Monday 11 May 2015

Bout of Books 13!


GUYSSSSSSSSSSSS! I am here, I am doing a thing, I am not, in spite of all contemporary belief, dead. Last night at about 2am, I submitted my last (of 4) essay for my MA, meaning that I am 2/3 done, meaning that now, all that's left is a pesky dissertation (no worries, easy stuff, right?) As an attempt to take back my life, and because this thing starts today, and because I haven't read nearly enough non-Shakespeare fiction for the last 8 months now, I'm going to do Bout of Books! Yeah! I have done this once before, I think, and the point is just to read more than you probably would in a normal week and, if you're me, to make your life good again!

So. This week I have to work Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, so today and Thursday are allllll mine, to read with how I wish, and I think I'm also going to try and write a few blog posts (steady now, me) so I can finally catch up with the few books I have read this year. I'll probably just update this post instead of spamming you with new ones every day, so if you give a crap AT ALL of how many pages I've read each day then come back here, if not (much more likely) then, you know, don't. It's all good, either way.

And so, without further ado: I read.
(Ok, technically I'm actually going to go for a run, and then watch Attack on Titan, shower, go and submit the paper copies of my essays... But in theory there'll be some reading. I'd imagine. Also, hey, shut up!)

Monday

Pages Read:  0
Books Finished: 0
Books Read From: 0
Total Books Finished: HAH
Cumulative Pages Read: PAH
Notable foodstuffs: Winey wine wine
Blog Posts Written: Does this one count?
Non-Reading Activities: Handing in essays and talking for HOURS with my uni friend and being very sleepy all evening.
Reading Activities: Um... I watched an episode of Attack on Titan, and that has subtitles. That counts, right?

So, I 100% failed at Bout of Books today, but I handed in my essays on time and WON AT LIFE, so I'm ok with this. I would have read at least something but I forgot to take a book with me (I KNOW) on the train to uni, and I felt the need to tidy instead of read this evening, so I just went with my feels. Tomorrow, I'm at work so there's at least a couple of train journeys on which to read. Stay tuned for how well THAT goes, but I'm optimistic!

Tuesday

Pages Read:  99
Books Finished: 1 (yaaaaaaas!)
Books Read From: After Dark by Haruki Murakami
Total Books Finished: 1 
Cumulative Pages Read: 99 
Notable foodstuffs: Millions of chocolate raisins. Too many.
Blog Posts Written: 1 (even more yaaaaaaas!)
Non-Reading Activities: Workety work work bleurgh
Reading Activities: I'm back on the Murakami train...

Look! I actually read stuff! Admittedly it was mostly just on the train to and from work, but that still fully counts. I was already halfway through (the number of books I'm halfway through right now doesn't bear talking about) After Dark by Haruki Murakami (Murakamiiiiiii!) so today was just finishing it off, and it. Was. Weird. Obviously. I was going to read some more things this evening, but instead I wrote a blog post (!) that will be up tomorrow (!!) about Walt Whitman's weird sex poems. You'll love it (unlike having sex with Whitman which, from his poetry, I assume no one ever enjoyed). Tomorrow I shall be reading Relish, which is a comic book about food and things, and trying not to fall asleep at work because I'm pretty sure it's already too late to get the amount of sleep I need to avoid that. My life is so fuuuuuuuun!

Wednesday

Pages Read: 178
Books Finished: 1 
Books Read From: Relish by Lucy Knisley, No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July 
Total Books Finished: 2 
Cumulative Pages Read: 277 
Notable foodstuffs: Soooo much garlic bread...
Blog Posts Written: 0
Non-Reading Activities: Even more work, plus parents house 
Reading Activities: Foodie food food

I'm actually super impressed with my reading today, but it probably should be noted that many of those pages were in a graphic novel. Not that I am demeaning comics! But they ARE faster to read (and this is why I shall win this thing. Cause it is indeed a thing you can win... Right?)  But anyway- Relish by Lucy Knisley is very very good and I highly recommend it. A bad thing happened when I finished it at my parents house, and went to find my sister's copy of Prisoner of Azkaban (mine has mysteriously disappeared) and discovered that she'd packed it (she is finally moving out of my parents' house!) and I thought I had nothing to read but remembered the millions of kindle books I'm in the middle of so resumed one of those (No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July. I dig it.) The interesting thing about this week is that I'm pretty much just reading in dead spots of time where I feel like I should generally be reading anyway, but I'm normally too lazy to bother? I feel like I should keep this in mind for, you know, life.

Thursday

Pages Read:  44
Books Finished: 0 
Books Read From: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Song of Susannah by Stephen King
Total Books Finished: 2 
Cumulative Pages Read: 321 
Notable foodstuffs: Nutella hot chocolate...
Blog Posts Written: 0
Non-Reading Activities: I VISITED THE BIGGEST LUSH IN THE WORLD IT WAS MAGNIFICENT. 
Reading Activities: Metamorphosis is weirdddd... 

I'm just realising I should have included 'total books read from' because that is an impressive 5 now, which I'm quite pleased with. So. Today was my day off work, and should probably have involved more reading than my day AT work, but Kafka is weird and difficult, I was on THE most crowded train home so didn't have the arm space to read (seriously, when you're normally an 8 coach train, DON'T SPLIT THE TRAIN IN HALF. Why would you do that?!) and, like, I had to do London stuff. Before yesterday, I had a whole plan for today that involved sitting down and watching Mad Men, reading and blogging, BUT THEN I discovered that LUSH had opened their biggest store in the world in Oxford Street and it was like nothing could be done to keep me away. IT IS THE BEST EVER LET US ALL GO THERE ALL THE TIME! Mostly I am amazingly excited because they have The Comforter shower gel which I got ONCE when I lived in Southampton on a special LUSH day and they never had it again and now I smell of ittttt! So awesome. But reading... Yes. Interestingly 44 pages was 22 pages from each book- Metamorphosis on the train, Song of Susannah in the bath that I OBVIOUSLY HAD TO HAVE. And then, Gilmore Girls. It's been an alright sort of day, I guess.

Friday

Pages Read: 25 pages + 2 Harry Potter Chapters (kindles are unhelpful...)  
Books Finished: 1! Kinda...
Books Read From: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK
Total Books Finished: 3 (again, kinda)
Cumulative Pages Read: 346 + 2 chapters
Notable foodstuffs: I had some mint m&ms then immediately regretted it
Blog Posts Written: Still 0... Haha
Non-Reading Activities: Retiring to my room to read because of inappropriate housemate/girlfriend behaviour in the living room (RARGH people etc)
Reading Activities: Oh Harry, I missed you so!

Today was another work day hence the lack of reading, and also I have felt ESPECIALLY tired. I guess I haven't fully recovered from the lack of sleep from last week, nor the constant shots of adrenaline my body was giving me so I actually wrote some darn words. (Thanks for the adrenaline, body!) Plus, I've relearned to be reliant on sugar which I had more or less moved away from because I can't be having a lot of sugar and running, but that's ok because I haven't run since Monday and SORT YOUR LIFE OUT AGAIN, ME! Anyway... This is about reading. So I finished Metamorphosis! But it's a short story that lives amongst other stories, so I don't know if I can count this as finishing a book or not? But at the same time... First Kafka story I've finished ever, so... Yeah. I have definite feels about it so I'll be reviewing it at some point (she says with great hope!) This evening after asking my terrible housemate if he has stolen my copy of Prisoner of Azkaban (he says no, I don't believe him but my only other option is to ransack his room, and do I seem like the ransacking type? No, I do not. SO the point is, I bought the kindle version! I got really irritated cause you have to buy it through Pottermore and it's all a bit of a palaver, but I am now the proud owner of it (and I have always intended to get the kindle versions of all the books cause carrying Harry Potter with me everywhere is definitely something I want to do!). And so I read a couple of chapters this evening (who knows how many pages, cause my kindle does not want to tell me) until I simply felt too tired to even read Harry Potter anymore. And then I wrote this so apparently, not as tired as I could possibly be? But anyway. The point is, READING!!!

Saturday

Pages Read:  
Books Finished: 
Books Read From:
Total Books Finished:
Cumulative Pages Read: 
Notable foodstuffs: 
Blog Posts Written:
Non-Reading Activities:
Reading Activities:

2 comments:

  1. Oooo I like your daily update format. YAY LAURA I'm so glad you're joining!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well done you, that was a good week's reading! I also loved Relish (and French Milk) AS YOU KNOW, and I hate it when they split trains in half, and ALSO I have a strange relationship with The Metamorphosis. I didn't think I liked it that much, really, when I read it a few years back - but I cried at the end and NOW I can't get it out of my head. It's still there, burrowed in like... well, a cockroach, and I feel connected to it, and like I would very much like to read it again. Which just goes to show, sometimes it's the unexpected stories that end up staying with us the longest. :)

    ReplyDelete