Read-a-Thon Mini Challenge Hour 21: Mad Libs!

Hey, everybody! Welcome to the Hour 21 Mini-Challenge! We–Mia and Jessica–are happy to host you guys as we continue on our collective reading journey! We’re so close to the end I can taste it. How about some Read-a-Thon style mad libs to keep your brain awake?

Here’s what you’re gonna do:
1) pick a paragraph (not too long) from the book you’re reading
2) remove some/most of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and either
3a) get a friend (in person, over the phone, over the internet–whatever!) to fill in the words for you mad-libs style or
3b) fill them in yourself from the spoiler-texted word list below
4) post your hilarious paragraph on your blog and link us to it or leave it in a comment here!

Easy, right? Here’s an example: I started with this paragraph from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell:

It was the habit of Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange to spend the hour before dinner in Mr. Norrell’s library and it was in this room that they received his lordship. Childermass was also present, ready to act as clerk, counselor, messenger or servant just as circumstances should require.

I asked Mia for three people, a measure of time, noun, type of room, verb, and four jobs. After plugging everything in, I got:

It was the habit of Mike Tyson and Ada Lovelace to spend the fortnight before watermelon in Mike Tyson’s kitchen and it was in this room that they slipped his lordship. Stuart Little was also present, ready to act as fishmonger, busboy, investment banker or chauffeur just as circumstances should require.

It made us both giggle like mad, and we hope it’ll do the same for you!

Here’s a list of some words if you don’t want to or can’t bother someone (feel free to adapt as necessary, e.g. making nouns plural or changing verb tense):

Adjectives

bookish
rotund

bodacious

tasty
flatulent

greasy

sneaky

humid

Adverbs

pedantically
suggestively

listlessly

cruelly

awkwardly

weirdly

busily

grumpily

Nouns

Read-a-Thon
cookie

tricycle

yacht

text message

band-aid

cupboard

pantaloons

Verbs

read
slump

groove

smack

fling

tickle

punch

promise

We’ll run the challenge until hour 24 and winners will receive a book of their choice (worth up to $10) from the Book Depository. Go ahead and get libbing!

Read-a-Thon Hour 7 Mini-Challenge: Best/Worst Covers

Oh man, you guys. Okay. So the Hour 7 Mini-Challenge directs us to find the best and worst covers of one of the books in our pile, and BOY HOWDY do I have a cover journey to take you guys on. See, just for kicks I brought along L.J. Smith’s The Forbidden Game trilogy, because it’s terrible and hilarious, and the cover of the version I have is wham-bam-boom the best/worst:

Trust me, it’s about as terrible and hilarious as a cover can get.

But it turns out that most of the other editions are JUST AS BAD:

The newer editions are boring as all get out. Right? And the older individual covers (since it’s technically a three-parter, I just have one glorious volume) are, well…

What even. I love them so much. This is how you can tell I’m of the hipster generation, because I look at these covers and think, “They’re hideous, I must have them.“

Jessica: My books can’t compete with the horror and glory of L.J. Smith, but there are some decent options to be found.

In the far left is the cover I have for Invisible Cities. It’s alright, but pretty boring. In the middle is my favorite after a quick Google search. Still simple, but I like the reflection of the ‘cities’ at the top, and I like the painterly texture. Both reflect the dreamy qualities of the book. To the right is my least favorite. What is even going on? Way to take all the romance and dreaminess out of the book and make it seem like a book about… cartography.

To the left is the cover I have for Oryx and Crake and I think it’s also my favorite. The illustration is weird, but that’s fitting, and it wraps around the book, which I almost always find appealing. I also appreciate the plain white cutouts for the author, title and quotes. To the right is… well. Do I even need to say why I think it’s the worst?

Read-a-Thon Spring 2013 Introductory Questionnaire!

Hey, dorks and sporks! Jessica and I are getting started a little late for the April 2013 Read-a-Thon, but we’re here! And we’re ready to introduce ourselves, which we’ve gotten so good at doing. I’ll go first:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Jessica’s place in the Bay Area, where it is appropriately overcast and gloomy for lots of indoors reading!
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I’m excited to listen to a bit more of the Scorpio Races audiobook–both the readers are excellent! Also Rain. Always Rain. Hatereading it gives me power.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
I don’t think Jessica or I have planned snacks because we like to live on the edge. I AM hungry for breakfast, though.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I’m Mia and a couple weeks ago I got to meet Lucy Knisley at a signing in Berkeley!

(Thanks to Jessica for the picture!)
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I might actually stay up until the very end, because Jessica and I are hosting a mini-challenge at hour 21 and it has to run until the beginning of hour 24! So that’ll be fun.

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
My house, in the beautiful East Area of the Bay.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Hmm, that’s a tough one – I’m looking forward to all of them! Maybe The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, since Mia has been talking it up so much.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Yeah, I don’t think we have any real food plans. But we do have mandarins!
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I love water. It is my favorite drink.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I have three comic books in my line-up, which means a higher book count. Yay for quick reads!

