I'm still here

After a good nights sleep I woke very refreshed this morning at about 7am. The end is in sight, well dont to everyone who did stay up - your made of stronger stuff than me!

For the last challenge I will answer these questions,

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?Last night at about 11pm, I started to get really tired then.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Well I read one big book but for smaller books I can recommend, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, speak and A short history of tractors in Ukrainian.
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? The challenges looked fun, the cheerleaders did a great job and the people doing the updates are stars.
5. How many books did you read? Part of one – but it was a really big one.
6. What were the names of the books you read? The Stand by Stephen King
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I think next time I'd like to be more involved, I'd like to be a cheerleader but would have to see if I could do that with my son. But whatever happens I'm sure I'll participate again.

Ok final percentage of how much of The Stand I have read



Thats over 600 pages folks.

To get me through the next 1000 and more pages I'll be joining this read-a-long here

Now I can really start

Ok I'm off to bed now, its 23:40 and past my bedtime. I will be up bright and early tomorrow depending on when I get woken up.

So progress made of The Stand as of 23:30

Not bad, not bad at all.


The little one is now in bed after a very long walk and play in the park ealier today so now I can crack on with The Stand. I may well participate in a mini-challenge later on as everyone else seems to be having alot of fun doing this.

Oh and I won a prize from hour 7 as a random reader winner which I'm really happy about.

Hope everyone else is holding out ok although this depends on what time zone your in.

So at 20:20 I have read......

Hope everyone else is holding out ok although this depends on what time zone your in.

So the read-a-thon has begun

In typical fashion my computer today is running at a snails place so I am having to sort this out. Later on this evening I'll dig out the laptop and spend a while seeing how everyone else is doing. But onto the book,

The Stand was a good choice, its easy to get into and the writing in typical Stephen King style moves along nicely. As its such a big book I'll be doing my updates in percentage terms, I'm not expecting to read 100% of this book today but it'll be interesting to see how well I do. My copy has 1325 pages, thats more than my copy of Lord of the Rings.

So at 15:23 I have read......

So far I am enjoying it.

Writing to Reach You

This is going to be a boastful article, you have been warned!

I am a huge Bill Bryson fan. In my opinion he is the most interesting, funny and genuine writer out there He has never failed to have me laughing so hard there are tears on my cheeks (which can be embarrassing if you are reading his book in public!)
Four years ago I had the good fortune of briefly meeting Bill in London. For those of you wondering if I had been stalking him or tapping his phone line; this is not the case, but only because I hadn’t thought of it at the time. Bill was actually on a tour of the UK promoting his then latest book; The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (one of his best in my opinion and well worth a read)

I got a signed copy of his book and went away with the view that he is one of the nicest men I have ever met and I still hold that view today. This view was only reinforced when I got a surprise in the post.
About a month ago I wrote a short letter to Bill via his publisher telling him how much I enjoyed his work. This isn’t the first time I have written a letter like this to a favourite author because I feel it’s important to give credit where it is due and acknowledge how their hard work makes a difference in peoples lives. I was not expecting an answer so imagine my surprise when a postcard from Norfolk arrived on my doormat this morning.
On closer inspection it is from Bill Bryson thanking me for my letter and wishing me well for the future. It was handwritten and signed by the man himself. He even paid for the postage! So I really do mean it when I say he is a nice man because he truly is.
I wrote a similar letter to Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird) a few months back and received absolutely nothing in reply. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t write the letters to get a letter back.
The point of this article (apart from to brag about the postcard) is to encourage blog readers to write a letter thanking your favourite author and post it off. It doesn’t take long, cost much or cause any significant inconvenience yet I believe it can make a difference to an author just to know someone enjoyed their work enough to take time to write a letter. So go on, find a favourite book and (assuming the author is still in the land of the living) write a letter, it doesn’t have to be long, just a simple thank you. You never know, you might hear back...unless you write to Harper Lee of course in which case, good luck!

Dewey's Read-a-thon

I've been thinking of doing this the Dewey's Read-a-thon and with just over 24 hours to go I've decided I'm doing it. This decision was also made with the help of some other bloggers such as Queenbee and Rachael from 'And the plot thickens..'


I do have a fair amount of spare time over the weekend (esp when my son has gone to bed)but I need to take my sleep when I can get it so I certainly won't be reading for a whole 24 hours.

This is what I'll be trying to make a dent in...


I've wanted to read this for ages now and although I'm not expecting to finish it, I am hoping to make a good start to it. Im not a huge Stephen King fan but I do know his books are quite easy to read and the books tend to plod along nicely which is why I've chosen The Stand. Well thats the plan anyway.

Blog awards

The Book Mole has given us our first two awards, The Beautiful Bloggers award and the Honest Scrap award.



For the Honest Scrap award we have to list ten facts about ourselves and then pass onto ten more bloggers, so here goes, (this is written by Jess btw)

1.We both love the US. My father grew up in the States and I travelled around it extensively when I was younger. Chris and I went on our honeymoon in New England and when our son is older we would like to go to New York (it will be my 4th time there and Chris's 1st)
2.Chris prefers The Office an American workplace to the British one (traitor!)
3.Everytime we go to Italy (3 times so far) we get heavy rain, even though we have always gone in the height of summer. In fact come to think of it the same thing has happened to us in Malta (which the locals thought was odd at that time of year) and Paris.
4.We had a 3 month engagement.
5.I drink tea, chris drinks coffee.
6.I sew in my spare time.
7.Chris does not eat fruit or veg (apart from potatoes and he does drink fruit juice)
8.I have always hated baked beans.
9.We both hate the film 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'
10.We have never watched a die hard film.

I would like to pass these awards to the following bloggers:

A Little Bookish
Rose City Reader
Kat's Books
Kylee's Journal
Queen Bee
Teresa's reading Corner
This Bookish Life
Books are a garden
Obsessed
Readerbuzz