My first participation in a Read-A-Thon happened on January 4th and, for my first initiation into this 24 hour marathon, I was pleased how it went.

Beginning at 8:03 am, I got off to a great start, reading one-third of Wuthering Heights for a read-along that I was considering.  The weather was lovely for this time of year, yet I resisted its lure to delve into one of my History challenge books, The History of the Ancient World.  In fact, I was doing so well, that I figured I could relax my rigid regime and take my reading outside along with my silent reading sentinel.

Reading Sentinel!

Warm, yet brittle sunshine flooded the pages of Mrs. Dalloway but I had perhaps made a calculated error in bringing my camera with me, and for the next hour I was distracted by texture, light and layering.  Sigh!

Texture, light, layering …… Voila!

I consoled myself with the excuse that I was still engaged in a creative task but Mrs. Dalloway was not happy, so I went inside, read some more and then convinced myself that I needed a walk to open my mind to Woolf’s “stream-of consciousness” style of writing.

The end of Paradise

The hike sent oxygen to my brain but, sadly, didn’t make me more enamoured with Woolf’s novel, so I began The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before dinner to get a start on my C.S. Lewis Project.

After dinner I was able to buckle down and get a good 4 uninterrupted hours of reading accomplished.  I really tried to get to War and Peace because I am baby steps to the end, but after reading a few chapters and realizing that I was not understanding anything because of need of sleep, I decided to end the experiment.  My first read-a-thon completed!

I would consider it an initial success with room for much improvement.  In the 16 hours I was awake (you notice I have deliberately avoided the word “reading”), I managed to read: