Sunday Salon #12: Dewey's Readathon & More

It's hard to believe that summer is over and fall is more than underway. We're preparing to finish our first term at school already, which blows my mind! I'm already looking towards Christmas, with a few major purchases made here and there in preparation. The old adage that time flies feels more real with the passing of each year!

As I consider the coming week(s), I wanted to post an update on the Dewey 24-hour Readathon. In the spring I was a cheerleader, which was great fun. I loved seeing what everyone was reading, and meeting so many great bloggers. After participating in the 48-Hour Book Challenge in June, I realized that if you could swing the time element, that joining in was great fun!

We've been asked to post what we're going to be reading for the challenge, and even that was a "challenge" for me to come up with! I have way too many books right now to get through, and the two days before the readathon, I have a fall break and will probably be reading (and grading, as always) my little eyes out. I have been eagerly anticipating the break, and have stacks! However, knowing the way I read for the 48-Hour, I pulled together a list and a strategy that might work for me. Here is just a picture of a few of the books I'd like to tackle...


One thing I learned from the other marathon challenge was that I'm NOT VERY GOOD at just sitting and reading for that long. I decided that I'm just not going to worry about it, and have a great time with what I can do! Before, I tackled a really hard book for the challenge, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. It was an amazing book, yet dense and slow going. I really don't regret choosing a book that I felt I spent almost as much time annotating as I did reading. In hindsight, having the time to devour it in one sitting really enhanced my reading of the novel, so although I watched others whiz right on by with book after book being read (which caused me a bit of anxiety at first), I am perfectly happy with my previous experience.

Having said that, my choices center around books I WANT to read (thanks to many other reviews I've read): The Actor and the Housewife and A Year Down Yonder. Next, I have books that I NEED & want to read for challenges I'm participating in: finish Pride and Prejudice (not pictured because it's on my Kindle but being read for the Everything Austen Challenge), finish Dracula (for the 1% Reading Challenge), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (British version for the Harry Potter Challenge), rounded out by White Tiger (last year's Booker Prize winner) and 19th Wife (a book I won from Booknut--thanks).

This is just a start though. Mount Too Be Read (Mt. TBR) is falling over with many great books to choose from, so I won't be without plenty to choose from!

To finish today, I wanted to post a couple of quick pics of my new house. The pictures aren't great, and they only show the kitchen and master bedroom, but I thought I'd give you a peek!

Yes, it's still a bit of a work in progress, but I'm loving my new home more and more with each day. More than anything else, I love knowing that the space is entirely my own. The kitchen is just off of the living room on the first floor. You can see that I put up a bookshelf at the end of the island to hold all my cookbooks. A bit messy still, but all mine!

Finally, here's a condensed, poorly taken picture of my master bedroom on the second floor. I've since put up my paintings, but at this point, the bed and bookshelves came first! You can't really see it, but there's a nice, comfy chair over by the window that I often sit in to grade papers, write blog posts, and to read a good book. In the other direction, there is another large bookshelf, and another couple of bookshelves in the den (not pictured because it's WAY too messy still). Overall, it's a great new home, and a great investment. Thank you to all of you who encouraged me through friendly tweets or comments. It was a difficult process at the time, but so worth it!

By the way, thanks for recommending locations for my bookshelves. I did finally decide that I couldn't part with them in my bedroom. Honestly though, at the rate I'm going they'll be in every room in the house!