I Gracefully Bow Out

I gracefully bow out of my August Challenge. I read one book, Little Brother, which I enjoyed so much that I finished it in two days. I started to read Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler. It's so-so. I started a few days ago and have not picked it up again. I should have prepared better for this challenge. I rushed it and randomly picking books did not help. I felt lost and had no drive or enthusiasm in finishing. Also above is the real reason for me not reading. It's a bad habit that I need to put to rest. It's sucking the energy from me and my motivation is lost. Enough with the laziness. I have no idea what the September challenge is going to be and I need to figure it out asap. There are only a few days until the end of the month and I don't want to be unprepared again. Shit!! Any hoot just because I was not able to met my challenge in the month of August does not mean that I will give up on reading Sci Fi. I'm going to research and find some books to my liking. Preferably young adult. Now let me go and figure out what I'm going to do next. Any thoughts??

A Bit of a Funk

"Your're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." 

It has been six days since returning from our mini vacation to our hometown NYC. I've spent the week trying my best to read BlindSight and mourning the loss of a great entertainer Robin Williams. I grew up watching him on Happy Days and have been a huge fan since then. Finding out that he committed suicide made me really sad as I understand the darkness and pain associated with depression. I've suffered from depression and anxiety since I was a teenager without recognizing that it was depression until about 8 years ago. I could not bring myself to read. Let alone a book that I had no clue to what the hell was happening. So much so that I had to stop reading it. I was not pleased that I had to revise my challenge, then not enjoying my first selection, along with everything that was going on, I almost quit my August challenge. Then I realized that I was just in a funk and I can get myself out of it. I've enjoyed challenging myself each month and this month was not going to be an exception. Bad enough that I had to revise it, I was not going to quit. What I did quit was reading BlindSight. I just could not get into that fucking book. I decided to move on to my next selection which is Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Now this is a book that I'm digging. It's readable, to which my friend pointed out was because it was Young Adult. Makes me no difference, all I know is that I'm happy to finally get my reading groove back on. I thought I lost it while trying to read BlindSight. My friend an avid reader reminded it's okay to not finish a book just move on. Which I'm very glad I've done. I have two weeks to the end of the month and I need to binge read to meet my challenge. Besides my birthday next week, I do not have any immediate plans and am confident I can read three books in that time. Now off I go to try to read some more before the sandman visits.

Revised August Challenge

We're 6 days into the month and I'm already way behind my August Challenge. Therefore I have to revise the challenge from 12 books to 4 books for the month. I'm behind because we decided to start selling at the flea market. We went Fri, Sat and Sun. Our days began between 5:30 am to 6:30 am and we returned home by 2 pm to 4 pm. By the time we got home, we were exhausted. We would eat, shower and nap. When we awoke from our naps, it was time for dinner. In between all that, we had to take care of our two dogs. I was able to squeeze in some reading on Sunday at the flea market, but could not get into the book because of the heat and taking care of customers. I've spent Mon, Tue and Wed running errands, cleaning and getting ready for my trip home to NYC. No time for reading. Except for a short time today while I was waiting for my oil change. I know for sure the four days that I will be home, I will not have time to read. I have a huge family and I'm pulled in many different directions, that I barely have time to sleep. I'm glad that I recognized early in the month that I wouldn't be able to complete my challenge, as it gave me time to revise it. Four books for the month is more realistic. It may not be my original challenge, however it is still challenging for me. Because I started reading Blindsight by Peter Watts and boy ole boy, am I lost. Most of the words he uses are not in the dictionary. I guess there some secret Sci Fi language I don't know about. I find myself rereading paragraphs over and over to get an understanding of what is going on. So far I'm not impressed and it's taking a lot to keep me interested. All that in itself is challenging. I don't feel bad about the revision because I rather make much needed extra money and spent time with my family. At the end of it all I'm still going to be reading and learning about the weird world of Sci Fi. I was determined to get this blog post out today and happy I was atleast able to do that. Now off I go to get some sleep before we leave in a few hours.

August Challenge; Read 12 Sci Fi Books

From the moment I learned to read, I became an avid reader. I love to read, visit book stores and visiting libraries.Other than recommendations from Oprah's book club or magazine suggestions, my favorite books are from the suspense/mystery genre. Some of my favorite authors are Mary Higgins Clark, Iris Johansen, David Baldacci, and Patricia Cornwell. I always had a book on hand. All that changed over two years ago. I got a smart phone, iPad and discovered the wonderful world of YouTube. Up to that time, I used YouTube for music videos. Now here I was binge watching YouTube, playing games, face timing,  reading blogs, instagraming and other mind numbing activities. Before I knew it, I was reading less and less books.
So for the month of August I'm going to read 12 Science Fiction books. An average of three books a week. The reason I chose Sci Fi is because I have never read any books from that genre. Since I enjoy watching Sci Fi movies, I figured Sci Fi books was the way to go. I know absolutely nothing about Sci Fi authors. Thanks to a Google search I found a BuzzFeed quiz, "How many of these classic Science Fiction novels have you read?" I was able to select from 99 books. I printed out the list, cut it into pieces and put them into a bag and randomly picked 12 books. It has been way to long since I've picked up a book and I'm enthusiastically looking forward to this challenge. Now off I go to the library to pick up my first Sci Fi book.