48 Hour Book Challenge: Finish Line Report

So it is now 2:07 PM CST on Sunday, June 7th.   My 48 Hours are over, they were actually over 6.5 hours ago.  Our server was down, or I would have posted this earlier.   

I have to say I am a little let down.  What started out as a hopefully journey through a good chunk of 14 books, turned out to be a pretty fun, if somewhat disappointing, trek through only 5.4 books. 1,377 Pages.  27.647 Hrs (27 hours, 38 minutes, 49.2 seconds) 1 Hour 49 minutes blogging.  Total:  29.464 Hrs (29 Hours, 27 Minutes, 50.4 seconds)

Of course, I thought I had chosen wisely.  I thought I had chosen books that I could make it through quickly.  Again I am not a fast reader, but I am highly capable of finishing books somewhat quickly.  In fact, if I had made it through my final book, Revenge of the Spellmans, it probably would have been my longest book at somewhere around 7 hours, approximately.  As time ticked closer to 7:20 and needing to do a review, I lost focus.  Longest if not for a poor choice for my second book.  My misstep was choosing The Know-It-All and continuing to power through it.  Although, what kind of an example would I be setting in not completing a book I was actually enjoying?  I loved the Know-It-All and probably recommend it over any other book on this list, but I think it threw off my illusions of grandeur. 

I did enjoy myself, and think I should win an award for craziest mix of books.  Of course, I am sure someone had a more bizarre list.  Right?  Any challengers?  

So I have broken my stats into two parts.  Those with the incomplete Spellmans, presented first, as I am not sure how the rules work for incomplete books, which I may have finished had I not run out of time.  And those without it, after the jump, as it is my own fault that I ran out of time and if it doesn't count, well it doesn't count.

First I kept diligent track of my time by using the stopwatch function on my iPod.  I wish the lap function kept a complete time, however.  Also,  Lap 5 and Lap 6 are both Of Mice and Men, I accidently hit the lap button.  And the top is the time for Revenge of the Spellmans.

Now on to the pie charts, and as promised my list of wins and fails.  NOTE: You may notice this list is missing Number 9 was Death Note, and was taken off the list because it was unavailable for checkout.  All these pie charts are in precentages. You can look back at my reviews for page counts and actual time spent.

CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS 

1. Diary of Pelly D WIN  2. The Know-It-All WIN  3. The Year of Living Biblically FAIL  4. Ideaspotting WIN  5. Revenge of the Spellman's HALF FAIL/HALF WIN  6. Lost: Signs of Life FAIL  7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy FAIL  8. DC: The New Frontier WIN  10. Specials FAIL  11. Stiff FAIL  12. Cruel Summer FAIL  13. Fast Food Nation FAIL  14. Of Mice and Men WIN  15. The Good Thief FAIL 

48 Hour Book Challenge: Revenge of the Spellmans

Time Spent: 3:27:35.5

I didn't make it. Like I said I am not a fast reader. But I plugged along into the wee hours so I think I should get the hours and pages, but maybe not the complete book. We'll see what she says over MotherReader. Of Mice and Men took me longer than expected. Anyway here is a review so far.

This is the third book by Lisa Lutz in the Spellman Mysteries. And it isn't the best, see Curse of the Spellmans for that. Of course, the "mysteries" in the other two are never quite as suspensful or interesting as in this one. This one actually has a pretty good mystery (SPOILER) Why is the wife keeping her marriage, or lack thereof, a secret from her husband? Dun Dun Dun. Ok, that isn't a huge spoiler.

The fault I have with this book, is it just isn't as quirky or hilarious as the previous volumes. Curse especially uses the footnotes to pack the book with jokes. Here the footnotes barely state anything, much less hilarious or insightful observations. They are actually kind of lame. But, that isn't to say it isn't funny. Izzy squatting in her brother's secret basement apartment is classic Spellmans, and one of the funniest familial sabotage moments since the car chase that kicks off The Spellman Files. I'm not sure if sabotage is the right word. But it's late and I've been reading a lot. *Yawn* Now I just gotta write my finish line thing (THERE WILL BE PIE CHARTS) and I am done.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Of Mice and Men

Pages:  118

Time Spent:  2:42:55.7

So this is a classic and I am sure most people know the ending, but SPOILER ALERT. 

