Thursday 30 April 2015

Kristine's Taleathon TBR!

If you didn't read our last update: We've made our own little readathon! We've given it the silly name Taleathon, mostly because it was short, and catathon sounded a bit, well, worse? Idk. It starts isn 14 hours for me, as I am writing this, and I thought I'd come up with a TBR and stuff!

I have only three books I might want to read on paper, the rest are all e-books. I've got Magic Burns by Illona Andrews, because I've got it checked out of the library and I've started it, but not picked it up for a week so I want to finish that. Then I've got Virginia Woolf's Orlando because that is the next book I want to read. I don't think I'll get to that, but you never know. Then I've got the first Locke & Key volume because I was supposed to read that last year, but it has been sitting on my night stand since I borrowed it (from Katastrofekat, who then got a box set of all of them and kindly let me keep this one so the pressure went off entirely!).

In addition to those I might read Vengeance Bound by Justina Ireland because someone recommended it to me and I've read the beginning and it was compelling. Lastly I've planned on reading the graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh because it's been on my reading list for a while and it is a graphic novel. I am saving the stories with pictures in them for Saturday, as that is free comic book day and that obviously makes thematic sense... In addition I'll probably be reading a little poetry, which I rarely do, or some essay or other, but I'm putting off that decision for a while longer.

Tuesday 28 April 2015

Cat's Tale Readathon! #Taleathon (May 1-3)

I was complaining that I can't seem to finish any books recently, and that I should have a little readathon for myself this weekend. Then Kat said she might join in and we figured we might as well bring it to the blog! So here we are, with a little last-minute readathon! No prizes, no competition, no rules, no requirements to participate outside "read something". The idea is just to read more than you would normally, but we have a few challenges if you (like us) like to check things off a list to feel like your are making progress!

We want you to finish that book you've been reading forever, but keep putting down for other things, try a new genre or a new format, broaden your reading life a little bit, try a new author, and move outside your comfort zone a little bit!

Entirely optional challenges:
Read a graphic novel or comic (Saturday is Free comic Book Day, so we encourage you to read one then!)
Read something translated
Read something by a non-white author
Read something by a LGBTQIA author
Read a different text type/format than you normally read (ex. if you read novels normally you might try a poem, short story, essay or non-fiction of some kind).

We want to challenge ourselves to read more, more stories, more diversely, more types of writing. We on't count books, instead we're counting works (so you count a poem, an essay and a novel equally, and if you, like me will try to finish things you've started a while ago write that up too!). If you want to count otherwise you are free to do so, pages, panels or whatever! You can make a TBR or you can read randomly, you can quietly read along and say nothing, or you can be chatty and write posts and tweets and whatevers all the time!

In Norway (where we live) May 1 is a national holiday (labour day) and so we figured we'd start reading the first minute of May 1 and keep reading until the last minute of May 3. Well, when we're not sleeping, procrastinating or spending some time with people that want to see our faces that is. We're GMT +2 hours (Central European Summer Time be damned!) and will start reading at 00:00 May 1, and end at 23:59 May 3, but you are welcome to start according to your timezone, but we'll probably not be active before/after (okay maybe we will, who knows!) our own zone.

We will be present here on the blog (daily updates) and on our twitter account, where we will be using the hashtag #Taleathon because why not? Feel free to use it too and keep us from talking to ourselves all the time! Our twitter: https://twitter.com/cats_tale

If you want tips on diverse reading: http://bookriot.com/tag/readdiverseFAQ/ go poke around in that Book Riot tag, or just on Book Riot in general, there are a lot of tips!

 Below is a sign-up/particpation link widget, where we encourage you to leave a link if you decide to participate, you can leave a link to a masterpost, a TBR post etc. We hope we won't be reading alone!



Wednesday 8 April 2015

How I (try) to remember what I read!

I read about 50 books a year. I can't possibly remember all of them, and certainly not the ones I read five years ago! I am terrible with details. I often remember how a book made me feel, but rare is the book that I manage to recall much of months after I've read it. It goes without saying that some of the books I read I don't need nor want to remember, but I still want to know what I read and how I felt about it. I don't want to go to the library only to come home with books I've already been through, and read them with what at first feels like déjà vu then turns into remembering who the killer was and angrily slamming the book shut. This happens to my mother all the time. So I told her to at least write down the titles she has read. She keeps a notebook by her bed now (where she reads the most), but I don't think she actually uses it. She should.

Keep a list of the titles you read

It doesn't have to be fancy at all, just write down the books in a notebook or a document of some kind. You can use tracking sites such as goodreads or librarything (and a number of others) or create your own spreadsheet. I use a combination of methods. I have a Goodreads account where I track what I read when I read it (and give somewhat arbitrary ratings, and on occasion, reviews), a spreadsheet I fill in after I've read something (with information I want to track and compile as the reading year progresses).

Write notes while you read

I like to highlight, underline and write notes when I read things I know I'll want to remember. Most e-book apps will let you highlight, bookmark and take notes. I write in my books too, but if I don't want to I write in a notebook (sometimes I rip out the pages and stuff them into the book I read, other times I can't or don't need to do that and I just keep them in the notebook. Spiral binding is useful for this. Then I can decide what to do when I'm done reading). I do not write long notes (unless I do), and I'm not a collector of quotes (though I'll underline particularly nice ones anyway) so often it is just a page of random thoughts or guesses on how the story progresses. I usually pair my notebook note with a page number so I know what I'm talking about if I need to reference it later.

Write down your thoughts afterwards



I know, you'd rather start the next book, hang out with some people you like, catch up on twitter or watch a TV-show/movie, but taking ten minutes to think about what you just read and then write it down will make it easier to remember later. I don't always do this, but when I don't I often regret it. I write my thoughts in a variety of places: in a notebook (I keep it next to where I usually read), in the review section of my Goodreads account, here on the blog (or on my Norwegian blog), and sometimes in some document or note-taking app on any of my digital devices (Mostly I use Evernote for this). This way I can read over the paragraph (or three) that I wrote and remember things. If I am reading a series I'll also write down things I'll want to keep in mind for later or questions I have. My personal notes are sometimes very confusing and I forgot what I meant, so I recommenced full sentences, but sometimes just keywords work for me, or lists of things I liked and didn't like. This is very much the same method I used when I read my curriculum in school, and it works quite well. If I can be bothered I read over it, and perhaps add new notes, about a week later too, but I'm mostly too lazy for that. If I borrowed the book I sometimes take a picture of the cover and keep it somewhere as a bonus visual reminder.

- Kristine.