Bout of Book 14 | Weekly Wrap Up #21

It was Bout of Books 14 this past week and, like always, I had a lot of fun keeping up with what everyone was up to and barely really seeing much besides social media updates because I was just reading so much myself, which was a surprise to me. I put a large stack of books together for this week and was planning to do what I do for Dewey's - just pick and choose from it, mostly so I'm not walking looking all the books and I own, and mostly because it's just kind of fun.

And then, about the end of the first day I had this stupid crazy thought: maybe I could read all the books in my stack. And I should know myself better and remember to just throw in the towel and realize that's happening as soon as I think it. I might say I'm not competitive, but I am, mostly as long as it's against myself (I mean there was no one else going to finish the stack of books before me, right? But, man, do I feel good having done and having them all stacked next me done and read).

I think the strangest thing about this whole week, for me - besides reading so much after months of reading a small bit of this a month - is that I actually stuck to the pile. I worked my way through the pile until the end, I stuck to a TBR. I'm not sure that that has ever actually happened before, but it was kind of amazing. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do it again, but I'd like to, it takes the guess work out of everything a little and that can be nice.

Anyway, now we're going to get onto what I read - page count, word count, physically read. I was keeping track of the time I spent reading, but that kind of fell off towards the end. I do have a good estimate, though.(At the beginning I was keeping up with it pretty good, even Saturday I think I got the times pretty exact, but that last day it would feel like it was taking forever and only an hour had past, still, I'm estimating a little high just because of that).

26 hours, 10 minutes.

Also I read a total of 3,451 pages. I also read a total of 12 books with 7 of them being book books (novels and such) and 5 being trades/graphic novels. Which, all in all, I'm very pleased with. I also read two single issue but I didn't count them in with anything but the pages, and maybe the time, but they're quick reads.

And onto the books themselves:

• Planet Hulk #4 by Sam Humphries, Marc Laming
• Cold Kiss (Cold Kiss #1) by Amy Garvey 
• You're Never Weird on the Internet (almost) by Felicia Day
• Mythic #2 by Phil Hester, John McCrea
• March: Book Two by John Lewis 
• Runaways: The Complete Collection, Volume by Brian K. Vaughn, Adrian Alphana, Takeshi Miyazawa
• Glass Heart (Cold Kiss #2) by Amy Garvey
• Black Widow, Volume 1: The Finely Woven Thread by Nathan Edmonson, Phil Noto 
• Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
• Black Widow, Volume 2: The Tightly Tangled Web by Nathan Edmonson, Phil Noto
• Phonogram: Rue Britannia by Kiernon Gillen, Jamie McKelvie
• The Saint (The White Years #1) by Tiffany Reisz
• Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
• Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

And I think that about wraps up my wrap up of the read-a-thon and week! What did you read this week? How did you do for the read-a-thon for your personal goals? Favorite thing you read this week? Let me know!

Bout of Book 14 | Update Post

And so it begins, my favorite read-a-thon, and I'm actually going to be following the template for the update post our lovely hosts offer for once. So good luck, everyone, I hope you get done what you want to and remember to have fun -

My Goals

• Read. More then I have been (this isn't going to be hard to accomplish considering the last few months)
• visit blogs - people I know, new ones. And comment
• Participate in both twitter chats (they're fun! Join in if you can)

Books to Read (this is going to be the stack I want to pick from, I in no way hope or think I can read them all):

• Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey
• Glass Heart by Amy Garvey
• Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
• Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
• Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
• The Saint by Tiffany Reisz
• You're Never Weird On the Internet (almost) by Felicia Day
• March, Book Two by John Lewis
• Phonogram: Rue Britannia by Kiernon Gillen, Jamie McKelvie
• Runaways: The Complete Collection, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughn, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa
• Black Widow: Vol 1 & Vol 2 by Nathan Edmonson, Phil Noto

Single issues:

• Planet Hulk #4
• Mythic #2

edit: removed Werecat from the list. I'll get to it eventually but I'm not quite in the mood for it (I read a few pages, it looks like the epitome of trashy werewolf smut. Which is not a bad thing, like seriously not, but I'm not really in the mood for that).

