Hi, everyone! Posting my Sunday update late cause we’ve been making a pie. Important reasons! But other than that, this week’s been pretty awesome, although it flew by quite fast. Reasons it was awesome?
- I did Dewey’s 24h #readathon!
- I had immense fun doing it and learned that I… pretty much don’t get tired of reading..?
- I read while cooking, while brushing my teeth, while hanging our laundry…
- I found out I can read for 8 hours straight before I get tired of it and need a break
- I read about 800 pages, 11 hours 20 minutes in total
- And I’m absolutely doing it again next year, if I can!!!
Did you participate in Dewey’s? How did you do? And maybe there was something else about your week you loved?
~ Last Week On The Blog ~
It was an exciting week on the blog as well. I was delighted with how much everyone enjoyed 5 Reasons To Read A Book By A Real Spaceman! I also posted the Episode 2 of Steampunk Magic In Petticoats (AKA my review for Weaver’s Lament by Emma Newman) and the blog tour stop post for It’s Just Nerves – Everything We Don’t Know About Ableism. I was very disappointed that that was the first review of mine that Amazon didn’t accept. Bit of a coincidence, Amazon?? Anyway. If you haven’t read those yet, you can check them out now:
~ Coming Up Next Week~
Next week I will review Quackery, a fun book about all the ways not to fix your health, that were sadly quite popular in times past. I will also review Kat and Meg Conquer the World, a great teen book about real friendship and being different. And I am super excited about the guest post we have at the end of the week, How To Be A Lady And Win At Adventuring! As told by a real adventurer herself – Joanna Kafarowski, who has gone on expeditions to the North Pole herself. She will tell us about three women who dared conquer what might seem unconquerable to us, and where we can read more about #girlpower like that.
P. S. I will be posting State of the ARC #3 on the 30th! So get your posts ready to join the link-up if you’ll be participating ❤️



~ Little Book Haul ~
I was hoping to have no books hauled this week! But alas, Early Bird Books came by with their awesome offer of getting four Alice Hoffman books for signing up. I’m but a human!! I can’t resist anything like THAT. I also got Real Quanta from Dundurn Press on NetGalley – a cool bit of pop-science non-fiction about how quantum mechanics isn’t really so far away from reality as it might seem.
~ In The Bookish Community ~
Alexandra Sokoloff guest posts on BTH Reviews with 10 Things You Didn’t Know about Being a Published Author
And of course you’ve all seen this by now, but I want to give a big round of applause to Cait @ PaperFury who shared that she’s getting her first novel published!!! Congratulations, Cait!!!
Lory @ The Emerald City Book Review asks us whether it’s the fantasy genre or her, or was it really so much better ten to twenty years ago?
David Gaughran talks about how Amazon punishes legitimate authors, although we know how it has treated real scammers in the past
R A I N @ The Withering Blog shares a post about life lessons from Thorin Oakenshield (from The Hobbit)
That’s it for this week! What’s new with you? Share your news and update links in the comments!
As usual, I’m linking up with the Sunday post meme at Kimba’s book blog and Stacking The Shelves over at Tynga’s Reviews.
I’m Evelina and I try to blog about books that matter, with a bit of fun there too! Disability and equality will be topics you see a lot, but there’s also a lot of scifi, fantasy and… GIFs. I’m also the proud founder of #ARCsAnonymous.
Oh wow, those Alice Hoffman books would have tempted me as well. I’ve loved everything of hers that I’ve read. Hope you enjoy your pie and that you have a wonderful week!
Thank you! Yeah, Alice Hoffman rocks. And the pie was also good 🙂 unfortunately, it is almost gone now!
Congrats on how much you read during Dewey’s 24h #readathon Evelina. I wish I could read as much as you did. Sadly, I didn’t participate because I did not have the time, but if I had I probably wouldn’t have read more than 100 pages (I’m a slow reader).
How could someone resist having books signed?! No respectable bookworm can pass such an opportunity (specially when you are an international bookworm).
Happy readings!
Tânia @MyLovelySecret
Dewey’s was so much fun! Thank you 🙂 I’m not a super fast reader, but I guess we can’t say I’m a slow reader either 🙂 I did spend a lot of time reading though. I just wanted to see how long I can go. It was an interesting test 🙂
Wow! More than 11 hours of reading in one day. You’re a beast! I have read a few of these readathon posts, and it sounds great, but I know how my attention span is. Glad you enjoyed it!
You are the one who reads 3h every day during your commute 😀 so I don’t think you’d have the attention span problem! You’d just take breaks 🙂 it was great fun!!
Oo Kat and Meg Conquer the World has been on my TBR list for a while now. I’m also super excited about your how to be a woman and adventure post! It looks interesting 🙂
Kat and Meg was a great book 🙂 only the writing slowed it down a bit, but the story was great.
