READ-A-THON IS ALMOST HERE AND I'M SO EXCITED I'M SHOUTING THIS AT YOU!!!

It's Read-a-Thon weekend! I think I started participating in this in 2016, which isn't very long ago, but it means I've done six of them. I missed last spring due to life being awful right then, but there was a surprise event over the summer, so I think my numbers are right.

For the first time I've offered to Do Something for the event, not just participate. I'm hosting a challenge (with TWO different prizes!). I'm not going to tell you anything about it though. You have to come see for yourself during the read-a-thon.

Side note: I hate writing read-a-thon because of all the hyphens, but it looks weird without them, and RAT is not a very compelling acronym.

I haven't put as much forethought into snacks as I used to, although I do plan on stopping by Trader Joe's on my way home from work Friday to get wafer cookies, soup, chopped veggies, and caramel. (Okay, maybe I've put a little thought into snacking.)

I am kind of approaching this read-a-thon as a chance to wrap up some really good books I somehow haven't gotten around to finishing, and to read a few of the adult books I own. I usually only buy books for my classroom, yet I still end up owning books that sit and gather dust despite looking really good.

I know I am going to finish these books:

• Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes. I was reading it to one of my classes, then I got sick and missed a bunch of school, and they finished it with the sub!
• The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork. I've been meaning to read more Stork for YEARS, because I was so impressed with Marcelo in the Real World, and I am pretty sure I've brought this book home from my classroom library over at least 3 different vacations in hopes that I'd read it. Then a student read it and told me how good it is, so now I HAVE to read it. I started it at school yesterday, and it's heavy, but beautiful. 
• The Fate of the Tearling by Ericka Johansen is the final book in the trilogy I got super into over spring break. I'm reading an ebook of it, which isn't that common for me, but I was in Seattle and needed to keep going with the series.

Books I might pick up again:

• Unpresidented by Martha Brockenborough is a great look at Tr*mp's life and history, and when I started it, I kept sticky-noting pages that I wanted to rant to my husband about. (Yes, he's a lucky guy.) But it is also kind of upsetting to pick up a book with that face smirking at me from the cover. 
• No Time to Spare by my personal and literary hero, Ursula K. Le Guin is her final collection of essays. I read the first two in the bookstore, but haven't continued, in part because I hate the thought of her voice being gone. 

Books I own and would like to read:

• The Year of Reading Dangerously
• Unsheltered
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People

Random books from the library and my classroom that I've had my eye on and will probably cave in and read instead of reading the stuff above for some weird reason:

• Maud
• The Way You Make Me Feel
• Internment
• The Disasters

Obviously, my list is a bit long, but that's so I can mood read at will. The first couple of times I participated, I tried to be really organized about my time and checking in and tracking my energy levels and doing challenges and all that. I started feeling like I was spending half of my time documenting what I was doing with the other half, so the last few times, I've mostly just read, with a pre- and post- blog post.

Obviously, I'm changing it up again this time with the challenge I'm hosting, and I have this bee in my bonnet (not literally; that would be terrible, as well as slightly odd since most of us don't wear bonnets these days) about taking a walk sometime during the daylight hours, and not while listening to an audiobook. Just a quiet walk. Unless it's raining like it is today. We'll see. It's read-a-thon, and that means I get to do whatever I want.

Anyone else joining in? It's going to be LIT. 

(Sorry/not sorry.)