Updates

Monday
Number of books I've read today: 5 (+ 2 single issues)
Pages read: 1,448
Time Spent Reading: 8 hours, 45 minutes
Books:
Planet Hulk #4 by Sam Humphries, Marc Laming (started and finished - 23 pages)
Cold Kiss (Cold Kiss #1) by Amy Garvey (finished - 192 pages)
You're Never Weird on the Internet (almost) by Felicia Day (started and finished - 261)
Mythic #2 by Phil Hester, John McCrea (started and finished - 25 pages)
March: Book Two by John Lewis (started and finished - 189 pages)
Runaways: The Complete Collection, Volume by Brian K. Vaughn, Adrian Alphana, Takeshi Miyazawa (started and finished - 448 pages)
Glass Heart (Cold Kiss #2) by Amy Garvey (started and finished - 310)

Notes:
So obviously I had a good first day, whew. Normally I feel exhausted after a reading day like that but it's been so freaking long, I just feel so good about it? It's honestly been a really long time and it was getting to the point where it was like - did my brain just break? Hello, brain? R-E-A-D-I-N-G. So now I feel a little better.

Also, something else that's more just honestly surprising, is that I'm so far sticking to my TBR? I mean it was like less then twenty four hours since I put it together, but I don't know if I've ever held out this long. Maybe I'll continue to - I'm learning that just moving onto the next thing and reading without giving myself time to panic about it is working out good so far.

edit: I was keeping track of it but I wasn't sure I was going to add it but I decided to. Whenever I'm reading a lot I always get those - how do you read so much? - questions that are mostly rhetorical. And there is your answer, friends, it's because I do very little else on days like this one was.

Tuesday
Number of books I've read today: 3
Total # of books I've read: 8
Pages read: 669
Total # of pages: 2,117
Time Spent Reading: 5 hours
Total Time Spent Reading: 13 hours, 45 minutes
Books:
Black Widow, Volume 1: The Finely Woven Thread by Nathan Edmonson, Phil Noto (started and finished - 144 pages)
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (started and finished - 365)
Black Widow, Volume 2: The Tightly Tangled Web by Nathan Edmonson, Phil Noto (started and finished - 160 pages)

Notes:
I wanted to read a little more today but I just didn't have the mental energy and I'm suffering from a tad bit of eye strain. And I know, I know I read a lot, a shit ton, but we're always hardest on ourselves, right? (No, seriously, I am very hard on myself, especially writing goal related, let's not talk about that at all right now).

So I read both volumes of the newest Black Widow run (I don't know if there's a secret wars thing but she's probably somewhere, if not), and I'm loving it. First off - the art is gorgeous, completely stunning. And I'm also loving Natasha. I forget how much I like her character and then we get good characterization and a sharp focus on her and it's like - oh yeah, she's awesome, kickass, and secretly a sweetheart. good.

And then Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman - some of the stories, surprisingly, I was eh about, but this was all very early work. There's quite a few I love though - specifically, to give you nightmares in 100 words: Nicholas Was... and also Babycakes is like two pages and will make you think, and horrify you.

Also I'm still sticking to my TBR and I'm so proud of myself (like stupidly proud of myself) and think I might end up adding a book or two, depending on how long the 400+ books take to read considering.

What did you read today? Tell me!

Wednesday
Number of books I've read today: 1
Total # of books I've read: 9
Pages read: 152
Total # of pages: 2,269
Time spent reading: 45
Total time spent reading: 14 hours, 30 minutes
Books:
Phonogram: Rue Britannia by Kiernon Gillen, Jamie McKelvie (started and finished - 152 pages)

Notes:
So, obviously, today did not go as well as the previous two days did. I don't know what was going on but I was so tired that most of the time i want to read I started to fall asleep - which doesn't happen to me, I've only experienced it a handful of times and it was weird. Makes reading very difficult, but I finished something from my TBR. (feel free to skip the middle paragraph as it's just me talking through the insane things that go on in my brain).