Why I Love YA (Beth Revis’s huuuuge giveaway)

First of all, Beth Revis, who wrote Across the Universe, etc, is doing a HUGE giveaway of about 50 signed YA books.

Wow! The contest runs all through November, so go check it out and spread the word.

Beth wants us to write about why we love YA, which I’m happy enough to blather on about even without the chance to win 50 books, so: I love YA because it’s not pretentious, because it’s original, because it’s romantic, because it is full of characters I wish I was friends with. I love YA because the plots move instead of stagnate, because some of the best authors out there write YA, because of reasons.

I love YA because it’s so, so good.

Read-a-Thon End of Event Meme

Whoa, guys, the Read-a-Thon is over! I (Mia) crashed at 2am (just couldn’t keep my eyes open a second longer) but Jessica heroically continued on until about 3:30. Good for her! Let’s have a look at the end of event meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Oh, definitely that 1am-2am stretch. I was reading a pretty light book so that wasn’t hard, but I just wanted to go to sleep so badly. When the clock hit 2:00, I was outta there.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books thau think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Wellllll, I had a lot of fun reading the sheer cheesiness that was Wait Till Helen Comes. I think any old-school YA/MG spooky stories that take themselves pretty seriously (like Christopher Pike, LJ Smith, etc.) are a good choice for the October Read-a-Thon.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? I dunno, I had a lot of fun! I think maybe, as a word of advice to blogs running mini-challenges, make sure the instructions for your challenge are really clear and easy t0 follow. Some of the challenges this year were a little confusing or ambiguous in their phrasing.
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? 
5. How many books did you read? I finished two, and read bits of two more.
6. What were the names of the books you read? The ones I finished were Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn and Tekkonkinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto, and I read bits of Local Babies, Global Science by Marcia C. Inhorn and Supid Fast by Geoff Herbach.
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Wait Till Helen Comes was a riot of (probably unintentional) campiness, so it was a lot of fun.
8. Which did you enjoy least? Tekkonkinkreet wasn’t bad, but there were a few possibly problematic moments that made me feel weird and uncomfortable, and I’m still processing how I feel about them.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? N/A
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I’d love to host another mini-challenge with Jessica, engaging with other Thon-ers in that was great. I might also sign up for Cheerleading, because it seems like the Read-a-Thon could always use more of those!

Okay, Jessica’s turn:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? I think it was hour 12am-1am. I managed to find a second or third or fourth wind, though!
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? I think, in general, plottier books are good. YA, romance, and mystery are all good genres for when you start to flag. Specifically, the books that held my interest best this year were Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler and A Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming. A YA I’d recommend is Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson and a romance I’d recommend is Silk is for Seduction by Loretta Chase.
   
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Well, I always request that we switch up the start time, either a couple of hours later or a few hours earlier.
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? It was, as always, extremely well organized, at least from our perspective. Ya’ll are pros!
5. How many books did you read? I read significant chunks of three books and smaller chunks of two others. Didn’t finish anything.
6. What were the names of the books you read? I read, in order, 90 pages of Dead Beat  by Jim Butcher, the first chapter of Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, 103 pages of A Fountain Filled with Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming, the sixth chapter of Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, and 90 pages of Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler.
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Either A Fountain Filled with Blood  or Mind of My Mind.
8. Which did you enjoy least? Hmm, I guess Dead Beat. I don’t always have the most patience for Dresden, and his sexism (not misogynist sexism, but “I don’t hit girls” sexism) definitely started to grate.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? n/a
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I’ll almost for sure be participating next time! To completely ape Mia, I would love to run another mini-challenge and I’m thinking about being a cheerleader. It’s so encouraging and motivating to receive comments and I’d love to do that for people. :)

Thank you to everybody who participated – whether you were hosting or cheering or just reading. The reason the RAT is so fun is because of all of the awesome participants (us included! :D).

Hour 20 Update

Hoo, boy. A couple of hours ago, Mia and I were going strong… Not so much anymore. IDK how much longer we’ll last. I may be hitting a second (third? fourth?) wind as I write this, but I’m not sure about Mia, who is still plugging away at Tekkonkinkreet and I just switched, after reading a bit of Riddley Walker, to Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler. In retrospect, it may have been foolish to leave Riddley until so late in the game – it requires more attention and energy than the average book, things that I do not have in large supply at the moment.

Mia and I were happy to see the Book Sentence mini-challenge go up at Midnight Book Girl. It’s a perennial favorite her at NBP. Mine is above – for whatever reason, I set up the books vertically to read from left to right, so the sentence should read, “The odyssey unveiled the warmth of other suns: brave new world.” (And thank you, Mia, for the use of your library.)

And here’s Mia’s: “Smoke and mirrors fool the general in his labyrinth.”

