Athena

I wish you lots of fun !!

that's not nice at all, I hope you get more into reading soon

Still Alice is on my TBR (I must've missed it when I posted last time), I'm glad to hear you liked it!

This sounds interesting!

Welcome here ! What kind of genres/books do you like to read?

Welcome here! I own a few Mike Gayle books, I haven't read them yet. Glad to hear you like them.

Cookie, that's terrible, I hope things work out for the best , that you get your sight back.

I've added Nicholas Sparks - The Wedding to the plan, because I'm in a sort of a (Nicholas Sparks) discussion read group on GR that'll read The Wedding next month. So far most of the reads have been books I don't own and not much discussion has happened at all, but if I feel up for it I might read it. I'm still quite excited about our read-a-thon, I'm looking forward to do lots of reading and read all your' progress etc. I do worry I've selected too many books and I'll have trouble picking next week .

This might be interesting, I've seen him on TV when I was in Britain, he's a funny and nice guy .

x Awww, I hope he feels better soon. x x That's great news ! I hope it goes well. For my own news, it is possible I may be able to graduate in July-August after all. We'll have to see what the committee says. The professor is willing to do a good word for me, as is hopefully the study advisor. Since he's known me for quite some years, he knows I'm a hard-working committed student and will hopefully be positive about me too.

x Thanks! I'll bookmark it . x x Thank you! I'll keep it in mind (maybe it'll be one of the last books I read on Sunday or something, or I may not read it just yet, for the read-a-thon).

x This is great to hear! I bought the book a while ago (it's on the TBR) and have heard/read one review of it (a good/positive review). I'm glad to hear you like it!

Thanks x x Thanks, I don't have any energy leftover atm for anything like that, but perhaps in the future when I'm done studying . It sounds like a really nice idea imo.

Nice, I'm glad you got them then .

Wow, I think participating in NaNoWriMo would be way too much pressure for me! I've added to the plan Banana Yoshimoto - Hardboiled Hard Luck and haven't yet added to my pile (yes I made several piles so much fun) a Charles Dickens book or the Sookie Stackhouse book (the latter because I'd have to open up the plastic so I don't want to do that yet if I'm not sure I'm going to read it). I'm very tempted to start A Game of Thrones soon so I may already be reading it or have finished it by the time it's read-a-thon time .

Thanks, vodkafan . I've read Roald Dahl - The Witches. This was a re-read for me, I've read the book in Dutch when I was a child. Now I read it in English. Like Matilda, I really like this book. It's such a great, innovative story. The illustrations by Quentin Blake are beautiful. While I read the book, I kept having images from the film pop up in my head now and then, I've seen the film last a few years ago whereas I hadn't read the book since I was a child. Rating: 5/5 (*****)

I just finished reading Roald Dahl - The Witches. Just as good as I remember it to be. Now what to read next as a story book.. (I'm still reading two information books as well)

I plan to stay away from the computer for the most part (except those times where I want to read other's progress and type my own). The computer (the internet) is one of my biggest distractions. I plan to have lunch and dinner with my family, so that will take up a bit of time. I might tell them what I'm doing and maybe I'll be excused from cooking and cleaning up . I don't know, I'd have to talk with them. I think I still should feed the animals, because it doesn't take up a lot of time if I'm quick but I could talk with my family. It'll be a weekend so they should be around. I normally eat and drink something with my family around coffee and teatime but I could just do that in my room with a mueslibar and some water (or something), that would save some time. My dad is giving an important talk soon after that weekend, I did tell him I'd be happy to listen to his practising if he needs any help (and I won't retract that statement). I also may do a bit of uni work. Overall I should have quite a few hours to read I hope . Hopefully at least 8 hours each weekend day so total should be at least 16. Possibly 10-15 hours each day so total would be 20-30. I'm hoping the reading won't tire me out too much, that's why I tried to picked shorter reads mainly, so it'd keep me going more easily. An big, epic story will need some time to sink in. EDIT: Frankie, if you are on your own, maybe pre-peparing (a) certain meal(s) of the day might be a good idea. That way you could just take it out of the cupboard/fridge/freezer and eat it. I recommend keeping some water near you or another drink, while you read, and maybe something to eat. I have a sink close by where I plan on reading so it's not a big problem to get up and drink water. Where do you plan on reading? I normally read behind the computer quite a bit, but for the read-a-thon I plan to read on my sofa since then the computer won't distract me and it's more comfortable. If the weather is good I might read outside for a while but today we may actually reach a cold-record so not sure if it'll be good weather in two weeks.