Congrats on your progress with the readathon. I simply could not do 24 hours straight. I mean I have a 2 year old and soon to be newborn so I’d be so ill trying to deal with that from the lack of sleep. I need as close to 8 hours of sleep as possible. I have read 8 hours straight before though and loved every minute. Of course I never get to do that anymore either, but I love my littles. Hope you enjoy your new books!
Sandy @ Somewhere Only We Know
Oh, I went to bed at a normal time 🙂 I only read slightly over 11 hours. So I basically also just woke up at a regular time and went to bed at a regular time. Got no kids myself, but my sleep time is holy and I would not sacrifice it that easily 😀 sleep is important!
I realized I can read whenever and wherever I want as well. I can pretty much stay in bed all day and read if I’m inclined to do so. But I never participated in a readathon. I have the feeling if it’s required for me to read, if someone puts pressure on me, suddenly I will be interested in everything else than reading. 😀
I’m happy you did so well with this readathon and good luck with any future one!
Have a great day and happy reading!!
Somehow that didn’t happen to me 😀 I just felt like I had the luxury to read all day, but no goal or required time to push for, so I didn’t feel any pressure 🙂 I didn’t get tired of it either!
Nice haul of pretty reads. And I enjoyed your posts this week. I had a couple of reviews get rejected on Amazon. Turns out I just needed to clean up a bit of language. LOL They accepted them then. You sure can’t cuss on Amazon even though many of the books are loaded with it.
My Sunday Post
Don’t think I did, but I guess I’ll have to scan my review more closely when I have time!
I don’t use really offensive cuss words but just about any of them send out red flags. I leave it up on my blog but change it for the other sites. Or I say “s#!t instead of the actual word. LOL
Good point 🙂
Wow, you really did read a lot.. I can’t imagine reading too much in so less time 🙁
It is good to see that how many non-fiction you read? That’s pretty great. I can hardly read non-fiction apart from autobiography/non-biography/humour.
And that book haul looks amazing. I hope you enjoy them 🙂 Happy reading!
I basically just read all day 😀 but when you think about it? It’s not that much 😀 look at it like this. Your regular work day? 8 hours at the computer at work + an evening with a book. Now replace 8 of computer work with 8 hours of reading + an evening with a book. And you will get my reading time xD that’s it! So it’s really not that much when you think about it that way 😀 I used to feel this way about nonfiction as well, but you could say this year I basically just… Read more »
I’ve never participated in Dewey’s , but it always sounds fun. Enjoy your pie!
It was absolutely fun, you should do it next time 🙂
Well I can read for 8 hours straight too. I know that I’ve read 800 pages and more in one day in the past but now with the blog it’s been nearly impossible. Ironic as this is a book blog LOL
As far as your reads are concerned you have different tastes and that’s great as I get to learn about books I don’t usually read.
I know right, the book blog thing is sadly hilarious 😀 it’s such a joke!! Lol
But I kind of feel quite proud of the fact that I can now tell people “Look at this huge book. I finished it in under a day.” 😀 you know what feeling too, I’m sure!
I’m glad you still enjoy my blog despite the different reading tastes! Thankfully, my tastes don’t center around just one genre 🙂
I’m so happy your first read-athon was such a success! Timing is everything, isn’t it? It certainly helps if everyone is out of the house. It also helps if no special events come up.
Absolutely true 🙂 I’m so glad I could participate!
That’s a lot of reading for one day! I used to be able to read all night long, but not anymore. LOL.
Hope you have a great week!
Yep lol, nights are for sleeping! Sleep is important 🙂
What type of pie did you make!?! 🙂 I have no idea why pie suddenly sounds sooo delicious after all the sugar I consumed during the readathon. I was the slowest reader EVER with 855 pages over 18 hours – I kept getting distracted by all the bright shiny things on twitter 🙂 Looking forward to “How to be a Lady and Win at Adventuring” (because all us Ladies like to win, right?) 🙂
Actually, in my country pies are…not a thing! I’m serious. Only cakes. So my boyfriend made it. We had the hardest time even finding a tin for it! He made an apple pie and it was GREAT 🙂
But you read so long! Speeds depend on the book. It took me ages to finish my first book of the day, but the second one went a lot easier. It’s all in the writing style!
I was surprised I wasn’t lured in by Twitter a lot! I guess I was just determined 😀
Oh what kind of pie were you making? And that’s definitely a good reason to post a bit later. Sounds like you had fun with the readathon, I know some other bloggers who participate, but I haven’t participated so far. That’s neat you got so much read! Have a great week!
You should try it next time, the readathon was so much fun 🙂 and we made apple pie!
