#WWReadathon: Challenge #2

Melissa @ Melissa’s Eclectic Bookshelf is hosting the second challenge of the Read-a-thon—“Wintry Sentences”. She says, “Using at least 3 of the titles of the books below...make up the most interesting, funny, romantic, mysterious, or simply ridiculous sentence that you can!” She then provides a list of nine books with wintry titles.

Here's my sentence:

After the Snow , my sweetheart worked his Cold Magic and raised a Frozen Shiver when he dropped a Cold Kiss on my neck as we walked through the Winter Garden .

Not a spectacular sentence, but I did work in the titles of six of the books.

Wicked Winter Read-a-thon

Today is the first day of the Wicked Winter Read-a-thon hosted by: Rebecca @ Kindle Fever and April @ My Shelf Confessions. If you're up for a weekend focused on reading, please join us.

Unfortunately, I have to work today, so I'll only be able to read during lunch until the end of the work day. But once I'm free, I'm planning on being a reading demon.

Starting Position

Currently Reading: Touch the Dark by Karen Chance

Starting page:18

Free! Yes, lots of free books.

If you have an electronic reader—Kindle, Nook, etc.—or one of the reader apps for your PC, Mac, smart phone, or tablet, then there are a ton of free books out there. Enough books that no matter how fast you read, you couldn't read all of them in a single lifetime.

I hope that by now you know about the availability of all the “classics” from Project Gutenberg, The Internet Archive, and Google Books. These sites offer “bare bones” versions of the books. Project Gutenberg focuses on plain text versions with very little formatting, while the other two sites primarily offer scanned PDF versions with OCR conversion to text. While these sites now offer one or more versions designed for electronic readers, the disadvantage is that the files have been produced by automation directly from the OCR conversions.

A much better source for classic texts is MobileRead, an “online community where e-book newbies and industry veterans alike interact and share their experience with e-books and e-book technologies.” There, the E-Book Library contains versions that have been carefully created by volunteers. For the most part, the editing and formatting are exquisite. Most of the books found at MobileRead are more finely crafted than those that come from any Publisher.

But what if you want to read more than just the classics? What if you want to read books that are not yet in the public domain? What if you want to read recently published books? Yes! You can get some of those for free, too.

If you read science fiction and fantasy, check out the free books in Baen's Free Library. Most of the books found here are the first one in a series. What a great way to find out if you like the author or the series! And, of course, they sell electronic books via their WebScription Ebooks site.

A number of authors now give away some of their books. These range from new authors just wanting to get a book &ldqou;out there”, independent authors, and even established authors like Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross. These authors have several outlets—their own web sites, Smashwords, and Feedbooks—to name a few.

And publishers have realized that offering the occasional free book can spur further sales. I've become a regular follower of Books on the Knob, a blog that lists free and deeply discounted eBooks from all the major sources. There are other places online to find out about free books; a Google search turned up over 36 million hits!

So, if someone gave you one of these electronic readers for Christmas, get out there and fill it up with lots of books to read!

Bout of Books: The last day

'Twas a grand week of reading, blogging about reading, and tweeting about the Bout of Books Read-a-Thon. I'm so glad that my friend Shaunesay talked me into participating. All-in-all, I read 997 pages, finishing two books and getting more than 1/2 way through the third during the 7-day-long event. I think the number of pages and books was about average for me on any given week, but even more important is the fact that (as I said in yesterday's post) I have posted regular blog entries all week long. More than the reading, my goal for this week was to post and post and tweet.

As the day started, I was on page 117 of The Telling Pool by David Clement-Davies. I read during the usual down times—over breakfast and dinner, and whenever I got bored with the Internet. By bedtime, I had only read 84 pages, taking me to page 201. I had plans to read more, but got involved with the Brit-Coms on the local PBS station and suddenly midnight had come and gone.

Bout of Books :: Day 7 summary

Books read today: 1
Books finished today: 0
Pages read today: 84
Total books finished: 2
Total pages read: 997

Bout of Books: Days 5 and 6

Bout of Books Day 5 :: 28 October 2011

Friday was another normal work day. That meant that I had to squeeze in some reading during my meal breaks. Hubby took me to the local Chinese buffet for lunch and I read in the car all the way over there and back—as well as reading while I was eating. By the time we got home from lunch, I had finished reading the second book of the Bout of Books Read-a-Thon, Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement. That meant it was time to start another book. I selected The Telling Pool by David Clement-Davies. This is a young-adult fantasy set during the time of Richard the Lion-Hearted which I owe to appaloosatb over at BookObsessed.

