Happy Sunday everyone! I’m feeling rather random today, so I think I’m going to just go with it.

I’ve been addicted to the library lately. Every time I go in to the library to return or pick up one book, I end up leaving with three more. In the last couple weeks I’ve brought home The Art of Eating In by Cathy Erway, Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction by Charles Baxter, My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster, Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku, Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye and Zahra’s Paradise by Amir and Kahlil. I haven’t read any of them yet, but soon I hope.

Have any of you heard of Smash Books? I just came across them this week, and now I really, really want one. Anyone have one? Worth the money?

I officially went back on a diet this week, which is not my favorite thing. I was last on a diet my last couple years of college and lost 30 pounds exercising and counting calories. I quit dieting formally when I moved to Madison, but slowly gained some weight back after I started my desk job after graduation and then some more after I moved to Morris. I finally decided to do something about it, but the first couple weeks counting calories always puts me in a mood.

I’m so, so tired of PR people sending press releases marked important with the big red exclamation point that shows up in Microsoft Outlook. There is absolutely no reason any press release needs to be marked important. None! For whatever reason, that drove me crazy this week.

I’m back on my The West Wing kick. My brother bought me season five for Christmas, and I’ve been watching it all week. I’m also in love with Parks and Rec, which is probably the funniest and sweetest show on television right now. It is the one show that I make sure to never miss. The first couple seasons are on Netflix Instant right now — go watch them!

I got all caught up on reviews yesterday morning while I was writing from a local coffee shop. Well, not totally done — I still have to add some formatting and clean up some rough patches — but basically done. I’m really starting to like my Saturday morning writing time. I can usually get a lot done over a couple big mugs of tea and a pastry. It feels good to be caught up, for the moment.

Today I’m going to go start week two of Couch to 5K, once I get off the couch and make my way to the gym. I’m also planning to keep reading The Social Animal by David Brooks, my second book from the Indie Lit Awards nonfiction short list. Other than that, I anticipate another quiet Sunday at home. I could get used to this!

The Sunday Salon: Random Tidbits is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

It’s taken until January 22, 2012, but I finally managed to put together my book stats from 2011. Geek joy!

Doing book stats is one of my favorite things. It’s always interesting to me to compare what I thought I read over the year to what I actually read. Often, I find out that my impressions of my reading are pretty different from the reality. But anyway, onward!

The Basics

• 109 books read
• 34,127 pages read
• 656 pages per week
• 93.5 pages per day

Longest Book: A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin – 788 pages
Honorable Mention: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee – 608 pages

Shortest Book: Scenes from an Impending Marriage by Adrian Tomine – 56 pages

Most Common Book Length: 352 pages (9), 320 pages (9), 416 pages (8)

Oldest Book: House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)

Books Published in 2011: 47/109 (43 percent)

Books by Genre

In the past, I’ve broken this out with more specific genres, but I’m in the mood to keep things simple. Of the 109 books I read, 39 were fiction and 70 were nonfiction.

Books by Acquisition Type

This is always one of my favorite charts. I always set a goal to read more of my own books, rather than library books or review copies, but I rarely succeed. But, this year I was closer! Of the 109 books, 29 were my own, 30 were from the library, and 50 were review copies.

Books by Format

I also keep track of what format I read my books in. I don’t really make much of an effort to read books in a particular format, but I like looking back to see how the year worked out.

Author Gender

The last couple years, I’ve read far more male authors that female authors. I don’t know what the reason for that is, but this year things have changed and my female author number is just slightly higher. Awesome!

That’s what I’ve got for book stats in 2011. Overall, I think it was a good year in reading and I’m glad I finally got the stats put together too look back.

And now, back to the really important activities for Sunday: reading and football. Happy Sunday everyone!

The Sunday Salon: 2011 in Bookish Stats is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

It is amazing what a full weekend at home can do for making life seem more manageable.

Earlier this week I felt totally overwhelmed by… everything. After more than three weeks of not having an entire day at home to myself, I was just feeling worn down. I wasn’t reading, I wasn’t writing, I just didn’t feel like me.

And then Saturday came, and all seemed to improve. Instead of spending yesterday at home in my pajamas like I originally planned, I forced myself out of the house to a local coffee shop to get some blogging done. I managed to write first drafts of six reviews, which gets me caught up with reviews from 2011 (joy!). I still have to format and edit them, but I’ve got hours of football games to do that during this afternoon (more joy!).

