Sunday Salon: My unproductive readathon

So, are the die-hard readathoners still up and going?  I did not make it I am ashamed to say.  I've had better reading events, but hey, when you normally read one printed book a week, it is all good.  But I'll get into all that in a minute. 

As for the week up until Saturday, there isn't much exciting to report.  A dentist appointment, a sick child (the other one this time) for the three days they had school this week, a day of yard work that netted me about 40 mosquito bites, and an out-of-town hubby.  My daughter and I did go see the remake of Footloose (not bad at all, considering how nostalgic I am for the first one) and watched Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 on Netflix streaming, in preparation for the third installment that we hope to squeeze in soon.  Side note:  Maybe these movies are nearly homemade and hokey, but they scare me to death.  It doesn't stop me from watching, though.  On the other hand, nothing really bothers my daughter. 

Up until the readathon, I was able to finish "Model Home" by Eric Puchner on audio, and start "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand, for one of my book clubs next month.  I was not altogether moved by "Model Home" but am loving "Unbroken".  This story is sure to be filed under my category entitled "the shit you can't make up".  Is it wrong for me to pray that everything written here is true?  So many of these stories end up being half-baked yarns (ahem, Three Cups of Tea anyone?).

In print, I wrapped up "The Night Strangers" by Chris Bohjalian (love), and also read "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs (also love).  I then started a book on my readathon list early, "Love At First Bark" by Julie Klam, which was sweet, and finished it in the first hour of the readathon on Saturday morning.  So, good week up to that point.

But then we got down to the nitty gritty.  The kids and I shopped for snacks and caffeine.  We got our piles in order.  But things got off to a slow start.  My son had football practice, so that and a shower took care of things for me until about noon.  Then I had to make lunch.  Then the kids fought over the Halloween Oreos.  My son read for about 30 minutes and decided his new video game was more palatable.  My daughter and I read all day, but we were both restless.  She started "The Help" but it was long, so she switched over to "The Watch That Ends the Night", a book about the Titanic written in verse. 

It took me 9 hours to read 160 pages of "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene.  This was an incredible book, but was the wrong choice for this event.  Too intense, too philosophical, too dense.  I decided to be careful about my next pick, and started reading the first 20 pages of several books and landed on "13 Rue Therese" which is very different and captured my attention quickly.  I didn't finish it though.  I read about half of it before I crashed at midnight.  I did Tweet (and get hammered by Kathy at Words With Friends), but stayed away from the computer as that is a huge time suck.  I must say the cheerleaders did a FABULOUS job as always.

At 8:00pm my husband rolled in from Switzerland, loaded with perfume and chocolate, and proceeded to pour the both of us a glass of red.  He had to show me his pictures and talk about his $20 beers.  That also slowed things down a bit on the reading front.

Either way, I now have about three weeks worth of reviews to write, so guess what I will be doing next week?

Today my son plays in the second round of his football playoffs.  Either our season ends today, or we go on to play next Wednesday night.  Cross your fingers and toes.  Our season started August 1st, so while I want him to win badly, I am actually looking forward to moving on to track soon.  It has been a long long road.

OK, I think I'm going to go take a quick nap before the day's festivities start.  Hope you all have a great Sunday!!!