Thanks for hosting that and we’ll see how much longer we last. :P

Hour 18 Update

Hey, y’all! Hanging in there okay 18 hours in? We’re both doing pretty well; I’m reading Tekkonkinkreet and Jessica’s reading A Fountain Filled with Blood, but she’s thinking of switching to Riddley Walker. It’s about 10pm here on the West Coast of the US, and making it all the way till 5am might be a toughie but we’re gonna give it a go. And you know what we’ve got to tide us over as a midnight snack?

 

That’s right, suckers. HOMEMADE GUACAMOLE.

 

We actually ate this batch earlier, but there’s more in the fridge if either of us get a craving for some sweet, sweet avocado. (The secret ingredient? LOVE. Also possibly canned salsa.)

 

Oh! Also! We built this…creative book-clock as part of the Hour 16 Time Flies Mini-Challenge. So, going clockwise starting at the top, we’ve got: The Once and Future King by T. H. White; Three Hainish Novels by Ursula LeGuin; Life of Pi by Yann Martel; Four Major Plays by Aristophanes; Vurt by Jeff Noon; Babel-17 by Samuel Delany; Farm 54 by Galit and Gilad Seliktar; 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad; and City of a Thousand Suns by Samuel Delany again. Looking at this, I’m kind of glad regular clocks don’t go 1 – 3 – 3.14 – 4 – 12 – 17 – 54 – 172 – 1000. Being on time is hard enough as it is…

Hour 14 & Mid-Event Meme

Hour 14! Mia and I have made guacamole, completed our mini-challenge (you guys are so awesome we decided to give away TWO prizes), and still have not done a huge amount of reading. >.<

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired? I’m still going pretty strong, though I’m sure that will soon change. In one hour, we’ll have been up for twelve hours.
2) What have you finished reading? NOTHING. Augh. I made good progress in Dresden, but then I had to set it aside and have flitted a little since then. I’m settling into A Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming, but I don’t want to commit cause if I do it’ll probably be the only book I finish.
3) What is your favorite read so far? A Fountain Filled With Blood, so far! Love Clare and Russ.
4) What about your favorite snacks? Guacamole, definitely! So delicious.
5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love! Not yet. Sometimes afterwards I’ll go through and find blogs, but it’s already too hard to balance reading with mini-challenges! If I add social stuff, I won’t read a page!

Now, Mia! It’s your moment to shine!

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired? Actually, not yet! I was a bit this morning (even though we didn’t get up at the very start of the Thon) but I’m pretty well-energized now.
2) What have you finished reading? I haven’t actually finished anything yet–the nonfiction was going slowly, so I switched to a quicker read, which I’m about 2/3 of the way through.
3) What is your favorite read so far? I’ve liked both Wait Till Helen Comes (for its campiness) and Local Babies, Global Science (for its insight into infertility technology in Egypt).
4) What about your favorite snacks? That guac kicked ass. I would show y’all a picture if my computer were working properly! Unfortunately, the wireless card is on the fritz so we’ve had to borrow my boyfriend’s Macbook Air.
5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love! Madelaine, one of the winners of our Hour 10 Mini-Challenge, has a really fun tumblr that I’ve enjoyed checking out–the picture of her kitty sleeping on her legs makes me go “aww.”

Okay, y’all, back to the grindstone! (Bookstone? Grindbook?)

Read-a-Thon Mini Challenge Hour 10: Marking Books!

Hey, everybody! Congratulations, we’re almost halfway there. Right about now you might be needing a break, and so you’ll set aside whatever you’re reading at the moment. What better time to think of how to mark your place?

You have two options for your challenge this hour. 1) is to create a bookmark to stick in that book and take a picture of it. This can be paper-folding, illustrating, whatever you like! You could theme it to your book, or just make something pretty (or funny, like the one above). Handmade bookmarks are a great chance to be creative!

Or, if you’d prefer, 2) tell us about what you like to use as bookmarks and why. For example: Mia is marking her current book of choice with one free bookmark advertising Christopher Moore’s Fluke that she got free from Barnes & Noble years ago, and one business card for an alterations place here in town; she frequently marks books with receipts, scraps of paper, and sometimes even other books (how meta).

After you’ve photographed your bookmark or thought about your bookmarking choices, make a post on your blog and link back to it here–or simply leave a comment. We’ll randomly pick a winner at Hour 13 to get a book of their choice (worth up to $10) from the Book Depository. Now get marking!

Hour 4 Update

Though Mia and I didn’t get a picture of the delicious cinnamon toast with cream cheese we noshed on earlier, here is our chocolate chai brewing in her beautiful and amazing dragon teapot for the the Hour 3 snack mini-challenge over at Uniflame Creates.

The Hour 4 mini-challenege at A Literary Odyssey asked us what classic book should all high school kids read? Click on over and sift through over a hundred comments to find our answers. (Spoiler: Mia picked A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and I picked Beloved by Toni Morrison… as well as A Handmaid’s Tale.)

In reading news, I am working on Dead Beat by Jim Butcher, one of the Dresden Files book, and Mia is reading Local Babies, Global Science, which is a nonfiction book about gender and IVF in Egypt. We haven’t done too much reading yet, but it is still early!