishing a whole book nor reading for twelve hours, I would deem my little Readathon a success.
Merry Christmas!
Reblogged this on blogging807.
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hey howdy–finished my last 3 books of the year to make my goal while drinking lots of coffee and tea at Starbucks. Read “Truth Stranger than Fiction” by Josiah Henson, “Honeymoon” by James Patterson, and “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl. Spent the rest of it re-planning my 2018 reading breakdown and how I’m going to tackle Shakespeare later this week.
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You made wonderful progress, and I’m (I think) like you, a quiet Christmas celebration is the best! Keep me posted on your progress with The Bard.
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I LOVE the profile pic of you – what a lovely smile:). I had no idea you were including Running Out of Space in your Read-a-thon – thank you for your comments and I’m delighted you found it enjoyable escapism. As ever, the breadth of your reading material is impressive and I’m impressed that you managed to progress four such different books. Happy holidays, Rae:)
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What a lovely comment. You just made me even gladder than ever that you are my friend. Thank you.
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I think we both have impecable taste:))xx
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