This is a short novel, yet John Steinbeck gives us plenty of characters that we understand completely, especially George and Lennie.  He also gives us the ultimate ethical dilemma.  George and Lennie are friends, on the run from one town, and looking for work to buy land of their own.  It's a dream, some would say a pipe dream.  George has become Lennie's caretaker after the death of Aunt Clara.  He knows not to play pranks on Lennie or rile him up.  Lennie is simple, he does what he's told, and he's big, like a machine.  But George's biggest charge is keeping Lennie safe from himself.  See, with Lennie being so big and not having the mental capability for self-control, he hurts things even when he doesn't mean to.  And this leads to the ultimate act of friendship, or is it betrayal, as George keeps his friend safe from harm once and for all.

Ok, so that's not really a review, but more of a synopsis.  I like Steinbeck, he can do so much with so little and he proves that again here.  There isn't much more I can say.

48 Hour Book Challenge: DC - The New Frontier Volume 1

Pages:  208

Time Spent:  1:59:59.5 

Ok.  I'll admit it.  I am not a fan of DC, especially not The Justice League and Superman and The Martian Manhunter and Green Latern and The Flash, etc., you get the idea.  I do, however, love Batman and ambitious projects.  So I decided to put aside my disdain of DC for 200 pages and give The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke a shot.

It says on the back that it will "take readers on a epic journey from the end of the golden age of heroes to the beginnings of the legendary Justice League of America."  Ok, not being a DC fan, I don't know what half of that means, except that I know I don't like the Justice League, or anything I have read involving them.  So I am skeptical.

But from the get-go, I don't care of the story is the worst story ever, which it isn't (more on that in a minute), the artwork is enough to keep me flipping the pages.  It's drawn in a throwback retro-style reminiscent of Johnny Quest and/or The Venture Brothers, only so much cooler than either.  As an artist Cooke has got me hooked, I'll have to see if he's done anything for Marvel.

But what I think is really, really, really outstanding about Cooke and The New Frontier, is that it is a story set in the DC world, with the Justice League, that I don't hate.  I actually care about these characters and want to know more about them.  I even want Superman to succeed, even though he is indestructible so I know he will.  What Cooke has done is make enough suspense, away from The Man of Steel, to keep the stakes high, and then give us whole characters that we actually want to relate to.  Sharp kid.

It's flawed sure, too many story lines to balance, a flaw of every Justice League story I think.  Also it seems a little like a more innocent DC-version of Watchmen.  What with the looming cold war, heroes helping out in Korea, the slightly darker, but not that dark tone, and the retelling of the origin stories.  It's not exactly fair, because it is more a case of creative borrowing than outright copyright infringement.  And this is far campier, less serious, and a little bit cooler than Watchmen.  Note that I didn't say better, Watchmen is the gold standard.  I don't blame Cooke for borrowing a few of the ideas and giving DC some much needed edge.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Ideaspotting - How to Find Your Next Great Idea

Pages: 248

Time Spent:  2:11:59.6

This was a pretty cool book, written by Sam Harrison.  A cross between one of those Hallmark books with their inspirational aphorisms, a new age-y self-help book, and a DIY crash course in how to make your ideas and projects better.  It was highly designed mixing heavy graphics with bite-sized bullet points on how to find ideas and how to capitalize on them.  Everything was streamlined and nothing felt repetitive or unnecessary.  It just kept slamming the reader with you-can-do it success story after you-can-do it success story.

Most of the things are pretty basic (explore, listen, take notes, etc.), but it has a nice style and really makes you feel like it believes in you.  It also features quotes from writers, baseball players, chemists and musicians to drive its points home.  Also, while it seems aimed at the creative community, really anyone could benefit from a lot of the advice.  Like for instance the section on the Listening Sins.  I know I've been guilty of a few of those.  It also tells you to look outside of your field for advice on how to make what you are doing better, fresher.  And all in bite-sized nuggets.

48 Hour Book Challenge: The Know-It-All

Pages: 371

Time Spent: 13:04:17.9 

As I stated earlier, this was the book that kind of sabotaged by Book Challenge mission, but a last minute rule change made me not care.  Because it became about time and not number of books or page count, The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs had me laughing until it hurt and spending a good chunk of my time following the quest of a man attempting to read all of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  Otherwise, I might have given up and moved on to a quicker read.  But this has probably been my favorite book so far.