This particular Friday evening was the meeting of my local Mixed Media art group. I live very far from where they meet, so I left home at 4 pm, listening to Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson as I drove. I stopped at a nearby restaurant to grab a quick supper. Of course I was busy reading The Telling Pool while I ate. The final game of the World Series was on TV when I got home and I settled in to watch Saint Louis defeat Dallas (darn!) and didn't get much more reading done by the time I went to bed.

Bout of Books :: Day 5 summary

Books read today: 3
Books finished today: 1
Pages read today: 230
Total books finished: 2
Total pages read: 829

Bout of Books Day 6 :: 29 October 2011

You'd think that with a Saturday off from work and no major projects scheduled, I'd get a lot of reading done. The truth is that I really didn't read many pages. I spent a lot of time on the Internet and watching college football instead of reading. So, at the end of the day, I was at page 117 in The Telling Pool, having read only 84 pages during the entire day. Oh well—I think I may easily finish this book by Sunday midnight and that will take me over 1100 pages for the week-long Read-a-Thon. That's pretty close to the number of pages I read in an average week. What's special is that I have made 6 postings to Reading in Texas during this week. I will *not* be able to keep up with this pace, but I do plan to try and keep the blog more current.

Bout of Books :: Day 6 summary

Books read today: 1
Books finished today: 0
Pages read today: 84
Total books finished: 2
Total pages read: 913

Bout of Books: An update

Bout of Books Day 3 :: 26 October 2011

The best part about Wednesday was that I had another airline trip which means uninterrupted reading time. My flight was to leave Jacksonville at 7:15, and I got to the airport, turned in my car, checked in, progressed through security, and was seated at the departure area by 5:45. What's a girl to do? Read, of course. Which I did.

I started the day on page 231 in Lord of the Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier, and finished the book shortly before we landed at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. It was a magnificent book and I have the second one in the series in hand and I can hardly wait until I start reading it. Unfortunately, I must finish up a couple of books which I owe to book swappers at BookObsessed before I can return to the world of the Griffin Mages.

So, as soon as I reclaimed my luggage and settled into the car for the trip home, I pulled out a copy of Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement. This cozy mystery was won by SailorArby, a fellow book swapper, and I knew that it should be a quick read. By the time we got back to my house, I was already on page 50! I really was beginning to resent the fact that I had to work all afternoon. I would have much preferred to be reading. But, after work was completed, I settled in for some reading during supper, watching a little bit of TV, and reading myself to sleep. I ended the day at page 118.

Bout of Books :: Day 3 summary

Books read today: 2
Books finished today: 1
Pages read today: 254
Total books finished: 1
Total pages read: 536

Bout of Books Day 4 :: 27 October 2011

Thursday was a normal work day. Since I wasn't traveling, I actually got to sleep until 8am, and from that time on, I was busy with e-mail, instant messaging, research, documentation, and experimentation. I did take a decent lunch break—reading most of the time—which took me up to page 151 in Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter. I cooked bratwurst for supper and my daughter stopped by to eat with us and visit a little while. I fully intended to get down to some serious reading after she left, but the World Series was on TV and I got all caught up in the excitement. Eventually, I settled down with my book and was on page 181 when it fell out of my hand for the last time and I set it aside and turned out the light.

Bout of Books :: Day 4 summary

Books read today: 1
Books finished today: 0
Pages read today: 63
Total books finished: 1
Total pages read: 599

BTT: Hard

It's Thursday and Deb has posted another Booking Through Thursday prompt. This week, bloggers are asked:

What’s the hardest/most challenging book you’ve ever read? Was it worth the effort? Did you read it by choice or was it an assignment/obligation?

I'm having a really hard time coming up with an answer to this question. I guess the "hardest" book I've read recently was The Warden by Anthony Trollope. And it wasn't really *hard*. It's more that the style of writing was so different from the recreational reading that I am more used to. If I had approached this book back when I was in school, it wouldn't have been any problem at all as I was accustomed to reading the classics.

I'd have to say that reading this book was definitely worth it. I set myself the challenge of reading several classics each year and chose Trollope as the author I'd focus on for a while. After researching the author and his bibliography, I decided I'd start with his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire. Since this series of 6 novels starts with The Warden, that's where I started. It took me a long time because other books were beckoning, but I did finish it in March of this year.