The Terror of Knowing

Hello all and welcome to this, the first of the ‘Emma signs up for a readathon with an overly ambitious TBR she abandons almost immediately’ posts for 2019! This is fun, isn’t it? Exciting. Will it be more of the same in 2019 or will Emma actually follow through on the readathon aspirations she has this year? Who knows… only time will tell.

Quite handily for me, however, the first readathon I’m choosing to participate in this year is the Bout of Books readathon, a firm favourite of mine because of its low-key setup and challenges. In fact, there are no reading challenges or prompts that you have to fulfil with you TBR; rather, the main aim of Bout of Books is simply to read. I can get onboard with this. For those of you who haven’t come across Bout of Books before, here’s the schtick:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 7th and runs through Sunday, January 13th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 24 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.
– From the Bout of Books team

When it comes to Bout of Books, you are encouraged to be as low-key or ambitious as you like, it really is what you make of it. This potentially comes at quite a good time for me as I’ve been struggling these first few days of the month/year with what to read – sometimes, when you have SO MANY options to choose from, you actually end up struggling to decide on one. (Seriously, it’s a legitimate Thing.) At the suggestion of housemate and friend Liz (you may know her by my frequent mentions of Travel In Retrospect, I’m sure) I’m reading a kinda so-bad-it’s-good romance novel and it’s working as something of a palette cleanser. But I’m still eager to start my reading of other things too which is where Bout of Books comes in as it has forced me to confront the issue of my indecisiveness head on and pick a (albeit tentative) TBR for the upcoming week’s readathon.

TBR

1. Wallbanger by Alice Clayton – I’m really hoping to have this finished by the time the readathon starts on Monday but, in the unlikely event of that not happening, finishing off this will be the top priority for me.
2. The Dark Days Deceit by Alison Goodman – I adored the first two books in this Regency-era, paranormal fantasy, demon-hunting trilogy and I am keen to find out how Goodman is going to wrap it all up in this third and final book. I haven’t seen any spoilers so far so I need to get to this asap before I do!
3. Becoming by Michelle Obama – I actually started listening to this on audiobook last week when I went for an impromptu lunchtime walk because I just needed to get out of the office for a little while and I loved that already, in the first 20 or so minutes, I was learning SO much about Michelle’s upbringing. I have no clue what to expect from this since I know next to nothing about her, but I’m looking forward to listening to more of this on audio since I think it really is the way to go with memoirs.
4. Emma by Jane Austen – This is perhaps the more aspirational choice on this TBR. I want to read/re-read all of Austen’s novels, ideally this year, and I’ve also pledged to myself to read at least 1 classic a month in 2019. So, obviously, this would help me along to that goal. I think I’ve only ever managed to get halfway through this novel in the past although I have seen a few adaptations of it, meaning I’m never sure if I ever did finish the book or just think I did because I’ve seen how the story ends. In any case, I want to (and need to) read this novel asap, so I’m putting it on this TBR as the more lofty of my hopes for the next week of reading.

Aside from this post, I don’t expect to keep an updates post as I tend to forget about them by mid-week. I will, however, be doing a Twitter thread of reading updates (and I may do a couple of the daily challenges on there if it suits) so keep an eye on my Twitter for that.

Edit: Here’s my Twitter thread of reading updates!

All that remains for me to say is I’m looking forward to the readathon and I hope that some of you, dear readers, will be joining in on the fun! If you are, please do let me know in the comments below and we can help cheer each other on throughout the readathon. If you are taking part, and even if you’re not, happy reading for the week ahead!

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