I also managed to finish two books that I’d been putzing along with since the beginning of the year — Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston. Finally finishing a book was exciting! I also made some good progress with my first book on the Indie Lit Awards nonfiction short list — Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe. It’s a GIANT book, but I’m hoping I can finish it by the end of the week.

That’s about all I’ve got today. I’m just so happy to be at home, relaxing with my cat and a cup of tea and football and the boyfriend. Here’s to a relaxing Sunday for all of you!

The Sunday Salon: Sunday at Home! is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Lately, I haven’t joined any reading challenges. I used to sign up for quite a few, but I never managed to complete any. It seemed that once I put together a book list for a challenge, the books on the list took on some sort of virus that made them entirely uninteresting. I wish I had a name for the phenomenon… suggestions?

But this year I decided to join one challenge. I blame Jill (Fizzy Thoughts) and her post about Adam’s (Roof Beam Reader) 2012 TBR Challenge for breaking my challenge fast. The goal of the TBR Challenge is to read 12 books that have been your “To Be Read” pile for at least an entire year. And you’re allowed to put 14 books on the list, in case two of them end up not working out.

I blame Jill for me signing up for this challenge because on her sign-up post she put all her challenge books on a “Shelf of Doom,” and I love the idea of having a Shelf of Doom in my house. Unfortunately there aren’t any open shelves to turn into the Shelf of Doom right now (currently the pile is sitting on top of another bookshelf), but I’m hoping Santa will be remedying that problem with a new bookshelf for Christmas!

Anyway, here’s a look at the 14 books I decided to put on my own Shelf of Doom:

• Complications by Atul Gawande — I got this one from my parents for Christmast last year and still haven’t read it.
• Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman and Rereadings, edited by Anne Fadiman — I’ve had both of these on my TBR list since I read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down a few years ago.
• Zeitoun by Dave Eggers — I’ve wanted to read this one since I read Eggers’ memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (one of the first books I reviewed here on the blog!).
• Coyotes by Ted Conover — Conover is a major figure in the literary journalism movement, and I’ve had this one on my shelves for a couple of years.
• House by Tracy Kidder — I want to read all of Kidder’s books, and this is his second (published in 1985).
• Possession by A.S. Byatt — I didn’t love the collection of Byatt short stories I read for book club last year, but many bloggers I love really love this book, so I want to read it.
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood — I’m an Atwood fan girl, so I can’t wait for this one.
• Kiss My Tiara by Susan Jane Gilman — Gilman is one of my favorite feminist memoir/essayists, and this is her first book. I just found a copy of it at a use bookstore, which is awesome!
• The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff — I can’t remember when Cass (Bonjour, Cass!) convinced me to read this book… I think it was more than a year ago?
• The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida — A friend of mine read this when we were in high school, and I’ve been curious about reading it ever since.
• The Things We’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi — I loved Nafisi’s first memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, but haven’t read her second yet.
• Moneyball by Michael Lewis — I wanted to read this one before the movie came out. but I didn’t quite make  it. I’m hoping to find time in 2012.
• There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz — I’ve had this one on my shelves since I read Random Family by Adrian Nicole Leblanc.

So there you have my Shelf of Doom for 2012. I’m pretty optimistic about finishing this challenge. Every book on the pile is one I’ve bought because I want to read it, but just have never made the time to pick up. I can read one of them per month, no problem… right?

As for my reading today, I’m hoping to finish Donovan Hohn’s Moby-Duck, an epic “journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable.” It’s pretty fascinating so far, and I think I can finish it this morning before football starts at noon. My team made it to the playoffs in my fantasy football league, so I am cheering hard today. There’s money on the line!

What books would you put on a hypothetical “Shelf of Doom”? What are you plans for this beautiful Sunday?

The Sunday Salon: The 2012 TBR Challenge is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Although the Sunday Salon is supposed to be all about reading, I’m afraid I’m not planning much reading time today. Instead, I’m hoping to spend today getting caught up on blogging — comments, reviews, and end of the year posts — so I can spend the read of the month actually reading and working on my Christmas craft projects.

