Good morning! So, I stayed up a little longer last night to catch the beginning of the readathon. Read a few pages in my ebook—not making much headway with it yet—and listened to one of my audiobooks for a bit. Woke up shorty after 9 a.m., lay in bed and listened to my audio for an hour. I felt really knackered, when I finally got up. Still feel knackered, actually.
Puttered around with my tomatoes—a friend thinks they have some kind of illness, so I cut off some of the uglier leafs. No idea. Then I got my sourdough loaf out of the fridge and carefully decanted it into the prepared baking tin. I am useless with the whole shaping thing. My dough is always so soft, if I try to do it, I always end up with a really big mess.
Anyway, books! While I was sleeping, this happened…
Hour 3 – exploring the online bookworld
What are some of your favorite bookish sites online? Do you have any book blogs or booktubers you like to follow for reading suggestions (or just for fun)? Do you have a book blog or other bookish social media site?
You are currently reading my bookblog, I am on Goodreads and I use Netgalley. Sometimes I add bookish photos to my Instagram. In the early days I used Livejournal for blogging. I also used Librarything for a few years and although I was quite active for a while, I eventually found it too chaotic and visually unappealing and moved to GR permanently. I tried some smaller sites, but was never really happy. My favourite buddy reading group is where I spend most of my time there and we did indeed start having the odd Zoom meeting during Covid!
I follow a few bookbloggers via WordPress, but I am crap at keeping up and I am not very persistent or regular. I apologize! I do have a look every now and then! I do not follow any booktubers. Idk, I just find it deeply odd somehow to watch people talking about books.
Hour 5 – the weirdest place you‘ve read
… tell us some of the weirdest places you’ve read! Have you ever gotten any looks or comments about it?
Where haven‘t I read? Brushing my teeth, in the cinema waiting for the film to start, boarding a plane… The oddest one is probably reading a physical book whilst walking. That was before the days of smartphones and audiobooks, obviously. Nowadays I just listen and walk. These days, whenever and whenever I have to wait for something, I read on my smartphone. Which is nothing unusual, half the world stares at a smartphone at any given time. Other places? Anywhere sitting down, really. Mainly with my kindle. I‘ve been know to read in hotel elevators on my way down to the restaurant, where I obviously continue reading. The elevator thing probably garners me odd looks.
Hour 7 – how do you read?
What books are on your TBR for this reverse readathon?
- Paper: Tietjen auf Tour: Warum Camping mich glücklich macht by Bettina Tietjen — Yes, we camp! Well, I don‘t actually. But I like the author, a German TV journalist and talk show host.
- Audio #1: Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6) by James S.A. Corey — re-read of the Expanse series.
- Audio #2: Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) by Ann Leckie — re-read
- eBook #1: Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora (ebook) by Zelda Knight
- eBook #2: Widdershins (Whyborne & Griffin #1) by Jordan L. Hawk
- Graphic novel: Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn (Kindle Edition) by Jeff Lemire
How do I read? Well, mostly on my kindle paperwhite. I always have one audiobook on the go. I read a lot of comics, mainly via kindle app or comixology app on my iPad, so I have a large screen and can zoom in.
Hour 9 – summer book recommendations
I don‘t get this whole summer / winter thing. I read what I read and the weather or season doesn‘t influence my decisions. Do you vary your reading based on the seasons and why?
Hour 11 – hobbies in books
I started sourdough baking during the first lockdown. And yes, I have read some cozy mysteries and romances involving sourdough. For example Sourdough by Robin Sloan. I am open for recommendations!
I recently came across knitting vampires, so there are all kinds of funny themes around… Tomato-growing werewolves? Not yet. Wasn’t there some fierce gardening in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)?
Ok, I think I am caught up enough. I will now return to actually reading something… oh, and I should probably switch on my oven! 😏
Mmmm I love sourdough bread. I hope you remembered to turn on your oven!
I don’t read comic books but I love that there is an app that lets you zoom in!!! Brilliant and much needed, I would think.
I don’t get the summer/winter thing either. I just read whatever sounds good in that moment.
Knitting vampires!!!! Hey have you seen that diver in the Olympics who knits? He showed us the little cozy he knitted for his gold medal. Love it.
Happy reading!
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I did switch on the oven. I‘ll post some pictures of my loaf of bread tomorrow, when I‘ll cut into it for breakfast…
Diver, Olympics, I havent seen him. But I will look him up.
Happy reading!
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Tom Daley is his name.
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Oh good I will check back to see if there is a bread picture.
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Tomorrow! Today I already posted something else…
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I just finished The Long Way… and I loved the gardening and cooking parts of that book! The discussions about food in it were the best.
If you’re interested in YA fantasy, I enjoyed The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. It features a wizard who has a sourdough starter as her familiar.
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I am not a big fan of YA, but several people in my buddy reading group read that and liked it. Have to check if it‘s on my want-to-read, I should probably add it…
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I enjoyed it, and if you pick it up I hope you do as well!
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Mostly I don’t vary my reading based on seasons. I’ve always viewed the “summer blockbuster read” as just a marketing ploy. The only exception is that in the autumn I get the urge to reread “The Lord of the Rings”.
I think the oddest place I’ve ever read is high up in the Val d’Anniviers above Grimentz in the Swiss Alps (my godmother was Swiss and had met and married her English husband in my home town).
Anyway, my family and their’s were walking up to the glacier and I had injured my ankle and it was really starting to swell up. So I stopped and bathed it in a cold glacial stream while they went on up to the glacier. They took much longer than expected so I pulled a book out of my rucksack, lay down and read for a while. I think it was Asimov’s book “Foundation’s Edge”. Eventually I fell asleep waiting for them and only woke up when a goat got into my rucksack!
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I agree about the marketing plot. The goat must have been really small or your rucksack really big… depending on how far that goat got in there. I hope the goat didn‘t like Asimov too much…
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This part made me laugh so much: “Idk, I just find it deeply odd somehow to watch people talking about books.” Haha, so true. If I do stumble on BookTube videos, I end up watching them at 2x speeds else it just goes on forever. Eeps, sorry!
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