Read-A-Thon Updates and Mini-challenges

Hour 2 & 7 PM: The second minichallenge - Reading in Translation 

I've read a few translated books (Haruki Murakami, Steig Larsson, Paulo Coelho, Flaubert, etc)

For a book that I'd like to read in the original, I pick the Mahabharata. This is a superlong Indian epic, written in Sanskrit, a language that formed the basis of all Indian languages. It's still taught in schools (rather like Latin).
The Mahabharata and the Ramayana have been translated many times but all translations must necessarily be flavored by both the translator and the times he/she lives in.

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8:00 PM/Hour 3: 
Completed the short story Intuition by J.Meyers - I started late and spent the first hour cheerleading other Readathon-ers.
Also, Twitter is pretty distracting!
For my next book, I'm going offline, though still on my laptop. Remember, I'm only reading ebooks this Read-a-thon!

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9:30 PM Hour 4: Turn to Page 32 Minichallenge
For this challenge, you must turn to page 32 of the book you are currently reading (or the nearest page with text on it) and find the most entertaining phrase to complete the following sentence:
"I would rather read than ________ any day!"

"I would rather read than seen you promenading through town all covered with the stuff."
--- Page 32 of Emily and the Dark Angel by Jo Bev.

10:30 PM/Hour 5: I've just finished my first book - the fun historical romance "Emily and the Dark Angel" by Jo Beverly
Pages read = 17+191 
Currently Reading = BattlePug by Mike Norton

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11:20 PM/Hour 6: Minichallenge Bon Appetit
I'm reading Mike Norton's Battlepug, the graphic novel. Our party would include pets! So the food would be Pedigree dog food, kibbles, chewable toys AND oh yes, adult food - dog-shaped biscuits, and chicken kebabs with cucumber dip from turkey (one of the locations)
Pages read = 17+191 
Currently Reading = BattlePug by Mike Norton & The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by DWJ
Both are incredibly funny!

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12:50 PM/Hour 7:
Pages read = 17+191+66
Book Finished = Mike Norton's Battlepug
Thanks to NetGalley for the graphic novel


I'm going to read and then sleep for several hours now, no updates till morning!
Will probably get more done without twitter and other distractions...that is one huge drawback to doing the entire readathon on my laptop only via ebooks and egalleys.

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12:20 AM/Hour 18:

I'm amazed at just how much I read in the 12 offline hours - I finished both The Gathering and The Calling by Kelley Armstrong. These are fantastic YA stories written by an author at the top of her game.

A Full Read-a-thon update: 
Reading:The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diane Wynne Jones
Munching: Watermelon juice
Listening: To the grunts and baby noises my two-month old is making as he stretches 

Books finished: Mike Norton's Battlepugs, Kelley Armstrong's The Gathering & The Calling, J. Meyer's Intuitive (short story), Jo Beverly's Emily and the Dark Angel
 
Total pages read: 17+191+66+326+368
Total reading time: 12hrs approx
Total cheer comments: 25-ish

Check out #readathon and @deepratap on twitter for more updates 

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2 PM/ Hour 21: Acrostic Minichallenge  
BattlePugs = Bizarre Animal Tales Told in exciting Punny Ultra Good Story!

I'm re-reading Kelley Armstrong's Frostbitten while spending most of time visiting other blogs.

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4 PM/Hour 23: MadLib Minichallenge


Taken from Kelley Armstrong's Frostbitten, are a bunch of nouns, verbs etc arranged into the sentence below - 


This ____snow____ is ____icey____! ____Elena____ has never ____paced___ so much. The ____Kelley____ I'm currently ____rumbling____ is ____canine____ and ____freshly___. When this is over, I will ____sniff____ for ____weeks____.

Read-a-thon 2012 - Ebooks only!

Potential reading titles for the Readathon: 

1. Kelley Armstrong's The Gathering 
2. KA's The Calling
3. Jo Beverly's Emily and the Dark Angel
4. Diana Wynne Jones - The Tough guide to Fantasyland
5. Intuition, the short-story prequel to Intangible by J. Meyers (its Free) 
6. Mike Norton's Battlepug Graphic Novel

 I'm trying to mix it up - Short story, a comic, romance, the inimitable DWJ...though they are ALL ebooks! What other genres could I add to provide some light relief? 

Introductory Hour 1 Challenge: 
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? 
Manipal, a small town in India

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? 
Probably the Diana Wynne Jones one, but I'm starting off with Jo Beverly's historical romance

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? 
Just went out for ice-cream to kick-start the Readathon!

4) Tell us a little something about yourself! 
I have a newborn son to look after, so this Readathon might involve a lot of breaks

5) If you participated in the last Read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? 
My last Read-a-Thon back in Oct'10, when I read 4.5 books and 1,553 pages in 10 hours 
 

I'm a cheerleader - Go Team Puck! See you on the read-a-thon

Blogger Spotlight #9: Vix the "pads-brat"

Give us an idea of who you are: 

Hmm, i never really know what to say with these things but i’ll try giving it in a nutshell... My name is Viktoria. In the real world i go by ‘Vix’, online it’s either TToria or Vix. 

I’m a twenty-four year old ‘pads-brat’ (army kid) I come from a long line of soldiers and so i’ve moved around a lot! The country closest to my heart is Scotland. I left home at sixteen, travelled around a bit etc then i bumped into my high-school sweetheart. He went to the same armed forces school as me in Germany. We got married and seven years later we’re travelling around (he’s in the army now too) and raising our five year old son :) I’m extremely close to my two sisters, though we all live in separate countries: England, Scotland an Germany. Moving around is a bit of a nightmare when it comes to working and studying. Thank goodness for the internet and the opportunities it brings! Right now my husband, son and I are in England but the two-year posting is finished in June and so we’ll be moving back up to Scotland. 