Congrats on doing the readathon! I have never participated the whole 24 hours…just a few, with a break, and then a few more. I enjoyed two of those Alice Hoffman books: At Risk and Fortune’s Daughter. Recently I read The Rules of Magic. Amazon can be unpredictable…they rejected one of mine once, so I changed a few things and resubmitted it. It worked. I had my issues with Amazon a few years ago, when we had a profile page that included “Amazon Friends.” They started objecting to reviews from our friends on books we wrote. Weird, right, since the people… Read more »
Yeah, I was never going to go for the full 24 🙂 it’s too much for me! Sleep is POWER.
Yeah, the friends bit is definitely weird. Introducing a system and then punishing you for it? Oh, Amazon.
The Dewey’s Readathon sounds like fun. And how great that you were able to read so much. Every time I join a readathon I’m not able to really read all that much. Bad luck I guess.
Have a great week and happy reading!
It’s alright as long as you read at least something 🙂 readathons are really there just to motivate us, I think.
Thanks for dropping by!
You did great on the readathon. I’ve always wanted to do that but I just didn’t have time. Plus, I’m a slow reader needing many breaks.
I hope you have a great week!
I hope you have time one of these days 🙂 the good thing about these readathons is that you can actually take frequent breaks 🙂
I need to get to Weaver’s Lament! I enjoyed the first book.
Ooh! Have you posted a review? Maybe you could find me a link? I’d love to read it 🙂
You did great with the readathon. Now, on to important questions. What kind of pie? LOL Hope the week ahead is a good one for you.
Very important question! It was apple pie 🙂 and it was the first one in my life, cause my country actually doesn’t do pies (only cakes). My virgin pie! 😀 I loved it.
WOW, congratulations on the readathon! I never tried to read that much for such a long period of time – 11 hours, wow, and eight without even getting tired. That’s crazy. Also, It’s so good that you didn’t get tired of reading at all during that time, I don’t know if I would or not ahah…. I should try maybe sometime? Now, I’m curious about it ahah 😛
Hope you’ll have a lovely week! xx
You should absolutely try 🙂 it was loads of fun!! Definitely worth it – if only to see how long you can go. I actually joined just to challenge myself and I had fun as a collateral 😀 it was great.
Thanks!
Congratulations on the readathon – you did so very well! The family all took part – and I was the one who fell asleep over my book this afternoon… It’s been a great week for you – and small wonder you fell off the waggon for those Alice Hoffman books! I hope the coming week is also a great one for you:))
Thank you 🙂 it’s so awesome that your whole family joined (I am imagining a cat or a dog joining too. I can’t help it!!)
So how long did you all read?
lol… we don’t have any pets, though I’m sure they would have joined in if we had. Himself completed a book. Oscar (aged 7) managed three chapters of a chapter book, Frances (12 and dyslexic) managed two fanfic short stories and I got to chapter 18 – and fell asleep!! I blame the flu. But I’m so proud of the grandchildren. We were all snuggled up together on the settee and Frances was giggling away at the jokes and sharing some of them with us. It was lovely and they thought it hilarious that I was the one that started… Read more »
Sounds amazing, I would be incredibly proud of them 🙂
Thank you, Evelina – I certainly am proud of them:)
Oh wow, you read for 8 hours straight! I could never do that, I get restless easily and even with audiobooks I need breaks. I did join in readathon though and had a great day.
That’s the thing!! I normally get super restless too! I don’t even know why that time it was different. Maybe the readathon put me in the right frame of mind 🙂 not even Twitter got me distracted (which is just purely weird!)
I can read for a long time, too, especially if I’m really into a book. I’ll read all day to finish. I’ve read all night to finish a book a few times, too! Congrats on a successful read-a-thon. 🙂
Thank you 🙂 reading all night usually has painful consequences though 😀 I’m glad I didn’t stay up too long.
What kind of pie did you make?
I’ve seen Dewey’s Readathon, but I haven’t participated. One of these times I will have to give it a go.
You totally should, it was great fun 🙂 and we made apple pie!
Congrats on the readathon!! I can’t do anything for 8 hours straight. I just don’t have that kind of attention span. Plus, I can usually finish a book in 2-3 hours, and I am not inclined to start another one right away. I need a break.
Back when I was in college though, we used to stay up all night reading! It was the best thing ever!
I’ve had a full time job before, so I assume that’s probably why I could pull those 8 hours straight 🙂 that is the regular full time span… I guess you read faster than me 🙂 I also thought I’d need a break, but I was happy to find I actually didn’t 🙂
I’ve always wanted to take part in Dewey’s readathon, but every time it rolls around I’m always swamped with work, I will definitely have to try and make time for it next time! Well done on all the reading that you managed to do! Nowadays its just taking me days to even finish one book! I hope you have a great week! 🙂
You just have to make your own little Dewey’s 😀 I hope you can participate next time 🙂
I didn’t participate in Dewey. I’m not sure I would. Was so busy last week. Glad that you did it and enjoyed it. I hope you enjoy your books this week and have an awesome week. Happy reading. ❤️
It was truly a great experience 🙂 thank you!
