Thankfully Reading Weekend 2016

Thankfully Reading Weekend

is one of my favorite events of the year. It is a nice break from Thanksgiving hustle and bustle and much better than all the Black Friday and shopping madness.

This year I am celebrating Thanksgiving at my parents house. I am going to make two dishes to take to our potluck. I love that we do a potluck. It takes off the pressure on one person to do all the cooking.

I have a large TBR pile for this weekend. I know I won't get a chance to read them all because I won't have that much time. My goal is to at least finish two books.

I have a photo session Friday and the Gilmore Girls comes out that day too so I won't get much reading done that day. But Saturday and Sunday I have no plans except for editing photos.

I will be reading a combination of print, ebook and audiobook. I am starting out with

The Handmaid's Tale

on audiobook read by Claire Danes. I love this book and I thought it was an appropriate time to read it again. I purchased it in the big Audible sale earlier this year and am excited to listen to the audiobook this time.

My sisters also love to read so I am sure we will be swapping recommendations at Thanksgiving. I will pass them on if I receive them.

This year I am going to do one big post for Thankfully Reading so I will update here.

Wednesday

7:30 pm

Well its been a busy day with running errands to get ready for Thanksgiving, cooking and editing photos. But I still have managed to spend plenty of time reading and listening to my audiobook. I finished

Crazy In Love

 earlier. It is pretty funny and one of my favorite Lani Diane Rich books so far.

My next book is

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

. It is a retelling of The Tempast. Loving it so far. I just realized I am reading two Margaret Atwood books. My house smells delicious from the cornbread I made for tomorrow and the mustard pork loin I made for dinner. Yummy!

11:50 pm

I am really enjoying Hag-Seed. Its a modern day retelling of The Tempast. A theatre art director who was screwed over by his right hand man seeks long term revenge. I love how he teaches prisoners how to act and put on productions. I enjoy all the characters he works with and their Shakespearian curse words! I also started a new book

Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover

. I saw this book all over Instagram so I thought I would get it from the library. It's about a deaf songwriter who finds a muse in his neighbor. I am loving it so far. Well I am headed to bed so I won't be totally worthless for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Pages read: 575

Audiobook time: 5 hours 6 minutes

Books finished: 1

Thursday

10:30am

Happy Thanksgiving! I am so excited to go to my parents house and eat lots of delicious food. We have the best cooks in our family. My Grandma's dressing is my favorite dish. It is so yummy. I am surprised how much reading I got done this morning. I am almost done with Hag-Seed and about half way through my audiobook. Well I am headed out. I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving day!

Pages read: 97

Audiobook time:  2 hours 22 minutes

Books finished: 1

Friday

10:50 pm

Well it has been a busy couple of days. I ended up staying at my parents house yesterday until about 6 pm. Once we got home and made delicious leftovers I wanted to watch the last episode of season seven of Gilmore Girls in order to be ready for the new episodes. We were about twenty minutes in when all the power went out and we heard a big boom. It must have been a transformer box exploding. It was awful. Our whole neighborhood was so dark. So I didn't get a chance to read because my book light battery was dead.

I had a photo session this morning that was so fun. It was an awesome, hilarious family. I stopped by Dunkin Donuts on the way home and got a half dozen doughnuts. And my husband and I preceded to watch all four episodes of the Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life with only occasional breaks for his work phone calls. No spoilers for GG so I won't say how I felt. Still need to process.

And I have just been reading since we finished watching GG. I finished Hag-Seed. Loved it! It turned out to be such a good book and I recommend it highly. I am about to finish Maybe Someday and I hope to start another book before bed but we shall see. I bought the audiobook of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe since it was on sale on Amazon/Audible so I will start that when I finish The Handmaid's Tale. I will be listening to a lot of audio the rest of the weekend as I have five photo sessions to process.

Pages read: 326

Audiobook time: 2 hours

Books finished: 3

Saturday

7:00 pm

Well I haven't read that much today. I have been busy running errands, spending time with my husband and working. I finished the Handmaid's Tale audiobook and started listening to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I also started Lily and Dunkin which is heartbreaking.

Pages read: 298

Audiobook time: 2 hours 51 min

Books finished: 2

Sunday

12:00 pm

I have been terrible about updating my blog. But I have been reading in between doing other things. I planned to read all this morning and then edit photos this afternoon but my husband tricked me into going shopping this morning and we just got home. I am exhausted. I hate to shop with a burning passion and I tried on way too many clothes and we went to way too many stores. But I am excited for the few things I found. When we stopped for lunch I just blatantly pulled my book out of my bag and started reading as my husband was composing some work emails. I mean if he was on his phone  may as well read. Late last night I started The Last Boy and Girl in the World. I am excited to read more of it later today. For the time being I am going to continue to listen to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe while editing the sweetest newborn photos. I will check in later. I hope everyone is enjoying the final day of Thankfully Reading!

Pages read: 466

Audiobook time: 4 hours 3 min

Books finished: 2

Wrap Up

I felt like I really didn't read that much this Thankfully Reading weekend but I look at my numbers and they tell a different story. This is the first year in a long time that I didn't start the weekend on Tuesday so I had less time and was really busy during the weekend. But I still made time for reading. I didn't really get a chance to participate much on

Twitter

,

Instagram

and

Litsy

like I planned. But I finished nine books and that is WAY over my goal of two! This weekend seemed to whiz by so fast. All in all it was another fun reading even. Thanks so much

Jenn

for hosting it!