And then it was a strangely up and down kind of day - last night before I went to sleep I was thinking well maybe I could get to 4,000 pages this week. I've done it twice, I think, once almost to 4,500. And then this morning I was kind of like nah, I'll just try and keep going with this TBR thing I have going. And then I started thinking about the other books I could be reading (98% of the books in my apartment right now are unread because my read books are buried in my mom's house to be put in storage or brought here, I don't know yet), so I'm surrounded by unread books.

So that's the up and down things that's been happening and I was in pain and just tired, weirdly tired. Anyway - what did you get up to today? What did you read? Let me know in the comments!

Thursday
Didn't read a page - I don't know what happened but I woke up feeling downright awful and then stuff happened and everything was insane and I didn't read a damn thing, sadly.

Friday
Also didn't read anything - wasn't feeling so good, again, and had a flight with a strange flying insect.

Saturday
Number of books I've read today: 2
Total # of books I've read: 11
Pages read: 746
Total # of pages: 3,015
Books:
The Saint (The White Years #1) by Tiffany Reisz (started and finished - 442 pages)
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older (started and finished 304 pages)

Notes:
Wasn't feeling completely better today but better then expected. And twitter chats always push me into wanting to read.

I can't believe I'm still sticking to my TBR, I don't think I've ever made it even two days sticking to a TBR, but it's kind of nice. And considering that I'm a person that likes lists and checking things off of them it makes sense. I just really didn't expect to get this far with this one at all, though, I expected to only get two book books read this week, that's what I was hoping for considering my reading the last couple months, so I feel so freaking good about this week.

Sunday
Number of books I've read today: 1
Total # of books I've read: 12
Pages read: 436
Total # of pages: 3, 451
Books:
Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (started and finished -  436 pages)

Notes:
I'm not all together sure how I felt about the book, but I think I liked it? I've got a lot of thoughts bouncing around about completely TBRs and stuff that I'm going to put in my full wrap up tomorrow, because even though I didn't do seperate daily update posts, I feel like I need to do a separate full wrap up of the week.

Let me know how your reading is going!

Bout of Books 14 | Goal & TBR

Bout of Books is tomorrow and I'm just realizing how much it's sneaking up on me (it's tomorrow, tomorrow. What's happening? I have no idea anymore). Anyway - I've been in a serious reading... slump? I guess it's a slump. I've still been reading, technically, but not as much as I'd like to be. So I've been trying to participate in whatever read-a-thon I can to try and get my head back in the reading (and blogging) zone.

So my goals for this week are pretty simple.

• Read as much as I can - don't push myself too hard, not this time around, but also I respond well to goals/pushing. (average of 200 pages a day minimum)
• Finish some book books, not just trades/graphic novels
• Visit blogs! Comment! (I've been so out of just everything that I haven't gone and visited peoples blogs since before I moved, let alone commented and interacted and I miss it so much, I want to see what everyones up to, what they're reading) (not giving myself a goal, just going to push myself)
• Go to both twitter chats! I love the twitter chats, they're fantastic, and normally make me want to read, so hopefully it'll all go well.

I think the biggest thing that'll be making me read the next week instead of anything else is that I somehow hurt my wrist yesterday or the day before, and it randomly just starts to hurt too hard to type/write/really anything. But I can read. 

For my TBR, obvious this is very loose and more like just my pile of things to pick from. Only one of them is something I've started (which I was hoping to finish before the read-a-thon but a family friend had a cook out yesterday and I actually got to sleep in because workmen don't work on Sunday (there's construction still happening in my building. yay)).

So the books first:

• Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey (currently-reading)
• Glass Heart by Amy Garvey (sequel obviously, would be cool to also get done and have finished another series this year)
• Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (short story collection, want to read and then move onto Trigger Warnings. I've been missing Gaiman).
• Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older (new release and looks super interesting, and the cover is gorgeous, and is also pretty short & YA)
• Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (put this on my BookTubeAThon TBR and didn't get to it, but maybe I can this week? It's long but it's King)
• Werecat: The Trilogy by Andrew J Peters (I bought this at a con, and it's a whole trilogy in like 250 pages, perfect for a readathon)
• The Saint by Tiffany Reisz (I've been wanting to continue on with this series since I finished the last one, I love these characters)

