Tonight I finished my 48-Hour Book Challenge! As usual, I found that it’s not as much time as I think it is.
I spent 11 hours and 40 minutes of the last 48 hours reading, and 6 hours and 55 minutes listening to audiobooks, for a total of 18 hours and 35 minutes.
I spent 6 hours and 10 minutes doing book-related things like blogging and writing reviews, with 1,561 words written on blog posts or reviews.
All this is a grand total of 24 hours and 45 minutes, so over half the time. This isn’t really close to my best time in a 48-Hour Book Challenge, but it also isn’t my worst, and I like that I did over half the time. Sleeping late and taking walks was probably worth it, though I kind of regretted it when I saw the stats!
As for books read, I don’t want to say too much, because I especially focused on reading backlist books we’re considering for the Mathical Book Prize. The Mathical Prize is interesting in that only books nominated by the publisher are eligible to win the Prize for the current year, but books published in previously years can be suggested by others and are eligible for Honors (as well as current books nominated by the publishers).
I also was confronted with the fact that I am currently slowly reading (a chapter a day) an excessive number of nonfiction books. It’s gotten way out of hand! I managed to finish one of them, and I added in a bunch of graphic novels so I would actually finish books, but this skews my numbers.
Final stats: 1,669 pages read (Remember, lots of graphic novels.)
8 books finished (5 of which were started from the beginning).
17 other books read partially. (See what I mean about it’s getting out of hand?)
2 Sonderbooks reviews written
5 Mathical evaluations written
So – it was super nice to get lots of reading done, but it’s always disappointing what a small dent it makes in the books I want to read! And yes, I made good progress on the Mathical backlist – but this weekend we were given the Mathical frontlist (This year’s books nominated by the publishers), so I need to get serious about reading those. (We each read in one age band, then we’ll narrow down to a shortlist that everyone will read.)
However, this year, alas, the CYBILS award has been discontinued, so at least I’m not trying to read CYBILS books – though I do want to read one more Capitol Choices nominee before next week’s meeting.
I whine a little bit about needing to do this reading, but I love it! It’s just daunting to realize afresh that one 48-Hour Book Challenge doesn’t mean my task is anywhere near done.
And the best part? I spent as many hours as I could reading on my balcony, and the weather was perfect for it.
The book pictured is my favorite of this year’s 48-Hour Book Challenge, and one of the reviews I wrote – Birdy, by N. West Moss. I was completely charmed.
Most of all, I’m taking this as a reminder that it’s a treat to take the time to read. I should do it more often!