Totals:

Total pages read: 1762

Total audiobook time:  14 hours  20 min

Books finished: 9

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2014

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all time. I love fall, eating and hanging out with my family so it is the perfect combination! Over the past few years I have also added my love of reading to the mix by participating in

Thankfully Reading

. Thankfully Reading is November 27-30 and is a way to stay at home and relax while shopping and Black Friday nonsense is going on.  There are no rules just to read whenever you get time. I love this challenge and really enjoy my time Thankfully Reading and blogging about it. This is usually the only time I ever consistently blog! I have been setting aside some books as they come in specifically to read that weekend. This is what I have set aside. I will probably also throw an audiobook in there to read while driving and cooking.

I actually will start my Thankfully Reading a day early on Wednesday. This year I probably won't make it through half the books as I have a

concert

Saturday and a

photo shoot

Sunday. The good news is Thanksgiving is back at my parents house so I won't have that stress the day of Thanksgiving hosting. Check back Thanksgiving week for more updates. You can also keep track with me on my

Thankfully Reading Goodreads shelf

 and

my Twitter account

. And if you want to see what my previous Thankfully Reading weekends were like check them out

here

,

here

,

here

,

here

and

here

!

Thankfully Reading 2011: Wrap-Up

It has taken me awhile to write my wrap up post since I have been so busy with school. I happy with the reading I got done over the weekend. It wasn't as much as I had planned but I was able to read a couple of books I had been wanting to read for awhile.

I read the last half of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. This book was wonderful. I really enjoyed it. It was very suspenseful at the end and I caught myself holding my breath through some of it.

Next I read Pegasus by Robin McKinley. I bought this Nook book as soon as it came out but knew that was a book I would want to be able to read in just a few days. I am glad I waited. It was a terrific book! Once again she created this magical world that sucks you in. Love it!

Next I started on The Girl Who Played With Fire audio book. I basically just listened to this when I was driving or cooking. This is another great book. I haven't finished it yet but I am having a hard time turning it off when I have school work to do.

The next book I read was Buffalo West Wing by Julie Hyzy. This was a good book. I always enjoy the mishaps and adventures of Ollie.

I started on The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurt but I haven't had the chance to finish it yet.

I am happy with all the reading I got done over Thanksgiving and I am hoping when school lets out next week I will have a very Merry Reading December!

Thankfully Reading Mini-Challenge #1

Jenn's Bookshelves

has set a Thankfully Reading Mini-Challenge to tell what book you are most thankful for. This is a hard question because there are so many books I am thankful for.

I really can't narrow down a single book so I have gone with an entire series. The Betsy-Tacy Series are the books I am most thankful for. They have been my favorite books for years but they have become very special to me. I was laid off two years ago and it was a very difficult time for me as I had to transition from working 60 plus hours per week in my dream job to being unemployed. I began to experience anxiety and one of the few things that could help me curb this was reading the Betsy-Tacy books. They are so warm, familiar and comforting. I will always be thankful for these books for helping me get through that difficult time!

My Favorite Books

Clearly my adventure didn't begin in June because I have neglected my blog since then. It was a busy summer with my Global Studies class for five hours per day. Now that the holidays are upon us and school is winding down(finals in 2 weeks:-) I am going to attempt to really begin my reading adventure.
I have been motivated by Thankfully Reading Weekend over at Jenn's Bookshelves. I have all day Friday and Saturday to read until I work on Sunday. So I plan on reading at least 4 books this weekend as my TBR pile is really big!
First, before I start reading I want to talk about a few of my favorite authors and books. Of course at the top of my list is Maud Hart Lovelace and L.M. Montgomery. However, the Anne of Green Gables books(Rilla is my favorite book in that series) are at the bottom of my list for L.M. Montgomery.
The Emily books are my favorite. I love the story of the orphan girl who goes to a farm and changes the lives of all the people around her. I love the way L.M. Montgomery writes. She paints these beautiful word pictures and brings them to life. I also love the Pat of Silver Bush series. I never fail to sob my heart out when Bets dies even at 28 years old!
My favorite "stand alone" L.M. Montgomery book is The Blue Castle. That book I have read too many times to count. I love when Valancy finally tells her family what she has been thinking all these years. What an empowering moment!


My favorite books of all time are the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. I discovered these books "later" in life as I was about fifteen the first time I read them. It is funny how I can so vividly remember a moment like reading a book for the first time. I clearly remember the moment I first picked up a Betsy-Tacy book. It was Betsy's Wedding and I loved it. It had a pink cover and Vera Neville's wonderful drawing of Betsy with a veil swirling about her face(probably why I picked it up in the first place as I was obsessed with weddings at the time). Although I always felt it was a shame that I read the last one first! It was years before I would read Betsy and Joe or Betsy and the Great World as our library didn't carry them. My favorite book is Betsy and Joe. I love how Betsy struggles with remaining loyal to Tony even though Joe is the guy she wants. I love how the Betsy-Tacy books were written years ago and set in the early 1900's but still resonated with a teen in the 90's and even now as an adult in 2010. In fact as part of Thankfully Reading Weekend I plan to start re reading all the high school books. By the way I love that Harper Perennial Modern Classics reissued all the high school books. I absolutely hated the versions I have without Vera Neville drawings on the cover so I purchased all the new reissues. I am so happy that people still see the value of these books.
I have many other favorite books and authors but I will stop now with these two. Time to start reading!