Faye’s Comments (group member since Nov 05, 2013)

Faye’s comments from the The Reading Challenge Group group.

Welcome, Alessandra!

Holly wrote: "My poor eyes are bad enough as they are (seriously, I have awful eyesight), I doubt looking away is going to save them from more fuzziness!"

Acutally, it's amazing what it can do! All I see without my glasses is coloured blobs, and I was constantly needing a stronger prescription, but then I read a few years ago about the reasons why bookworms tend to need glasses, and that it's all related to how long they spend staring at something close to their faces without resting their eyes by looking at something farther away. The article suggested this trick, so I decided to try it out, and now I've been 10 years without new glasses! Of course, now I need new ones simply because of scratches and fading on these lenses, but my vision, as far as I can tell, is still more or less the same! I highly recommend this trick to any heavy-duty reader. :)

I'm going to aim for 400 pages over the course of the readathon, or 200 pages each day. That equals about 6 hours of reading each day for me, give or take.

I do! I do! I give myself mini-challenges while I'm reading. My average reading speed for the average book is 8-10 minutes for 5 pages, so after every 5 pages I'll look up at the clock and see how long it's been since I last looked up, and resolve to get to the next 5-page mark faster. Maybe I have a weird brain that I can remember the number each time, I don't know, but it keeps me from getting bored and keeps me reading at my top speed for prolonged periods of time.

Also, it helps relax my eyes to look up and focus them on something across the room just for a second. Staring at something close-up for a long time tends to hurt my eyes.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West will be our Nonfiction Group Read this month. Discussion can begin on September 1st.

Discussion Leader - Renee

Eleanor & Park will be this month's YA Group Read. Discussion can begin on September 1st.

Discussion Leader: Roseanne

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz will be this month's Classic Group Read. A children's classic, yes, but there's a lot in this book for adult readers to enjoy. Discussion can begin on September 1st.

To Kill a Mockingbird will be this month's Genre Group Read (Classic/Literary) - the perfect literary classic! Discussion can begin on September 1st.

Holly wrote: "So sorry I've been so absent recently! Summer has been far more hectic than I imagined (I've basically hardly read!).

In better news though, I had my birthday and got into my first choice Uni!!"

Congratulations!

Renee wrote: "Heheh. Now I'm thinking about that.
Anti-Alphabet Soup!
No Es For Me, Please!"

I like it!

Can you think of a book title that doesn't have the letter "e" in it? Let's see how many we can come up with!

Here's mine - Jurassic Park.

I know, it used to be that we'd get a flood of nominations in just a few hours, so I got into a habit of closing them soon after opening them, but now I leave them open for 24 hours and only get a handful of responses. I'll try leaving them open for 2 days next time.

Okay, I'll go with it, then.

Sorry, Aitziber! I love it when people nominate books that fit the genre-of-the-month in the other group reads, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. :)

*re-opens thread*

While I was putting the polls together, something occurred to me about the Mark Twain nominations - I think Huckleberry Finn has a lot more socio-political subject matter in it, whereas Tom Sawyer is more of a good old childhood romp, so I think I'll put Huckleberry Finn in the Genre Group Read poll and Tom Sawyer in the YA Group Read poll. Does that sound okay to everyone?

Thanks for your nominations, everyone! This thread is now closed, and the polls will be up shortly.

Thanks for your nominations, everyone! This thread is now closed, and the polls will be up shortly.

Thanks for your nominations, everyone! This thread is now closed, and the polls will be up shortly.

Thanks for your nominations, everyone! This thread is now closed, and the polls will be up shortly.

Aitziber wrote: "What a good choice, Faye. Brief, too. Haha, I'm not several books behind in my challenge, no sir!"

I know, that's what appeals to me about it, too!

I'm going to nominate Animal Farm.