It begins fairly normally.  A.J. Jacobs used to consider himself a pretty smart person.  But after graduating and working for Entertainment Weekly his life has become consumed with pop culture over scholarly pursuits.  So he decides to  pick up on a project his own father had started and abandoned, reading all 33,000 pages, 44 Million Words of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  And while it never outrightly says it, it does allude to the fact that he is trying to do it in a year.

What follows is a strange journey into history and world knowledge.  And one man's quest to consume it all.  From A-Z, all while holding down a steady job at Esquire magazine, trying to get on Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and trying to keep his wife happy while he embarks on this quest.  I won't tell you if he makes it, but he does throughout his trip dole out plenty of strange facts, tending toward the absurd and macabre, with humor and insight.  Especially hilarious are a rant about the Fahrenheit scale and a quick tidbit about Abbott and Costello.

Maybe the strangest thing about this book were the parallels it shared with my own attempt to read and blog for a good chuck of two days.  The book was just as readable and funny as I'd expected it to be, but also much more dense and daunting, especially as I tried to finish it as quickly as possible.  He also attempts a speed reading course.  Which I was thinking of as I am not a quick reader.  The teacher even hits the nail on the head saying something to the extent of "When you read slow your brain gets bored."  I think that could be why it took me so long.  

And then there was the cat fight that happened outside my window, which I wrote about earlier this morning . . . .  No more than 10 minutes after the cat fight, Jacobs took a digression into the history of the Britannica.  And how the first edition seemed to hate cats, saying, and this is a paraphrase, that cats don't sleep, they "meditate mischief."  Among other nasty things, but I thought that was funny and coincidental.

Glad I stuck it out.  Well worth the 13 hours.

48 Hour Book Challenge: The Diary of Pelly D

Pages:  282

Time Spent:  4:12:14.7 (4 Hours, 12 minutes, 14.7 seconds) 

There's an old adage/cliche:  "Don't judge a book by it's cover."

I think that is quite fitting for The Diary of Pelly D by LJ Adlington.  First it came highly recommended by a patron, who insisted I move it to the top of my reading list.  So I listened to her.  And after the first few pages I was surprised that this was the book she was telling me I had to read.  Pelly D is a shallow character, obsessed with money, boys, and popularity.  Hmmm . . . maybe I judged this girl wrong and have been recommending the wrong kinds of books to her.  But this diary is found, by a lowly grunt worker named Toni V, in a city being rebuilt.  Something more interesting has happened to Pelly D.  Something more gripping has to happen to Pelly D, something more than necking and swimming and dreading school.  

As the story progresses something does happen.  Another city away from Pelly's is running low on water, something her people need to live, and workers are being drafted from her city to help the cause. And then a "war" breaks out.  I call it a "war," because Pelly doesn't want to believe that's what it is.  There isn't supposed to be war on this planet, called Home From Home.  So while it seems like war, she wants to pretend it isn't happening.  Worse than war happens to, and that is what making Pelly such a shallow character helps with.  She wants to be strong, she wants to imagine things won't happen to her, but they seem all the more devastating when they do.  Because it isn't that Pelly is shallow, it's that she's naive.  

Overall, The Diary of Pelly D is a fascinating read, maybe a little confusing at times, leaving plenty of questions unanswered. But isn't that the nature of war?  It isn't always cut and dry.  We don't always get the answers we want or feel we deserve. There are a few other flaws to, it is uneven and repetitive at times, but still a great read.

The greatest accomplishment though is the end.  It's a shocking twist.  I couldn't believe what had happened.  And I'll leave it at that.

The First 25 Hours and 56 Minutes

So it has been an interesting start to my 48-Hour Reading Challenge experience.  I started early yesterday morning, hoping to get some good reading time in before work, also so I could have Sunday free to do chores around my house.  I knew I wouldn't be able to read much at work, but I plugged along quite nicely.  Not getting as much read as I wanted to, page-wise or time-wise, but actually getting more done than I figured I would.  I finished my first book at work, and promptly wrote a review, which I then forgot to post.  I got so busy in my last half-hour of work that I needed to focus on our patrons and not my mostly finished review.  So when I closed up I just never hit the post entry button.  When I realized my mistake . . . I was none to happy.

