Monday 18 August 2014

2nd Annual Beat-the-Heat Read-a-thon Update


While this read-a-thon does run until September 1st, I'm cutting it short because I am going to join the Bout of Book read-a-thon from August 18 to 24th.  This will effectively take me to the end of my holidays.  Honestly I don't want to do any read-a-thons after that, because I know my reading time will seriously decrease and to keep track of it then, will depress me. :-D

This week was sort of a weird week.  I was fully planning to get tons of reading in but I had an unexpected holiday diversion.  I (by accident) swallowed a plum pit that got lodged in my throat.  Between an ambulance ride to a health centre, water ambulance off the island, another ambulance to the hospital and an emergency gastroscopy, my reading plans were obviously interrupted.

While finding this picture of a Canadian ambulance, I got a very interesting education on ambulances.  Why are so many of them yellow (Europe)?  It seems like an odd colour to choose other than that it would be easy to spot.  



So now that I've shared this completely embarrassing incident, let's get to checking how my reading did go:


The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
~~  Chapter 1-4, p. 1-52 (52 pgs)

Defence Speeches by Cicero
~~ p. 107-138 (31 pgs)

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers
~~  p. 68-76  (8 pgs)

The Way of King Arthur by Christopher Hibbert
~~   p. 1-end (144 pgs)  

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
~~  Chapter 3-4, p. 47-end (65 pgs) 

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
~~  Chapter 8-21 p. 81-end (175 pgs) 

Gilgamesh
~~ p. 167-end  (137 pgs)

Planets in Peril by David C. Downing
~~ p. 1-30  (30 pgs)

Books completed:

Surprised by Joy (last week)
A Grief Observed
The Way of King Arthur
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Gilgamesh

Total pages read:  642 pages


Wow!  I'm completely surprised that I was able to read that much!  I must keep plugging along though; I have a couple of "in-progress for a long time" books that I'd like to finish this week.  I know my two bombs for the summer are going to be Ovid's Metamorphoses and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, that I'd really hoped to finish, but time is running out and with it, any chance to squeeze out some time to read those books, I think.  In any case, it's probably better to focus on what I have accomplished instead of what I haven't.   Bout of Books, here I come!




6 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, how awful! I hope you're okay after all that!

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    1. Thanks for your wishes, Emily! It was a little scary initially but once the ambulance driver "heimliched" me, I could at least talk and breath normally. I'm feeling almost back to normal so everything is good. Now back to reading! :-)

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  2. My goodness - so sorry about the plum pit incident! Hope everything is back to normal now! Love your blog and tagged you in a post - it's actually part of a blog tour called Blogging From the Heart. You are nominated and invited to participate in the tour but you don't have to if it doesn't fit your plans. If you wanted to participate you would just write a post answering the same questions I did and then tag three blogs that you like. If you have any questions I will be glad to answer them. My email is cj@carolsnotes.net.

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    1. Thanks, Carol. I had something in one hand, a plum in another, had to pick up something and decided the plum could go in my mouth to free up my hand. Big mistake!

      I'm going over to your blog to take a look. Thanks so much for tagging me and for the kind words! :-)

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  3. Yikes! After reading about your ´plum´ scare I completely forgot about the book reading! Thank goodness you are all right now.
    Back to book....I have never tried juggling so many books as you do. You seem to do it well. I´ll have to look Bout of Book.

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    1. I never used to juggle but now I find that it slows my pace through the books and gives me a deeper read. I did find that I had too many books in-progress mid-year though, so I'll have to be more balanced from now on.

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