What Happens If You Flip The Gender Of Book Covers?

allthingslibrary:

Yesterday, author Maureen Johnson had a great idea. She tweeted “I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says, “Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it. - signed, A Guy” - and so came the idea for a challenge for her 77,000 followers. A challenge that she called Coverflip.

Super cool idea; really terrible A Game of Thrones cover. 

Source: cresselia

Bout of Books: Day 2 and Day 3

Part of my decision to participate in Bout of Books was to see if I could go a week without television and how I otherwise filled my time. Would it be with reading? Who knows? I can safely say that Day 1 was more of a challenge than I expected, but the last two days have not been very difficult, mostly because I’ve had social activities planned for the evenings. It’s hard to miss television when you are yucking it up at a live show.

Tonight I am staying at home and relaxing, and I predict it will be difficult to resist the lure of the television. I am pretty interested in the book I am reading, though (Let the Right One In), so it should be able to hold my attention for a good while. I’m not sure what I’ll do when the weekend hits and I have two entire days of no television. Good god, will I actually go outside?

Bout of Books: Day One

Yesterday was my first full day of the read-athon (aka, my own personal ban on television). I started reading “The Beautiful and Damned” by Fitzgerald, and looked forward to an evening of peace and quiet, just me, my cats, and my book(s). 

It was kind of awful. I didn’t think I would miss television so much so soon. I am pretty tired when I get home from work, and I like to just lie on the sofa for a while and not think too hard and watch TV. I couldn’t do that. When I got home I saw down on my bed and sort of ended up lying down in the dark for a while, trying to figure out if I should read or do laundry. I stayed there until Mayday walked on my head, and I figured I better get up before I fell asleep.

I knew I would be bored if making dinner took too long, so I decided to just have a sandwich. It still took too long. And then the eating, something I normally enjoy, was an uncomfortable back-and-forth between looking at my food and looking at my book. Have you ever tried to read a book while eating a really full sandwich? It cannot be done. At least not by people who have fewer than three hands. Holding this sandwich so that it stayed in one piece required both of my hands, which left me nothing to turn pages with. Half way through the sandwich-eating process, I gave up on doing anything else and started to think about what I would blog about.

I read my book some more. Rygel tried a few times to chew the corners of the book. I rubbed his belly absentmindedly. That part was nice.

Then came the laundry. Even at the best of times I hate doing laundry. The arduous folding process seemed to take forever without any laugh-tracks in the background to distract me. I tried singing showtunes to Mayday, who withstood my voice much more gracefully than she ever has in the past. Feeling encouraged, I tried piling socks on her to see how high of a mountain I could make. She did not care for that.

After the laundry was done I spent about half an hour wondering if I wanted a snack. Without television, which I usually watch while snacking, I couldn’t tell if I was hungry. 

What did I learn from yesterday?

  • it’s hard to eat and read at the same time
  • the Beautiful and Damned is maybe a tiny bit longer than it needs to be
  • watching TV makes me want to snack

that last one isn’t really a revelation, but it’s the first time that idea has really hit home.