I think it's very admirable, that you want to do volunteer work, frankie. I've never done any volunteer work myself, unless you count helping out my family in some way or another, as volunteer work. The reason is my disability, I can't do much work. My energy levels are too low. Many volunteer work involves social situations and noises, this would be way too tiring for me. I'm having trouble keeping up with life as it is. However I do find it very admirable of people, that they do this work. If I had tons of energy, I might consider helping in the library or something with dogs (like you, frankie), maybe something administrative. I do like helping other people (if I had tons of energy, I'd probably want do research on something to help people). But I can't really imagine what such a life is like, really. I don't think helping my family really counts, we help each other when needed. I've helped my sister many times with her school work back when she was in secondary school (I helped my brother a bit too but he needed it less and he had two big sisters to get help from, where my sister only has one). I just wanted to mention it though so I don't look too selfish .

It's great to have you three participating ! x I'm a bit the same, I'm not quite sure yet what I'll have read by that time. Never the less, here are some books I'm thinking about (some I'm pretty sure they'll be on the pile, some I don't know yet. Obviously I've got to limit it XD. Where there are listed several per genre, I'll likely only pick one (two if they're short), and I won't pick all genres): Manga: Natsumi Ando - Wild @ Heart Vol. 1-3 (I haven't heard anything about this, I picked it up at random for a really cheap price at the book fair XD) Detective: A. C. Baantjer - Baantjer 1: Een Strop voor Bobby (Dutch detective) Information: For Dummies book (it depends how far I'm with the current one by then. I expect I'll have finished it, so will pick another one.) [Kindle] Children's: Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (re-read) Paranormal: Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 1: Dead Until Dark (Starting this would mean starting the series) (unsure) YA: Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars 1: Pretty Little Liars Literature: H. P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland Charles Dickes - Oliver Twist Contemporary Fiction & chick-lit: Nicholas Sparks - The Wedding Garth Stein - The Art of Racing in the Rain (I believe it was frankie who recommended this?) Jojo Moyes - Me Before You Banana Yoshimoto - Hardboiled Hard Luck Talli Roland - Miracle at the Museum of Broken Hearts [Kindle] Fantasy: George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire 1: A Game of Thrones (if I haven't started it by then) James Clemens - The Banned & The Banished 1: Wit'ch Fire (re-read) David B. Coe - The Chronicles of Lontobyn 1: Children of Amarid (re-read) (only one of these two re-reads) Sci-fi Iain M. Banks - Culture 4: The State of the Art Isaac Asimov - Foundation 1: Foundation (it would mean starting a new series) Horror Stephen King - It Maybe a few QuickReads. [Kindle] Other than what's mentioned, perhaps I'll include some more shorter Kindle books or short stories. I would like to have a mix between paperbooks and Kindle (with probably the balance leaning towards paperbooks). Hmm, now that I think about it, I keep adding more and more to this list (to be fair, I also did cross some off that I had in my mind). I'll have to lessen it a bit . Hopefully I'll have some time on both Saturday and Sunday. Friday I'm either working on my uni stuff or really tired from working on it, so it's not the best time. I may be able to get a bit of reading done, but that's as far as it goes. At the end of the week it's usually me lying down trying to rest.

I'm quite interested in London (both historical and modern day), I'll have to look into some of these titles .

x x Adding these two posts to the dates, I propose the weekend of the 30-05 01-06 02-06, since it's a weekend a lot of people are available and it's pretty soon. What do you think, is it too soon? Until the date, maybe we could post our plans / TBRs? I'd love to hear what you all are planning on reading. I've got some books lined up but I can't read all of them ( ) so I'll have to choose. Decisions, decisions..

x Thanks ! I'll have to take look into them sometime .

My copy of Alice in Wonderland in Alice in Wonderland & Alice Through the Looking-Glass has 144 pages, my copy of Alice in Wonderland in The Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll has 100 pages. It is short, I agree. I hope this helps .

The only question now becomes, which weekend ? The next up weekends: 30-05 / 1-2 June (this is in two weeks, earliest possible due to various people's work schedules) 7-8-9 June 14-15-16 June (Frankie is unavailable, holiday (this is the correct weekend you are unavailable?)) 21-22-23 June (Athena may be unavailable, boyfriend may be coming over (I should know this in a bit)) 28-29-30 June (Athena may be unavailable, RoboCup) 5-6-7 July 12-13-14 July 19-20-21 July (people may be on holiday?) <and so on> Feel free to tell me your preferences, if any. I've only included Frankie and myself so far since those dates have been discussed.