My major goal for today is to get caught up on reviews. After finishing Here Is a Human Being by Misha Angrist this morning, I’m six reviews behind. That’s a doable number, if I don’t get too distracted watching football this afternoon. Here’s what I have left:

1. Mercury by Hope Larson
2. Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum
3. Page One edited by David Folkenflik
4. The Magician King by Lev Grossman
5. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
6. Here Is a Human Being by Misha Angrist

Any suggestions where to start?

If I manage to get through most of those, I’d also like to start working on a couple of “Best Reads in 2011″ posts. I’m not going to do “Best Books if 2011″ because I don’t think I read enough 2011 titles to make that interesting. So, the list will be my favorite books read this year, regardless of when they’re published. I started a “short list” that has 25 books, but I think I can trim that down a bit for the final posts.

I also have a couple of posts that I’m thinking about writing, inspired by some other bloggers. Earlier this week, Sheila (Book Journey) wrote about how she picks a special book for her first read of the year. I love that idea and want to do it myself, so I’ve been thinking about what book I might pick.

Meghan (Medieval Bookworm) wrote her Sunday Salon post today about the books she wanted to read in 2011 but didn’t quite get the time to read. At first I thought my list would be too long to write, but as I’ve been gazing at my shelves this afternoon I can see only a few that I’m feeling really sad that I didn’t make the time to read yet this year.

And then of course there are the rest of the “End of the Year” posts — looking back on goals from 2011, looking at my overall book stats from the year, and setting some goals for 2012. I’m a miserable goal maker, but I do love the exercise of thinking about where I hope to be reading and blogging-wise. I’m not going to work on those posts today, but the’re on my horizon for the end of the month.

And if I do get some time to read? I’m honestly not sure what I’ll grab. Moby Duck by Donovan Hohn, a book I’ve been curious about since it came out in March, just came for me at the library. I also grabbed Columbine by Dave Cullen while I was there, and that’s calling my name, as are What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes, and The Discovery of Jeanne Baret by Glynis Ridley. Many choices, little time.

What are your reading/blogging plans today?

The Sunday Salon: A Blogging, Not Reading, Day is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Earlier this month I made a tentative plan to spend the rest of the year trying to read books I already have — review copies or bought copies — and limit books from the library to try and make a dent on the piles and piles of books that are starting to weigh on me.

Of course, I wasn’t going to pull myself off the lists of holds I’m on at the library, which foiled my plans: Both The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Magician King by Lev Grossman arrived for me on Tuesday. Curses, effective library system! (I kid, I kid!).

Of course, I dropped all my other reading plans to start those, since I haven’t figured out my library’s renewal policy exactly and would be deeply sad if I had to send them back. I finished The Marriage Plot yesterday — mini review: I loved the beginning, thought it got a little meandering through the middle, but unexpectedly loved the ending — and immediately wanted to start The Magician King.

However, I got about 10 pages in and realized I couldn’t remember anything about The Magicians, Grossman’s first book in the series that I read last year, except that it was like Harry Potter but darker. It was like there was this gaping hole in my brain where a summary of The Magicians should go. I even went online to try and find some clues, but it seems that the Interwebz is entirely devoid of a comprehensive plot summary of The Magicians. How is that possible?

Anyway… I decided I couldn’t read The Magician King without refreshing my memory. It just wasn’t going to be satisfying, and I am over-the-moon excited about this book. If I lived in a town with a bookstore, I would have gone out and bought a copy immediately. Luckily, my small local library came through in a big way again because they had a copy of The Magicians in stock and on the shelves!

I had to brave our first winter snowstorm yesterday to go cover a story anyway, so I made a detour to the library first to pick up the book. I got home from working at about 6 p.m., ate dinner, and settled in with the book for the evening at about 7 p.m. I don’t know what got into me, but I read that book amazingly fast. I’ve only got about 50 pages left in a 400 page to finish this morning! I read fast, but not normally that fast.

I’m not much of a re-reader, so this particular super speed-reading experience was novel. It made me curious whether it’s possible to read faster when we’re re-reading because there’s a subconscious familiarity with the the book? Or, whether the fact that I’m mostly re-reading The Magicians as a plot refresher rather than diving into it for the first time meant I was reading less deeply and therefore more quickly? Has anyone else had this experience? Thoughts?