Wow, I wish I could read that many books and for the amount of time. Hope you have a great week!
Thank you! I don’t know when I can read that much next time 🙂 it was great!
[…] Avalinah @AvalinahsBooks […]
You missed the most important part, what type of pie?!
Wow, go you on those readathon stats! You’re a reading machine!
Oh no, why did Amazon reject your review? They work in mysterious ways over there.
I hope you enjoy your week 🙂
Hahaha, apple pie 😀 maybe I just wanted everyone to keep guessing! It seems to have worked too, cause everyone is asking 😀
Thanks! The readathon was loaaaaads of fun 🙂
The readathon sounds crazy! Divine, but crazy. 🙂 I”m not sure I would be allowed to read so long because I have a 3yo… A very demanding one at that! But then again, aren’t they all? 🙂 I would LOOOOVE to try though.
Oh gosh! State of the ARC! I need to sort my life out and link up. 🙂 Thanks for the reminder!
Hope you have another awesome week this week!
Yeah, that would be tough 🙂 maybe you can arrange a nanny or grandma night 😀 think of this as a little vacation 😀 yes, please link up again, we’re expecting you 🙂 <3
Oh wow! I did it again. I read this post and left the page up but kinda forgot to leave a comment. Huh? Funny how I keep doing that.
Thanks for sharing all the bookish news. I didn’t realize Cait was being published and that is a big deal, so thanks for telling me.
I didn’t participate in Dewey this year but OMG 8 hours of reading sounds like heaven! Maybe I should make plans for next year. Have a great week!
Haha 😀 that’s alright! The main part is reading anyway 🙂 yes, isn’t it awesome that she’s getting published? We know a soon to be famous writer xD
You should totally make plans for next year, it’s soooo much fun 🙂 I didn’t even expect it to be this much fun.
You did fantastic with the readathon! Good for you! I got such visuals when you mentioned while brushing your teeth and hanging laundry. LOL Those are good talents to have! 🙂
Hope you enjoy all those Alice Hoffman books!
Hahah 😀 well, the reading is slower that way, but at least you’re still reading, right 😀 and thanks!
Ahh so exciting for the readathon! I wish I had time to binge read like that, some book are better when you binge read. Have a great week!
Yeah, I was lucky I had a free Saturday like that 🙂
I have not done a Dewey’s Readathon… Between work and Hubby I don’t get to do readathons. I don’t think I could read 800 pages at one sitting. Although I read and listen as much as I can between working and blogging. 🙂
I like the looks of Weaver’s Lament.
Happy Reading this week too!
I hope one day you can do a readathon 🙂 best way to use up a vacation, I guess 😀
I love that you read an eclectic assortment of fiction and non-fiction books, like me! I can’t do read-a-thons because my eyes get too tired after a while and I need to take breaks. All the books in your post appeal to me. Enjoy your new stash! And thanks for visiting my blog.
I also thought my eyes would get super tired, but in the end it was just the same as a working day at the office, so it didn’t feel very different 🙂
Wow, you did great with your readathon. I’m hoping to start Hoffman’s Rules of Magic soon but other than Practical Magic, haven’t read any of her other works. Hope you have a great week!
Thanks 🙂 I can truly recommend Faithful by Alice Hoffman as well 🙂
I now know, by just skimming through these comments, that you made an apple pie. Silly, Evelina! Why didn’t you post photos or somesuch? Because obviously everyone wanted to know about the pie first and foremost. 😉 I’m so proud of your work with the Dewey readathon!!! I am intimidated by such readathons. I love to read, but I feel a strange obligation to the world around me to get work done, so I often don’t read as much as I could. I also don’t get tired of reading — but I do get tired! I tend to stay up… Read more »
1. Actually, it was Ebil who made the pie 😀 2. There are no photos cause we devoured it MUCH too quickly. Also, isn’t it more enticing NOT TO have the photos? 😀 3. You should check your Twitter DMs for photos of another pie 😀 if you so insist! LOL Anyway. I suggest you do Dewey’s next time! It’s incredible fun. And ultimately, you DO deserve at least ONE day a year when everyone just leaves you alone and you can read. ONE DAY!! I think I only did so well because I didn’t set any goals at all… Read more »
I see now what the Hoffman books you were speaking of are! Definitely irresistible! 😛 And man… 8 straight hours of reading? Honestly.. You have some amazing exploits up your sleeves! No way can I stay still for that many hours without alternating with other things. I blame this age of technology where multitasking got so much more easier! 😀
You know, that’s usually the case for me too, but I think this time it was the determination, because I didn’t have any trouble whatsoever with Twitter or any other distractions. Or maybe it was just the timer that I started and had to stop every time I did something 😀 but it was totally fun!!