And then the graphic novels/trades and such. First off, I'm going to be reading single issues throughout the week but I'm not going to count them as a full thing unless I read like 1-5 and then I'll just count it as their trade counterpart. (Does that make sense to everyone? Won't count as one thing completed, but will count the pages and list 'em)

• March, Book Two by John Lewis (read book one in July and really want to get to this)
• Phonogram: Rue Britannia by Kiernon Gillen, Jamie McKelvie (currently coming out are the single issues to part three, though they're all self contained stories. I still can't start at three, and I love these two).
• Runaways: The Complete Collection, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughn, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa (I've always wanted to read this and I'm glad they released it in the longer trades. it looks so good, though)
• Black Widow: Vol 1 & Vol 2 by Nathan Edmonson, Phil Noto (I've been dying to read these, dying, and it's complete now, vol 3 all out in single issues but not collected yet).

And for single issues? No idea, I have so many to read - probably some Secret Wars stuff and then just whatever came out the last two weeks since I should get my pull list in on Friday. 

Those are all things that I want to read soon, I hope to get through a good chunk of both lists but we'll see how it goes, I guess. 

Normally I do a separate post for everyday, it feels less cluttered to me but then I feel very guilty if I haven't read anything, so this read-a-thon we're going to go as low stress as possible and just do all the updates in one post (and then have a post next Monday, after the read-a-thon, that'll have everything I read and page count and just my general thoughts about the week).

If you're participating in Bout of Books this coming week let me know so I can check out your blog, and best of luck. 

June + July 2015 | Monthly Wrap Up

Moving and just everything has been highly stressful, so I was on hiatus for a little while, but I don't feel right if I don't wrap up the months in some way. So June was a pretty good month, mostly of volumes of comics and single issues, but still pretty good.

• Rusty Nailed (Cocktail #2) by Alice Clayton (3/5)
• Kaptara #2 & #3 by Chip Zdarsky, Kagan McLeod (4/5)
• All-New Hawkeye #3 by Jeff Lemire, Ramón Pérez (4/5)
• Wayward #8 & #9 by Jim Zub, Steve Cummings (5/5)
• Thor, Volume One: Goddess of Thunder & (single issues) #6, #7, #8 by Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman (5/5)
• Spider-Gwen #5 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez (3/5)
• The Wicked and the Divine #11 by Kiernon Gillen, Jamie McKelvie (5/5)
• Nameless #4 by Grant Morrison,  (3/5)
• Descender #4 by Jeff Lemire, 
• Batgirl, Volume 1: The Batgirl of Burnside by Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher (5/5)
• Velvet, Volume 2: The Secret Lives of Dead Men by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting (5/5)
• Redeployment by Phil Klay (5/5)
• The Lost Hero: Graphic Novel by Rick Riordan (3/5)
• Ms. Marvel, Volume 3: Crushed by G. Willow Wilson, Takeshi Miyazawa (5/5)
• Wayward #9 by Jim Zub, Steve Cummings (5/5)
• RunLoveKill #3 by Jonathan Tsuei, Eric Canete
• The Melancholy of Mechagirl by Catherynne M. Valente (5/5) (so weird, and interesting)
• The Trap Door (Infinity Ring #3) by Lisa McMann (3/5)

So I only read three novels/book books, five trades/graphic novels, and fourteen single issues. I'm really hoping to get more book books read, but I'm just so stuck in this slump, maybe now that I'm moved I can get more into it.

And then we had July, the actual month I moved in. I took the first day to see how much I could read and planned to do the same the second day when I got the call my apartment was ready and the equivalent of - oh shit, only like 75% of my books I liked, good god. And I still don't quite have all my books here, I'm not sure if they'll all go here or if I'll put some in storage, I guess we can figure it out at some point (my mom is also moving so those books are in bookcase with her stuff, it's complicated).

So what I read in July!

