Read-a-thon!

I can't believe the read-a-thon is tomorrow already! Is everyone as excited as I am?

This is a picture of my cat caught in the act of rubbing his head against my read-a-thon book pile. I'm convinced that he meant it as a form of moral support. In fact, I'm certain that tomorrow he'll be by my side all day, having his very own sleep-a-thon while I read, read and read. The books on the pile are the following (I included their opening lines too, because I really did love Debi's idea, plus I realized that doing so made me even more excited about reading them):

• Fantastic Stories by Terry Jones
  "A young boy named Ben once ran away to sea. But the ship he joined was a very odd one indeed."
  
  
• The Owl Service by Alan Garner
  "'How's the bellyache, then?'"
  
  
• Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Peace
  "If, standing alone on the back doorset, Tom allowed himself to weep tears, they were tears of anger."
  
  
• The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
  "On December the third the wind changed overnight and it was winter."
  
  
• Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
  "Mother?"
  
  
• Messenger by Lois Lowry
  "Matty was impatient to have the supper preparations over and done with."
  
  
• The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
  "Lewis Barnavelt stood at the edge of the playground, watching the big boys fight."
  
  
• The Letter, the Witch and the Ring by John Bellairs
  "'No, no, no, NO! I Will not wear that silly uniform!'"
  
  
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
  "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."
  
  
• 31 songs by Nick Hornby
  "So we were doing this thing, this launch party, for Speaking with the Angel, a book of short stories I put together to raise money for my son's school, and we - the school, the publishers of the book, me and my partner - were nervous about it."
  
  
• Goodbye, Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto
  "It's true: Tsugumi really was an unpleasant young woman."
  
  
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
  "It is my first morning of highschool."
  
  
• Fables: The Mean Seasons by Bill Willingham
  "New York city."
  
  
• Fables: Homelands by Bill Willingham
  "Once upon a time (actually, the day after Snow White [clever but spoilerish bit removed], and Bigby Wolf [same]) a man named Jack set out to find his own bold new direction in life."

Most of these books are short (under 200 pages) and many are children's or YA. I figured those would be ideal for the Read-a-thon. I'll of course be lucky if I get to read even half of them, but I want to have plenty of choice. In addition to these, any book on my tbr pile is a potential candidate as well. I also might try to finish Raymond E. Feist's Faerie Tale, which I'm really enjoying so far.

Today I realized that I had miscalculated the time zones, and I won't be able to do the RIP mini-challenge after all. Not only will it be early morning for me, but it coincides with the beginning of my shift doing the official posts over at Dewey's blog. But it's okay; I will still celebrate the spirit of RIP by saving my spooky reads for when it's around midnight in my timezone. And I will be cheering you all on when the official mini-challenge begins.


I also have an assortment of caffeinated drinks ready, including coffee, cappuccino and moccha, and several types of flavoured black tea. Also in the picture is my favourite herbal tea, but as it tends to make me sleepy it's probably a good idea to leave it aside. As for snacks, I have chocolate, cookies, carrot cupcakes, croissants that I plan to fill with a delicious guava jam I got in Brazil, and also healthy food like cereal bars, fruit and low fat yoghurt. What about you?