The Sunday Salon: Snowstorms and Speedy Re-Reading is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

I went on a stunt memoir reading binge this week that I think has reinvigorated my reading brain. Huzzah!

I’ve written a lot about my love of stunt memoirs. For our first BAND discussion, I called them the “candy in my nonfiction diet” because reading then doesn’t demand a lot out of me. They’re also my “genre kryptonite” — a type of book that I have a strange weak spot for reading. I’ve also thought that perhaps stunt memoirs are my nonfiction form of chick lit.

Personally, I like the dessert comparison best because I like the idea of cultivating a well-balanced reading diet where the different kinds of books I love to read have a balance between stories that help my brain grow and the books I like to read for the rush that comes from whipping through a story that’s easy. I also like the idea that dessert can fall on a quality spectrum, from cotton candy to a fine cheesecake, the same way I see stunt memoirs.

Because I read the three books in my stunt memoir binge without really taking notes or thinking too much, I decided to do mini-reviews of them all together. Read on for my thoughts about My Year with Eleanor, Falling for Me, and Learning to Breathe. 

Cranberry-Orange Scone: My Year With Eleanor

My first stunt memoir this week was My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock. After losing her demanding job as an entertainment blogger, Hancock was at lose ends, totally unsure about what to do next and petrified of, well, a lot of things. After seeing a quote from former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on a coffee shop black board — “Do one thing every day that scares you” — Hancock decided to spend a year facing her fears and learning to live like Eleanor.

I thought this book was like eating a cranberry orange scone — it seems healthy because there’s some fruit in it, but basically it’s just like eating cake (which I also love). While I liked reading about Hancock taking on her obvious fears — sharks, heights, speaking in front of people — I think she  missed a lot of opportunities to explore what it means to face our emotional fears. I really liked reading this one, especially learning more about Eleanor Roosevelt, but couldn’t shake the feeling that Hanock could have pushed the storytelling a little more.

Skittles: Falling for Me

My second stunt memoir was pure sugar — Falling for Me: How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love by Anna David. This is another one that starts out with a mostly-successful, mid-career woman who wonders if she’s made the right choices in her life.

In the midst of mourning the end of an inappropriate fling, David comes across a copy of Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown, a mid-sixties lifestyle guide that preaches self-empowerment and femininity. David takes the book on as a lifestyle guide, using Gurley Brown’s advice about all aspects of life to see if she can learn to love herself more and, perhaps, find the love of her life along the way.

This book is basically nonfiction chick lit, a bag of Skittles that you can just inhale without ever noticing how many calories you’ve consumed. It’s got fashion, decorating, cooking, sex and romance, along with exactly the sort of slightly-flawed but still pretty awesome narrator who wants to find love but, spoiler alert, ends up finding herself. The books not especially deep and David doesn’t make any personal revelations that haven’t been written about before, but I still liked reading it.

Cheesecake: Learning to Breathe

And finally I grabbed Learning to Breathe: My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life by Priscilla Warner, which was like ending my dessert binge with a fine cheesecake. Warner has a good life — supportive husband, great kids, and a best-selling book. However, her life is marred by persistent panic attacks that can shut her down with almost no warning. In this book, Warner sets out to try and find her inner peace, to stop her panic attacks with a combination of spiritual and alternative therapies.

I called this one cheesecake because I think it has the most sophisticated premise of the three stunt memoirs I read this week, but still is a pretty sugary read. Like the other two, Warner is writing about taking on fear and dealing with issues in the past that affect our present. While I enjoyed learning about different types of therapy and spiritual philosophies, by the end the book felt a little repetitive — one meditation retreat starts to sound like every other meditation retreat. Still, Warner is a sympathetic narrator and illuminates ideas and groups that I wasn’t familiar with.

On to my vegetables…

When I finished Learning to Breathe on Saturday morning I felt like I had all consumed all of the sugary books I could handle. My brain felt rested, and I felt a little more energized in my reading life. Capitalizing on that energy, I picked up a book I’ve been meaning to read but avoiding because it seemed too difficult: The Big Short, Michael Lewis’ take on the origins of the current financial crisis.

The Big Short is also the starting point for my contribution to November’s BAND discussion about reading for a cause, which I’m hoping to have posted for tomorrow!

Do you have any favorite types of books that you read when your brain needs a break? What books are the dessert in your reading diet?

