Sunday Salon: Read a Thon Wrap Up Edition

Yesterday I participated in Dewey's 24 Hour Read a Thon - well, I really only ended up participating for about 8 hours. Last week was crazy at work and I was out of town for business meetings and didn't get home until late on Friday night. On Saturday, I had some tax stuff that I could not put off any longer . . . so I ended up not settling down to read until about 3 pm - a full 7 hours into the Read a Thon! For the next Read a Thon, I will definitely prepare better - get a good night's sleep the night before and clear my schedule of all errands and obligations.

Despite my late start, I had a blast! It was such a social experience - from the other readers to the cheerleaders and the hourly updates on the Read a Thon blog, it really felt like a party! I found that once I settled into reading that I hit a rhythm - I would read for about an hour and then check the read a thon blog to see what was going on that hour and if there was a mini-challenge that I wanted to do. I would spend about 15 mins on the blogs including checking in on others and then get back to my book for another hour. I even one a prize later in the evening - a copy of Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter which has been on my wishlist for awhile - yahoo! Prizes aside, I will definitely do the next Read a Thon (and prep better!) and I think I will add a stint as a cheerleader - they made such a difference in my experience - I would definitely like to pay that forward!

What Did I Read?
During the Read A Thon, I only read one book but it was a great one - The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott. I am so glad I had the chance to really immerse myself in this book - I felt as if I was transported to Walpole, MA in the 1800's. In cruising the blogs today, I discovered I was not alone in reading this book for the Read a Thon - Florinda from The 3 Rs Blog and Lisa from Lit and Life also worked it into their plans for the read a thon. I am looking forward to reading their reviews to see if they liked it as much as I did - my review will be up later this week.

After I finished Lost Summer of LMA, I dipped in and out of How to Achieve a Heaven on Earth which is a collection of essays on key elements of life - it is divided into sections on Health, Prosperity, Democracies, Racial Harmony, the Environment and more. The author list is impressive - Barack Obama, Thomas Friedman, Tony Blair, and George Bush to name a few. It was perfect as I grew tired at the end of the night - its not the type of book that I would read in one sitting anyway. I liked what I read from the collection last night (one essay on health and one on prosperity) and I will be reading more soon - I will also feature a longer review of the book.

What is up this week?

I am getting away to sunny Florida at the end of this week for a few days of R&R - yay! I am looking forward to getting some good reading done on the flights and while relaxing by the beach. On the blog I will post reviews of the following books:

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott (I will also be joining the discussion with the author on Wednesday on Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?)

The Season of Second Chances: A Novel (there will also be a giveaway of my ARC)

Alexandra, Gone(my blog tour stop is on Tuesday)

The Smart One and the Pretty One

I hope my fellow read a thon-ers have recovered from the lack of sleep and wish you all a great week ahead!