Hour 19

 I am rather pleased with having read five books. Now I'm going to bed.

• När du blundar tittar jag by Gunnar Ardelius
• The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson
• The Unwritten, Vol. 1 by Mike Carey
• Eat Slay Love by Jesse Petersen
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

 source

Hour 13

Mid-event survey:

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?
I'm actually not as tired as I was before. I think I've passed tired into that stage of survival mode that is "I can go 8 more hours, but then I'll be dead to the world for the next 48." But my eyes are sore.

2) What have you finished reading?
Eat Slay Love by Jesse Petersen, Unwritten, Vol.1 by Mike Carey, and När du blundar tittar jag by Gunnar Ardelius. I'm halfway through The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson.

3) What is your favorite read so far?
So far, The Last Little Blue Envelope.

4) What about your favorite snacks?
Chips and raspberries.

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love!
Nope, not yet.

Hour 10

I've finished two more books since my last update; Unwritten, Vol. 1 by Mike Carey and När du blundar tittar jag by Gunnar Ardelius. A graphic novel and a Swedish novel, respectively. The first was good, but the second not very much so. I'm too tired to form a more interesting opinion than that.

source

I forgot one...

Handsome Devil — The Smiths

"There is more to life than books, you know
but not much more, not much more."

Hour 6

Only a quarter of the way through and my eyes are already bleeding. (Cue rant.) I'm kind of queasy from eating too much sugar, my computer mysteriously just turned itself off, and on the reading front it's going really slow.
Oh, and I'm already having trouble forming sentences in English (thank god for spell check), which is usually a sign of me being really tired. I'll probably look back on this cringing after I've had some decent sleep.

Here's some of the music I've been listening to:


There Is a Light That Never Goes Out — The Smiths


 I'm the One That's Cool — The Guild


Ceremony — New Order

Hour 5

I've just finished Eat Slay Love by Jesse Petersen. I'm kinda disappointed; I thought this was the last part in the series, but it didn't give me the ending I wanted. A lot of things still seems unresolved and it feels like there should be a continuation but there doesn't appear to be one.

My entry in the hour 5 mini-challenge:

Invisible strange music chime in the night garden.

Hour 1

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
I'm reading from Gothenburg, Sweden.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas and Chime by Franny Billingsley.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
My home-baked chocolate and apricot cake, and the ready-to-heat pizza I'm having for dinner tonight (I haven't had pizza in a long time).

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I am reading this year from my first very own flat. I moved in a month ago.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I will set an alarm for every two hours, to keep myself from sleeping through the whole thing like I did last time!

And we're off!

I've got tea, I've got cookies, and I've got BOOKS! Bring it on!

T minus 24 hours

Today I'm baking cookies in preparation for tomorrow. The excitement is reaching sizzling levels. Here is my list of books I may read tomorrow. The list can also be seen as a goodreads shelf: readathon-2012.

• The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
• Fables, Vol. 1 by Bill Willingham
• När du blundar tittar jag by Gunnar Ardelius
• Naiv. Super. by  Erlend Loe
• Family living: den ostädade sanningen by Lotta Sjöberg
• The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas
• Strange Music by Laura Fish
• August & jag by Anneli Furmark
• The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson
• The Poison Apples by Lily Archer
• Isnätterna by Malin Isaksson
• The Unwritten, Vol. 1 by Mike Carey
• Riktig kärlek by Inger Edelfeldt
• Spränga gränser by Solveig Olsson-Hultgren
• Sugar: Kvinnan som steg ut ur mörkret by Michel Faber
• Shattered Dreams by Laura Landon 
• Zombicorns by John Green
• Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
• Eat Slay Love by Jesse Petersen
• Mordet i Eiffeltornet by Claude Izner
• Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
• Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
• Vindens skugga by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
• Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green
• Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr
• Perchance to Dream by Lisa Mantchev
• Chime by Franny Billingsley
• Norrtullsligan by Elin Wägner
• Maus, Vol. 1 by Art Spiegelman
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
• Nefilim by Åsa Schwarz
• In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

source

Last year's list, updated.

Or, Shirin is distracted by shiny new things.

The grey titles I read during the readathon. The rest of the crossed out ones I've read since. As you can see, quite a few of them is still unread. Or worse, started and still lying around unfinished.

•  American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Blood Lite (anthology)
• Chime by Franny Billingsley
• A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
• Det är så logiskt alla fattar utom du by Lisa Bjärbo
• Glimmerglass by Jenna Black
• Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
• In for a Penny by Rose Lerner
• In the Night Garden by Catherynne M.Valente
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Kapitulera omedelbart eller dö by Sanna Näsling
• Miss Wonderful by Loretta Chase
• Mordet i Eiffeltornet by Claude Izner 
• Norrtullsligan by Elin Wägner
• Osäkerhetsrelationen by Helena Granström
• Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
• The Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black
• Ronja Rövardotter by Astrid Lindgren
• Språkens Historia: En upptäcktsresa i tid och rum by Tore Janson
• Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
• Vacations from Hell (anthology)

The anthologies I returned to the library unread, but the other books are still on my TBR list.
Out of the titles above the following is on this years readathon list:

•  American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Chime by Franny Billingsley
• In the Night Garden by Catherynne M.Valente
• Mordet i Eiffeltornet by Claude Izner
• Norrtullsligan by Elin Wägner
• Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
• Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

 This says something about my tendency to get distracted by new-released books.

T minus 6 days

So the last readathon was a bit of a failure on my part. I pulled the I'm-gonna-close-my-eyes-for-five-minutes deal in Hour 14, and then I slept the whole thing through, waking up disappointed after the finale.
It's not so much the falling asleep that irks me (well, that too), but more not making a conscious decision to stop and go to bed. I feel betrayed by my own body. Maybe that's a little too harsh, but still.

But, I'll aim to do better this go around. Practice makes perfect, right? My accumulated readathon experience tells me the following:

• A pile of light books is needed for the last half of the readathon. Romance without too many twists and plotlines is good. YA often works well.
• Think short. The kick that the sense of accomplishment in finishing a book gives is everything at Hour 18. Anthologies are awesome for multiple reasons, (1) the shortness of each novella keeps you from drifting off, (2) you get a mini-shot of accomplishment after finishing each one.
• The more tired I get, the more difficult is it for me to read in English. Keep a few Swedish books for the last hours of the readathon.
• Keep an alarm set for every two (one?) hours in case of accidental naps.

So, what books will I read? I confess, the readathon sneaked up on me this year. I woke up yesterday morning thinking it was this weekend and that I already had missed half of it. Luckily, it was not. Still, only having a week of prep time and limited resources money-wise means no ordering new books for the occasion.* I'll have to make do with what the library has to offer and what I have lying around unread. This shouldn't really be a problem, considering that I still haven't read many of the books on last year's readathon list.
At the moment I've not yet gone through my TBR pile and picked out exactly what to read, but I'll return later in the week with a complete list.

Gah, the excitement!

*Maybe I'll sneak in a visit to the book shop. But I really, really shouldn't.