Keely’s Comments (group member since Aug 30, 2013)

Keely’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

I have now started 3 books for this challenge. The Pillars of the Earth, The Travelling Cat Chronicles and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

I managed to read chunk of Pillars yesterday, about 1/5th of the book. I've found it pretty enjoyable so far and if I keep that pace up I might finish it over the weekend.
The Cat Chronicles I am also hoping to be finished with over the weekend and the Harry Potter book I might drag out a bit. I know from past reads that it can be a fast read so I'm not too concerned about finishing it just yet.

The first books I'm going to start is The Pillars of the Earth. I haven't seen the TV series.

No, I found the patterns online and used some double sided tape and then put some gloss mod podge over the top to help them stay in place.

I'm currently working on a wolf one and the one back home is of the northern lights. I've got another two the same size (60x90cm) in stock and some smaller cheaper ones. I've also started making my own cards with the spare diamonds and I keep looking for other things to jazz up with them.






Those a few examples of what I've done so far.

I have mostly purchased my diamond paintings from a website called Homecraftology. They are based in Australia but the actual paintings come from China so they ship pretty much worldwide. I haven't actually purchased any for a long time because I haven't had the time or space to work on the ones I have already, but I hear nothing but good things about their customer service.

I've been eyeing that peacock one for years, Sammy. I wouldn't know what to do with it once I've finished it though so I have resisted the urge to buy it.

"Only" 80 audiobooks :P That's still more books than I've read in total this year.

93 audiobooks is really impressive for 4 and a half months. That's almost the amount of books I have left on my TBR from 2012. I'm hoping to pick up the pace and get some more books off my TBR during TT.

@Heather - that is only what I have on kindle, my library has a really good app that does ebooks and audiobooks so I have many more saved on there.

@Eni and Sammy - I also have 2 on the go around 60x90cm. One is back home in the UK and one I took to Norway with me so I can work on it here. I also like a jigsaw puzzle but I haven't found the time to do one recently. When I get my own desk, I'll probably do more of both diamond painting and puzzles as I will be able to leave them out if I want to do something else.

@Mary - That makes me feel better about my unread kindle books. My number just keeps going up as I signed up to this website that emails me daily deals and I usually scrolls through and pick any of the free ones that look interesting to me. But even if I only read about 10 books from my kindle a year, at least some of them are getting read.

Melissa wrote: "Keely wrote: "These days, I only really listen to audiobooks. I enjoy crafting (knitting, cross stitch, diamond painting are the main ones) so audiobooks are a good way for me to read books while I..."

Diamond painting is almost like painting by numbers but you have small "diamonds", which can also be called drills or dots, instead of paint. In a kit, you get a canvas that has the pattern symbols on it and it is sticky so you simply match the different coloured diamonds to the symbols to create the picture. It's difficult to do it justice by explaining it like this so it might be easier if for you to look on Google or even Youtube to see what I mean.
They are really made from diamonds, but I think it is called that because the finished picture gives off a nice sparkle. It's a relatively low mess craft (unless you drops the little diamonds on the floor) and is easy for almost anyone to do.

Good luck finishing your quilts! I've never tried quilting before, but it's on my list of things I want to try when I have a bit more space.

These days, I only really listen to audiobooks. I enjoy crafting (knitting, cross stitch, diamond painting are the main ones) so audiobooks are a good way for me to read books while I craft.

I trying (and failing) to read some books I have on Kindle as I now have around 450 that I haven't read. Now that I have more free time, I'm hoping to actually starting finishing some of them.

My physical books are mostly packed away in the garage at my parents new house. I have the first 4 Harry Potter books with me so it is likely I will read those during the course of this challenge, but I will spread them out as I know 1-3 are fairly short books.

Keli wrote: "Keely wrote: "I have access to the BOMs that have currently been announced through my library app, but only The Witch's Heart was available as an audiobook. I've never actually writ..."

Thanks Keli, it's more the keeping up that I'm more worried about than the questions. I've always found if I rush a book because of a deadline, I'm more likely to lose focus and miss details which wouldn't be very good if I am supposed to do one of the later days' questions.

I have access to the BOMs that have currently been announced through my library app, but only The Witch's Heart was available as an audiobook. I've never actually written questions for BOMs before but that one would be the only one I am confident I could keep up with. I would prefer to just be backup, but if no one else wants to volunteer then I could try.

Hello everyone!

My name is Keely (she/her) and I am from the UK, but I will be in Norway for most of this challenge. I actually fly there tomorrow! I will be staying with my boyfriend and his family in Norway although we have our own apartment that is downstairs from the main living area so we will have our own space. I intend to move to Norway in the future (hopefully near). While in the UK I live with my parents and we have one elderly cat (18 years old) and while in Norway I will pretend I own their 3 cats.

This will be my second time playing tower teams, but I have played wheel and uno a few more times.

I am currently on a personal challenge to get as many books read that I added on my To-read list in 2012 when I joined Goodreads. Many of the books left are longer classics so I will probably read a few of those during this challenge. And I already made myself a list of books that I have access to that would earn us top points.
I'm not the fastest reader, but as I will hopefully have a lot of free time during this challenge I should get some longer books read.

I generally prefer books with a bit of action or mystery in them, but I will pretty much give anything a go. As I mentioned, you may see me reading some classics but there should be some other genres in there as well.
I will also do my best to join in with the BOMs for those extra points.

I'm looking forward to the start of the challenge.

608 pages
418 pages
449 pages
96 pages
422 pages
402 pages
276 pages
320 pages
123 pages
32 pages
40 pages
400 pages

Current Total: 654,589

I don't think I've updated this challenge this month yet. So far I've read 6 off my TBR taking my total for the year up to 28 out of 50. I haven't updated my list or the spreadsheet yet, but I will do that maybe tomorrow.

I'm not goint to increase my goal yet as Tower Teams will mean I will be reading longer books which of course take longer to read. I'm looking forward to shifting some of those classics that are 600+ pages off my TBR which have been sitting there since 2012.

And while I'm doing well on this challenge, but overall Goodreads yearly challenge is not looking so good. I'm currently 21 books behind schedule. I have work to thank for that as well as life in general. I'm hoping to get some short books read between Uno finishing and TT starting and they are on my TBR so it will help for this challenge too.

I must admit, I didn't really enjoy the Narnia books. Some were better than others, but I struggled to get through them. I only read them a year or two ago and that was the first time I had read them, so maybe I was just too old to enjoy them. If I had read them as a child I might have enjoyed them more.

I am now also saving this for TT as I haven't yet got around to starting it :P

I will be joining again. I have so many books on my TBR that are 500+ pages that I am trying to work through. Most of them are classics I added in 2012 so this will help me clear some of those off, hopefully. Real life may get a bit in the way though.

I read 2 more this week taking me up to 22 finished.

and .

Oliver I found enjoyable in the beginning but I almost lost interest halfway through. It might be worth a reread at some point. I don't think I've seen the whole musical film all the way through, but I have seen enough that I know most of what was going to happen, that was accurate with the book anyway.

Barchester was okay. Nothing that exciting for me. I think I'm a bit burnt out on classics so it's good that the books I will read next are not classics. I will have to read more though if I want to remove as many as I can from my 2012 list, but for now I will have a short break.

I definitely need to give it another go now with all these recommendations! Maybe I'll find time over the weekend

220 pages
336 pages
306 pages
64 pages
521 pages

Current Total: 454,155