Well my second book is down and I'll start the next .... High Fidelity...I doubt that I will finish it by the end of the Read-a-thon but I'm not complaining....two books down is better than none !  I'm even thinking I might do a Read-a-thon every Sunday to get through the never-ending pile of TBR.

S'pose I Die is not for everyone - it is a biography set in the Atherton Tablelands about the Maunsell family.  So it is a story of pioneer stock and it is very much a white woman's story and perhaps in this day and age not very politically correct.  But the world is made up of different views and I think it is so important to remind ourselves of what older generations went through just to live from day to day....this woman faced everything.  Queensland is not for the faint-hearted and she saw it all....survived unbearable heat, cyclones, snakes of all shapes and sizes, spiders, rats, cane toads, green ants, stinging nettles and of course humankind in all its glory...not to mention a couple of world wars.  Note to self - stop complaining about housework.

To a degree the book is a series of anecdotes - I will be trying out pawpaw flavoured with sherry to be sure....I thought this was the most poignant paragraph...

"The Boss (this is what everyone called the narrator's husband and she refers to him frequently in this way) must have thought I looked upset when I said good-bye to him, because he came back and found me crying.  I was ashamed to have been caught, because I knew there was nothing he could do about it.  The cattle had to be worked.  But he comforted me and tried to explain things.  Then he said if I could stick it out in the bush for ten years he would take me back to England to see my family again."    Imagine if you said that to a young wife today!! Ten years!!!!!

The Read-athon has been an interesting experience for me.  Despite thinking I was prepared I got myself mightily distracted...particularly with wretched housework....I loathe housework and avoid it at all costs but when the housecleaning bug gets me in its grip....well there's no stopping me...and something happened at 11am and I didn't stop til nearly 3pm....so much valuable reading time was lost and then there was dinner to be cooked and the kid wanted to be tested on his Kanji characters or whatever they are....I've been reading since 6pm so that's about 150 pages in 3 hours I guess.

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?


Well that would have to be between 1 and 3 am this morning - thank goodness for the cheer-leaders and all the lovely posts on my blog - I was just dumbstruck.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

The Talented Mr Ripley was a great choice - highly suspenseful and a really interesting character - pyschotic of course but interesting nonetheless.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
You guys rock - I can't think of any improvements - oh except that for a first timer it took me 12 hours to figure out how to get from the 1st hour page to the 2nd hour and so on....talk about slow!!!!

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
The mini-challenges were good for me to re-focus.

5. How many books did you read?

Only two - just like Noah and that Ark

6. What were the names of the books you read?
The Talented Mr Ripley and S'pose I Die

7. Which book did you enjoy most?
Very different books but probably Ripley of the two.

8. Which did you enjoy least?
Well...duh...as my kids would say....it's unfair to say I enjoyed it least because it was just as worthy...just very different.

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
Those haikus and poems cracked me up.  You did a great job.

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?
Oh I'll be back - don't you worry.....and the housework will be done in advance this time.