Happy Saturday! It’s been a bit since I’ve participated in the Bout of Books readathon but honestly it’s one of my favorites. The reason for this is because it’s so open. It’s just ‘read’. There are no book prompts, there isn’t a set number of books to read, it’s just… read what you want. Set some goals if you want to. It helps me finish books I’m in the middle of and I really dig it.
Here’s the official blurb:
The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. All reading-in-place times, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges are completely optional. For Bout of Books 29 information and updates, visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team
And here’s my bit:
Goals
- Read every day
- Keep up with buddy reads
- Finish audio book
TBR
The Harp of Kings by Juliet Marillier – This is the first of my two buddy reads. I’m reading this with one of my irl friends that I’ve had since I was a teenager. This is our second Marillier buddy read and we’re both just smitten. By the end of this readathon I should have this finished.
Goodreads synopsis: Eighteen-year-old Liobhan is a powerful singer and an expert whistle player. Her brother has a voice to melt the hardest heart, and a rare talent on the harp. But Liobhan’s burning ambition is to join the elite warrior band on Swan Island. She and her brother train there to compete for places, and find themselves joining a mission while still candidates. Their unusual blend of skills makes them ideal for this particular job, which requires going undercover as traveling minstrels. For Swan Island trains both warriors and spies.
Their mission: to find and retrieve a precious harp, an ancient symbol of kingship, which has gone mysteriously missing. If the instrument is not played at the upcoming coronation, the candidate will not be accepted and the people could revolt. Faced with plotting courtiers and tight-lipped druids, an insightful storyteller, and a boorish Crown Prince, Liobhan soon realizes an Otherworld power may be meddling in the affairs of the kingdom. When ambition clashes with conscience, Liobhan must make a bold decision and is faced with a heartbreaking choice.
Forest Mage by Robin Hobb – This is the second of my buddy reads, and this one I’m reading with Zezee @Zezeewithbooks! We’ve been buzzing through Robin Hobb’s books now for probably three years or more. By the end of this readathon, I should be up through chapter 8. I finished the first one earlier last month and just put up a glowing review for it. I’m really excited about this one.
Goodreads synopsis of book 1: Nevare Burvelle was destined from birth to be a soldier. The second son of a newly anointed nobleman, he must endure the rigors of military training at the elite King’s Cavalla Academy–and survive the hatred, cruelty, and derision of his aristocratic classmates–before joining the King of Gernia’s brutal campaign of territorial expansion. The life chosen for him will be fraught with hardship, for he must ultimately face a forest-dwelling folk who will not submit easily to a king’s tyranny. And they possess an ancient magic their would-be conquerors have long discounted–a powerful sorcery that threatens to claim Nevare Burvelle’s soul and devastate his world once the Dark Evening brings the carnival to Old Thares.
Reamde by Neal Stephenson – This is my audio book. It’s chunker, coming in at 38 hours. The book itself is over 1000 pages long. I’m mostly through this now – I have about nine hours left, and I listen at 1.5 speed, so what, six hours? That should be doable. I have such mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I love it, on the other hand some of the vocabulary used is a little.. eh… I do plan on writing a review for this one so I’ll get into it then. But overall? It’s pretty decent.
Goodreads synopsis: Four decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune. With plenty of time and money to burn, he became addicted to an online fantasy game in which opposing factions battle for power and treasure in a vast cyber realm. Like many serious gamers, he began routinely purchasing virtual gold pieces and other desirables from Chinese gold farmers—young professional players in Asia who accumulated virtual weapons and armor to sell to busy American and European buyers.
For Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up—a venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, T’Rain. But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidentally triggers a virtual war for dominance—and Richard is caught at the center.
If I manage to finish and catch up with all of the above and still have some time left, I plan on either binging some manga, which I haven’t touched in weeks (which is weird) or pick up The Wolf by Leo Carew. This one I had picked up for Finishathon and then, shocker, didn’t finish it. I do like this book though so why it’s taking me so long is beyond me.
This coming week, the only thing I’ve going on is work, so in theory I should be able to read a decent bit, but we’ll see. If you’re participating in this, do let me know!
Also I know I said there aren’t any book prompts, and there aren’t, but there are instagram photo prompts, which I do plan on doing. So if you’re interested in that, you’ll be able to find my attempts here.
Happy reading!
Embuhleeliest 
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