June 10, 2007

The 48 Hour Wrap-Up

"Ques'tu lis?""Kes-tu-lis?" (*edit: Sebastien, a French intern at the Mouscron Public Library in Belgium has corrected me!) That is the question being posed to a bunch of young people in Belgium. It means (loosely translated) "What Are You Reading?" Everyone is getting ready for their summer reading programs, and "Kes'tu lis?" is a regular gathering that will introduce new mangas, graphic novels, and other cool reading. Go Belgian librarians! It sound really fun.

The 48 Hour Book Binge is such a nice kick-off to summertime.

Boy, sans The Book Thief, this year's reading challenge went a lot better. Last year I was interrupted so many times I was frantic and irritated. I only finished seven books, and ended up being pulled into all kinds of other people's problems, and I got really frustrated. This year, I am proud to report that being ruthless really helped. Clearly I need to be a bigger bully and make people feed me and leave me alone to read more often. I only felt guilty once or twice. Or three times. But no more than that.

This year, I finished ...

  • Fifteen books (actually fourteen and a half, but I had to finish up the last Maude March!)

  • 3,688 pages (throw in a couple of MG and 400 pagers - it helps)

  • And approximately thirty-six hours of reading (barring sleeping, and an unfortunate phone call from a girlfriend I couldn't tell to hush and leave me alone, 'cause she was calling long-distance, and an unfortunate choir rehearsal where the director was late - but I had my book in my purse, so all was well!).


Getting my reviews/comments posted was a bit of a challenge at times, but scrawling thoughts on handy scraps of paper seemed to work out okay. These couldn't be mistaken as coherent reviews for the most part, but for some books it was a temptation to write essays (there's that English major in me always wanting to respond to books in some way.) - which I squelched, for the most part. No matter how brief my comments, some of the books I read were fabulous, and you should check them out. I did begin some books and choose not to finish them or review them -- I'll spare all of us that torment -- but I tried not to spend more than ten minutes on figuring out whether or not a book was worth my time.

As always, having an excuse to read unopposed is an unrivaled delight to me, and I hope to join the fun next year!

10 comments:

Sarah Stevenson said...

Yay! You go! I'm very jealous, but hope to be able to participate next time.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Well done!

I can't believe you read The Book Thief for this last year - how did you read that in a single weekend? And then jump right into another book??

MotherReader said...

Hey, you WON! Great job! I swear, I didn't even see it coming, but I'm so amazed that you put in that kind of time. Wow.

I haven't had two minutes to pull together the prize package, but will do so tomorrow without fail. Send me an email with your address when you get a chance.

YEAH YOU!

Phoebe said...

I loved The Book Thief and I agree with Eisha.. I did read that one slow to savor every word. Great job! Interruptions was my problem this year...I'll plan better next go round.

tanita✿davis said...

Wait, how could I have won?
I didn't. Little Willow read more pages than I did, and that Midwestern Chickie just blew everyone out of the water.

Eisha, The Book Thief was a VERY silly choice because you can't read that one quickly and just move on - I really did want to savor it and think about it, and instead I just leapt on to six other (shorter) books.

MotherReader said...

Hold on. Fact check. Did you READ and BLOG for 36 hours, or was it 36 hours before taking out your break times?

tanita✿davis said...

Yes, ma'am:
36 Hours, Reading and Blogging.

And about 12 hours of being annoyed with people for calling me, reading while waiting for people late to appointments, and sleeping... very late and getting up too early.

Am now feeling a need for a nap.

ZG said...

And a completely great time was had by all.

Congrats to you!

The Midwestern Chickie

Saints and Spinners said...

Congratulations! You're a reading rock-star.:) I hope you got your much-needed nap.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! That is one impressive amount of reading. I'm not surprised, after your performance during the Cybils, but still impressed. What a joy, to read so much!