• Whistling in the Dark by Tamara Allen (5/5) (seriously enjoyed and I 100% know why but it's slightly embarrassing - so good, though).
• March, Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (5/5) (important. well written, important, and right to the heart)
• If It Ain't Love by Tamara Allen (3/5)
• Hawkeye #22 by Matt Fraction, David Aja (5/5) (it's over, I'm not okay about it, but it was fantastic)
• Black Canary #1 & #2 by Brenden Fletcher, Annie Wu (5/5)
• All-New Hawkeye #4 by Jeff Lemire, Ramón Pérez (4/5)
• Injection #1, #2 by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey (3/5, 4/5)
• The Wicked and the Divine #12 by Kiernon Gillen, Kate Brown (4/5)
• Descender #5 by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen (4/5)
• RunLoveKill #4 by Jonathan Tsuei, Eric Canete (4/5)
• Wolf #1 by Ales Cot (5/5) (so stoked for more, want more)
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (5/5)

I did a video July wrap up / August TBR but I still wanted to type it all out so it's all in one place and nicely put together and such. (Video here)

So there was a lot of awesome shit that I read this month but even through all of it - The Song of Achilles. It's incredible and heart-wrenching and so beautifully written it hurts. I'd recommend it to just everyone - it hurts and it's beautiful, so damn beautiful. 

Also I'm kind of planning on doing a few comics posts - recommendations and then what's on my pull list (which would be a long one, I could split up recommendations into separate things). Let me know if anyone would be interested in that and let me know what you've been reading in the comments - books, comics, fan fiction. I'm up to hear about anything. What have you been up to since I've been so out of touch with everything?

BoutofBooks 14 | Sign Up

I am really back, I promise, it's just still hectic as hell around here. I will definitely be here for daily updates/such for BoutofBooks 14! I couldn't miss a Bout of Books no matter what, my favorite read-a-thon. This time around it starts on the 17th and goes through the 23r, and this is mostly just my sign up post, hopefully I'll be putting up a possible TBR post this weekend.

So I'll be doing daily updates of what I read, which will hopefully be more then I have been reading, and let me know if you're participating as well!

Official BoutofBooks blurb:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 14 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

Sign Up Post 

BookTubeAThon 2015 | TBR

BookTubeAThon is upon us and I put up a video TBR that's a little vague and subject to some change, but I like trying to set TBRs for read-a-thons with challenges, one part of the fun. It's been a while since I've read-a-thon'd and I'm excited to try and read something, anything, really. I haven't been reading that much with moving, but I'm definitely in the mood to right now.

Anyone over here in the blogging community taking part? I took part last year without vlogging but now I am, and I'm excited about it.

As this goes up, the BookTubeAThon is officially starting, so I hope it goes well. And, even if you're not participating, I hope you have a good week in general and a good reading week.

I'm Back | And Not Just Here

Hello! I've missed this and everyone so much, I'm so glad to be back. I'm not 100% moved in, I have too many books to be there yet, but it's become less stressful. Of course, my mom is also moving so that'll be stressful but I feel more settled with my own space and things on shelves instead of in boxes

You might be wondering what that not just here means in the title. What it means is that I've started YouTubing again! And will hopefully also be booktubing along with that (I mean obviously, books are a big part of my life and what I want to talk about all the time). That definitely doesn't mean I'm giving up on you guys. I love it here, and the blogging community is fantastic, but I was a part of the YouTube community before there even was a book part of it (at least one I found that was just focused on books). I'm glad to finally be getting back to it, if you want to check out my first video you can here.

What does that mean, though? For here and for there? Well, I don't really know yet. I'm definitely going to still be doing posts, especially if I can't find the time to film, the light, or just plain don't feel comfortable with it (which I don't some days. Or can't talk right, which is what editing is for but sometimes it's a bit much).

I'm not sure on a schedule quite yet, but I'm excited about what this all means. The BookTube side of YouTube does have a read-a-thon coming up that I want to participate in (coming up as in it's tomorrow when this goes up). I've filmed a TBR video that'll hopefully also be up today and I'm planning on posting something tomorrow about it. Also, I hope to have my June/July wrap up going up soon, I was considering filming a wrap up for the July part, but it's all up in the air in the moment, I've got to figure it out.

Either way - I am back! In more ways then one. And I'm excited to try and get caught up on what everyones doing and seeing what's going on with everyone. Let me know what you've been up to in the comments if you're so inclined, I want to know. Also what you've been reading.