But I moved on to my second book on my walk home from work, AJ Jacobs' The Know-It-All.  This turned out to be as fascinating and hilarious as I expected it to be, but I am feeling parallels with Jacobs' journey.  He is attempting a "humble quest to become the smartest person in the world," and I am on a humble quest to finish this book in 14 hours or less.  It is packed with knowledge that he has gleaned from the Encyclopaedia Britannica along with humorous insights about his own life.  However, I figured it would be a quicker read, not that isn't the readable fiction I expected it to be, it just isn't quick.

But it isn't all Jacobs.  No there have been some interesting happenings that have kept me from the book so far.  One was a cat fight . . . an actual cat fight.  I heard a strange noise in my front yard and looked out to see two gray cats staring at each other inches apart.  And then one pounced and they wrestled around a bit making screeching sounds.  I called my wife over, thinking it was funny and they were just playing around.  Then one pounced again, and this time it was angrier, fur was flying, the screeching was louder and horrible, and I needed to save their lives.  I rushed to the front porch and shouted to them, which caused one to scatter, but the other stood his ground, carefully noting which direction his adversary fled.  He had the cold, crazy eyes of a killer.  Then later, when I was deciding if I would stay up all night reading (maybe I should have) or go to sleep so I could be fresh today, I heard a guy yelling on his cellphone near my house.  I looked out to see a guy in my neighbors backyard (the guy was not my neighbor.)  And he was being extra loud and throwing trash in my driveway.  Well, I couldn't focus on reading then.  So I kept spying until I saw the cops drive by slowly with their searchlights on.  With my heart pounding, I finally nodded off for a few hours.

Anyway . . . back to The Know-It-All, because it is taking me so long to read, I am seriously contemplating pushing The Year of Living Biblically down on the list.  I know it is a time thing and not a book completion thing, but I would like to complete more books.  Also, I own The Year of Living Biblically, I am going to read it, but I should really read more of the library books on my list.

So that is the update.  I will be back later with reviews of The Know-It-All and The Diary of Pelly D.

48 Hour Reading Challenge

What I Plan to Read for the 48-Hour Book Challenge

The 48-Hour Book Challenge is starting tomorrow (refer to my earlier post).  So I thought I would let you all know what I plan to read, not that I will definitely read, I am not really a fast reader.  However, I have chosen strategically and picked a lot of books that should be quick reads.  On my final post I will repost this list with big green WINS or big red FAILS.  Ok, well they are not that big.

You may notice a lot of non-fiction.  I chose these because we tend to neglect non-fic up here sometimes, but also because they are the kind of non-fiction that reads quite quickly.

I also want to increase the number of reviews on the blog, so I will review the ones I finish.

1. Diary of Pelly D by L.J. Adlington (often people ask us for book recommendations.  this one came with such a high recommedation from one patron that I moved it near the top of my list.)
2. The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs
3. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (this dude is pretty funny and I think both are interesting enough projects for him to put himself through, they should turn out pretty interestingly.  in the first he quests to read the entire encyclopedia britanica in a year and in the second he takes on the journey of living as biblically as possible.)
4. Ideaspotting by Sam Harrison (this one may be a bit of a cheat, but it looks so interesting and helpful.  I think I'll count it as one of my graphic novels.)
5. Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (I love this series about a family of private investigators who spend most of their time investigating each other, instead of doing work for their clients.  Quirky and great fun.)
6. Lost: Signs of Life by Frank Thompson (alright, this is a bit of nerdity.  these books are terrible, but they help quell the missingness of Lost.)
7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (because it is short and funny and I should have read it years ago.)
8. DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke  (I just had a bad experience with a DC comic, it was really bad, but I decided I should just get back up and try again.  This one looks pretty cool . . . in theory.)
9. Death Note Vol. 1 (Checked Out.  May still read it if it comes in.)
10. Specials by Scott Westerfeld (these read fast, with all their action and adventure.)

11. Stiff by Mary Roach (this book looks really interesting and hopefulyl funny or, at least, one of the coolest reads about dead people.)
12. Cruel Summer by Alyson Noel (I saw this at Wal-Mart and it looked easy, so I checked it out.  But then I read what it was about . . . ugg.  I wanted some chick lit on this list, but I may exchange this one for Geek Charming by Robin Palmer.)
13. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser  (I like the movie.  I like Super Size Me.  I want to find out more information.)
14. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (It's a classic . . . a short one.)
15. The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti  (I doubt I will get to this one, but it looks pretty good.  Or it's supposed to be.)