As most of us book bloggers would say “I’m an avid reader”, and i’ll say the same. It’s an addiction! I tend to steer clear of horrors though, eek. I hope to write my own novel one day, but i think i still have a lot to learn. It’s something that shouldn’t be rushed. 

Describe a typical day:

 My days are pretty unpredictable at the moment. With us moving soon i’m trying to get the house organised and packed while my son is at school. And obviously reading and blogging fits in with that boring stuff too. 

Blogger Tip #2: Checking Blog for dead links

Did you know your blog might have a bunch of dead links that you are still linking to?
The recent Bloggiesta weekend revealed that I hadn't checked for this ever.

To check for dead links, you can go to http://validator.w3.org/checklink
This will check for dead links in your blog, website or any webpage and give you a complete list. When I tried it, I got about 85 links that the site said I had to manually check - most of those were "Tag searches" and worked fine on clicking.

Blogger Tips Series: 

#1 John Updike's rules for reviews

Teaser Tuesday #48: Intangible

The past few weeks I've been starting and stopping my way through J.Meyers' Intangible. Here's a teaser:

"It was quiet times like this that she wished she could tell them that she knew what they could do. Knew who they were. But it wasn't entirely hers to tell.
Not yet."

If you have a minute, I'm interested in what you think about the DRM battle going on with all publishers.

Really Mini Summary: 
Just a little predictable so far. Wishing YA books would involve teens talking to their parents a little more. *le sigh*
Let me know if you follow this blog, I'll follow back! 

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To join into the TT fun, visit the link below!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Fictional Birthdays and Lessons learned from fictional romances

The awesome people at Flavorwire have come up with a picture that depicts a fictional character's birthday for each day of the year! You can check who your birthday twin is - is it Sherlock Holmes (Jan6th) Or Severus Snape or James Bond? 

Refinery29 has a neat article on love lessons learned from four fictional men (think Rhett Butler style) - http://www.refinery29.com/love-lessons-fictional-men
Who doesn't have a crush on a fictional character? If not the classic Mr. Darcy, it was probably a dark and stormy Heathcliff, or perhaps a sparkly Edward ? I loved Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing! This article uses TV characters..
Happy Weekend reading!

The DRM battle is on - what's your take?

DRM is like a key-less padlock from Flickr (CC)

The story behind Digital RM is this - DRM is a way for publishers to digitally control how, where and in what format you read a purchased book. For example, if you buy an ebook on the Kindle, and later if you want to read it on your new Nook, it is illegal to convert and read that book, if it is DRM-protected. In actual fact, it is easy enough to transfer it to your computer, convert using calibre and read on any format - pdf, mobi, doc etc.
However, it is illegal to do so for all DRM protected books. 

What does this mean for you?


Publishers use third party software to handle the DRM-locks on your books. If that software or server goes " dark" (shuts down) then the ebooks are gone too, like with Fictionwise ebooks protected by Overdrive software. You keep paper books for years, don't you expect ebooks to do the same?


Interestingly, O'Reilly publishing discovered that sales of their textbooks more than doubled since they dropped DRM books 18+ months ago


Cory Doctorow's view: A Whip to beat us with 
Ebook DRM provider goes dark, the books you paid for disappear

Pinterest now the Third most popular Social site!

Launched in March 2010, Pinterest is a now familiar online sight - but far more so now than even 6 months ago.
For myself, I only heard about it a couple of months ago, and then waited for an invite before logging in via twitter. But in those two months (Jan-Feb '12), Pinterest grew by 50%!
Clearly, this image sharing site is a Phenomenon.

Why is it so popular?
Nothing like facebook, it focuses purely on interests! 
Hobbies, Crafts, Fashion, Home are the widest categories, and what's better than getting to connect with friends on mutual interests? The average pinterest user spends 20 min a day on the site, which is much more than the average time on twitter or facebook.
Why do you use Pinterest? What's your best board? Have you linked your IRL friends on it, via facebook?
For more book-related pinning, go here.


More reading:

Pinterest Is Now the Third Most Popular Social Network in the U.S. (Social times)

2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report(Experia)

Teaser Tuesday #47: The Dance of Time & Free Books!

The past few weeks I've realized just how good at military fiction Eric Flint is. Now, back to the teaser game - Here's a teaser from Eric Flint's The Dance of Time (Belisarius series):

"The Malwa commander took a deep breath; then, slowly, sighed it out. "We can't hold Multan," he said quietly, speaking more to himself than to the lieutenant."

You can read most of Eric's books for free here or buy them from Baen.
How does the publisher give so many books away for FREE you ask? See This post on Baen and their free library.

Really Mini Summary:
Warfare and strategy in a Roman culture - pretty good stuff! Multiple cultures, two strong female protagonists, the decisive and effective Belisarius, and a whole lot of military action. This isn't for the faint-hearted.
Engrossing enough that I'm reading the entire series in a row.

To begin reading, here is the first free book in the Belisarius series, An Oblique Approach.
Let me know if you follow this blog, I'll follow back! 

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To join into the TT fun, visit the link below!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Chipp Kidd on Book Cover designing - TED talk

The awesome and famous Chipp Kidd gave a TED talk on how he designs book covers - his efforts to convey the story in the cover, or intrigue the reader into buying the book.
If you haven't heard of him, here are some of his most famous cover designs:

Quote from the video:

“A book cover is a distillation. It is a haiku of the story.”

Also, listening to TED talks are pretty interesting way to pass the time! If you click through, don't blame me for the time you spend on the TED website/app on your device!
For more Chipp Kidd designs, the Book Cover Archive is the place to go.