The Sunday Salon: A Stunt Memoir Reading Binge is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

It’s been a weird week around here. I got a strange cold/fever thing on Monday which kicked my butt for most of the week. I still had to do everything I’m supposed to do at the newspaper, which left me with no physical or mental energy outside of work to do much except watch television and do a little reading. Getting an extra hour of sleep today was amazing.

I must be on the mend, however, because I managed to finish two books this weekend — The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write about Real Sex by Erica Jong. I wouldn’t normally talk about such different books together, but it struck me as interesting that I’d read books so focused on relationships and sexual propriety (with such obviously different takes on it) right after one another.

The House of Mirth is Edith Wharton’s first major book, published in 1905 and set in New York in 1890 among the city’s ruling class. Our protagonist is Lily Bart, “ a woman who is torn between her desire for luxurious living and a relationship based on mutual respect and love.” She’s beautiful, charming, and of good social standing, but rejects or sabotages many proposals (that would bring money or love, but not both) through some questionable decisions.

The book is a “novel of manners,” which makes it entirely preoccupied with how people see each other and the propriety of certain actions. For a book with absolutely no explicit sex, the characters lives are completely dictated by what is and isn’t appropriate sexual behavior. Something as simple as going to a man’s private room or spending time with a married man is enough to throw Lily entirely out of her current social circles.

The misunderstandings and rumor mills in the book are ridiculous, but on the whole the story was fun to read. I had to move through the book really slowly to be sure I was getting all of the  implications and innuendo that were going on, but I liked that. It’s not a book for the impatient reader, I imagine, but for my first experience with Wharton I was definitely pleased. I think I’ll probably grab The Age of Innocence Next.

And now for the sex… I’m not sure why I ended up grabbing Sugar in My Bowl to read last night. It’s been on the edge of my mental TBR pile since BEA in May, but I never seemed to grab it. Maybe my brain was just clued in on the fact that the perfect read after a novel of manners would be a book that is entirely and explicitly about sex

Sugar in My Bowl is a collection of essays, short stories, and other writing by women about sex. I thought it was all nonfiction, but it turns out there’s a mix of genres in the collection. I found that a little unsettling — I don’t necessarily mind memoir or pieces where nonfiction writers fudge with the facts for the sake of story, but not always know if the particular chapter was fiction or nonfiction felt odd, especially with the idea that the book would be about “real sex.” (Yes, I know, sometimes fiction can be more real than nonfiction, but that’s not my point…)

However, on the whole the collection was really fascinating. I’m not really a person that talks about sex much, so having essays that ranged from the prim to promiscuous really pushed my comfort level as I read. It helps that, throughout, the writing is very good, keeping the focus on the topics of the pieces rather than having some stand out for being better prose than others.

My favorite chapters were “Prude,” where Jean Hanff Korelitz writes about how she wrote a sex-novel under a pseudonym even though in real life she blushes to talk about sex; Jessica Winter’s “scientifict study” of best sex practices in “Best Sex Ever: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis;” a discussion of how feminism changed sex for younger women by Molly Jong-Fast (“They Had Sex So I Didn’t Have To”); and “Sex With a Stranger” by Susan Cheever, which featured my favorite quote from the whole collection:

That one-night stand led to a thirty-five year love affair — the most enduring love of my life. Some kind of deep intimacy between us had been released, an intimacy that remains decades later. …

That is the real danger of a one-night stand. Not that it will lead to nothing, but that it will lead to everything. In this way, casual sex is excruciatingly hazardous. Those who are not ready to have their life changed should probably abstain.

Normally I wouldn’t review two such different books together, but they were a pretty crazy juxtaposition, especially considering how far it shows how much we’ve changed (or perhaps not changed) when it comes to talking and thinking about relationships. Lily creates a scandal by visiting a man’s apartment by herself, and now we can write an entire book about sex and what it means.

However, as Jong points out in the introduction to Sugar in My Bowl, many of the women who contributed wanted to ask their partners if it was ok for them to contribute. A woman wrote a sex novel, but is too embarrassed to put her real name on it. We seem to have a free and liberated sexual experience, but younger women may be stepping away from that.

My sick brain isn’t making much sense this morning, I think, but maybe you see what I mean? If not, that’s ok — just know I liked both of these books, it was interesting to read them back-to-back, and I’d recommend both if the subjects interest you.

The Sunday Salon: Let’s Talk About Sex… Or Not? is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

I couldn’t let another Sunday go by without posting the books I picked up at our local university library book sale earlier this month. I love library book sales, but this one has always been particularly good because there’s such a wide variety of academic and popular nonfiction to choose from. It’s also really well-organized by topic, which makes it easier to browse.

But, without further ado, here’s my pile:

The first book on the pile is Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Death in Africa by Mark Seal, which was an impulse grab during my last perusal of the Biography/Memoir table. The book is about Joan Root, an environmentalist and filmmaker, and her life and romance in Africa.

Next is The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life by Tom Reiss, another grab from the Biography/Memoir table about “a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince in Nazi Germany.” That just sounds awesome.

I’ve had a oft spot for Joseph Conrad ever since I read Heart of Darkness in high school, which is why I brought home a copy of The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. I read Lord Jim in college and and didn’t like it as much, but I’m willing to give Conrad another shot.

I picked up Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley because I loved the movie and think the book might be funny. I think I read a “meh” review of it at one point, but for $.50 it’s worth a look.

I have a major weakness for buying essay collections, so of course I nabbed a copy of Major Modern Essayists by Gilbert H. Mueller and Alan F. Crooks. The problem is that I buy collections and then never read them! Honestly, I must have almost 10 of them on shelves that I just never seem to pick up. I also have this idea to try and read an essay a day for a full year, but that’s probably a pipe dream

I may have squealed out loud and scared an undergrad when I saw a copy of Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes on the popular fiction table. I still haven’t read the copy of Marlantes’ memoir I got at BEA (shame!), but perhaps now I can have a Marlantes Read-a-Thon some weekend.

And finally, The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida, a look at the growing role of creativity in the economy, which I think came to my attention after a friend read it a few years ago.

As for what I’m reading today… not much! I’ve been slowing working through The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, which I really like but also have to read carefully to be sure I’m understanding all of the subtext and social comedy. I also have a lot of blogging that I want to get doen today, so I’m not sure I’ll have much time to read. Happy Sunday everyone!

The Sunday Salon: Library Book Sale Loot is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Wow, I am beat! Anyone else who did Dewey’s Read-a-Thon totally brain dead today?

Despite my excursion to the ballet, I managed to finish four books (1,113 pages) in 9 hours and 20 minutes, which I’m totally happy with. I don’t feel like I did as much cheerleading as I did in the past, but I’m not sure.

Here’s my End of the Event Meme, then I’m going offline to watch football, clean my house, and do some crocheting. Happy Sunday!

Which hour was most daunting for you?

Probably hours 17 or 18. After I finished When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, I was pretty tired despite my best efforts to keep myself awake with sugar and Mountain Dew.

Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

The Impostor’s Daughter by Laurie Sandell was a great graphic memoir that improved my afternoon. And When She Woke was just an overall fabulous book that highly recommend.

Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

Not really. Per usual, the main blog was really well-organized and the mini-challenges looked fun, even though I didn’t participate in any of them.

One personal change I am going to make is not set such specific goals. I didn’t mind having a reading time goal (more than 9 hours), but the page and book counts made be feel sort of tense, so I won’t do that next time.

What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

The Cheerleading HQ was awesome, and really helped me feel focused when I was cheerleading. One thing that was a challenge (and is always a challenge) is going through the list of participants and figuring out who is actually participating, since people sign up really early but then don’t actually participate.

It would be nice if there was some way people could check-in to the Read-a-Thon on Saturday so you’d only be working with a list of current participants. I loved the check-in around Hour 20 for current readers (even though I was already asleep then).

How many books did you read? What were the names of the books you read?

4: Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum, Down the Mysterly River by Bill Willingham, and The Impostor’s Daughter by Laurie Sandell, When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Which book did you enjoy most?

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Which did you enjoy least?

Umm… Ghost Hunters? But not because it was bad, just because the font was small which made my reading feel slow.

If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?

Not really. Cheerleading felt very organized this year, which I appreciated. It would be GREAT to have more cheerleaders — it’s a lot of work.

How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

Definitely! I’ll probably do the same thing next time — primarily read, but also sign up to cheer when I can.

The Sunday Salon: Read-a-Thon Hangover is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.