As you may have guessed from the silence here on Smiling Shelves, my little guy showed up a few weeks ago (more on this in a post next week). Life has been just a bit crazy since then, but I am still determined to participate in this readathon!

Most of my participation will be on Twitter, since that's easier than jumping on the computer. You can follow me to get my update posts - @SmilingShelves. I'm planning to update this post at the end to see just how much (or little) actual reading I got done today.

Happy Readathon, everybody!

Pages read: 198
Books finished: One (On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Audiobook listened to: Two and a half hours (A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley)

All in all, I'm pretty pleased. Keeping up with Twitter made me feel still involved, even if I didn't get tons of time to participate. I did discover that there's nothing better than reading with a sleeping baby in your arms, though!

Okay, I know I'm a little crazy for signing up for this one. By the time April 23 comes around, I'll be spending most of my time taking care of a couple-week-old baby. So I was just going to let this readathon go by. But I can't. Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon is my absolute favorite blogging event of the year. And even if I can't participate much, I can't pass it up entirely.

So I'm signing up and hoping to participate in whatever little ways I can. Any tips from those of you with little ones?

This book is a most interesting mix. It is part medieval history, part murder mystery, and part theological debate. William of Baskerville and his young scribe Adso arrive at an abbey in the mountains of Italy. They have two tasks to complete - solve the mystery of a monk who had been murdered (or had he?) the day before their arrival, and mediate a discussion between supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor and supporters of the Avignon Pope. Of course, it doesn't stay that simple for long (as if that were simple) when each progressive day, another monk turns up brutally murdered.

With an increasing number of murders, you would think the theological aspect would get totally swallowed up by the mystery. But that's really not the case. Many pages are devoted to explaining heresies of the day, as well as recording debates between the monks about the nature of God and the devil. These parts of the book can be rather confusing (especially trying to keep track of all the different heretics), but they don't get in the way of the overarching narration. The most annoying thing I found was that the monks kept throwing entire sentences in Latin into their dialogue - with no translation! I understood what was going on anyway, but it got a bit on my nerves by the end.

This was not a short book, but it was a surprisingly fast read. The mystery kept the plot on track, and it was very difficult to put down in the last few chapters. If you get the right edition, there is a postscript from the author at the end explaining some of his thoughts as he wrote this book. In my opinion, here's the best line in the whole book:

"I began writing in March of 1978, prodded by a seminal idea: I felt like poisoning a monk."

I guess the pages of fiction provide the safest way to go about doing that, and it certainly made for an entertaining read!

Find it on: Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Better World Books

This is a very bizarre Monday for me. You may or may not know that I'm a teacher. Today, my students are at school without me. In fact, I'm done teaching for the rest of the school year, since baby might arrive at any time (or maybe he's already here, since I'm writing this post a couple days early!). Either way, it's very strange to think of my class at school without me. I don't regret my decision to become a stay-at-home mom. It's just a strange transition. . .​

Top Ten Tuesday - Recent Awesome Reads
When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park - Review
First Quarter Wrap-Up

Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan (Trying to keep on top of reading the books I buy this year.)

There are a few books that could be the possible next choice, but I'm leaning towards this one for now:​

Corked by Kathryn Borel (Figured I should do a father-daughter memoir after the mother-daughter memoir.)

When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park (Very touching book)
​The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (Surprisingly fast read, despite the Latiny theology stuff.)
​War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (I finished!!! 1,361 out of 1,361 pages read! Whew!)

Here we are, three months into the year already! I've tried to cram as much reading as I could into these three months, because Baby could be showing up anytime. And who knows how much reading I'll get in then! Here's how I've done so far this year:​

Favorite book this quarter: Can I have a tie? I loved Cress, the next installment in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. And I am also loving​ my reread of the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. Must be a "Chronicles" thing.

Reading Challenge Progress
Read the Books You Buy   2/7 read - current percentage is 29% (20-40% is my goal)
Show Your Shelves Some Love   8/30
Little House Read-Along   3/12
Newbery   5/30 points
European   3/5
​Nonfiction 3/10

Not too bad as far as the reading challenges go. I'll really have to keep on top of the Read the Books You Buy challenge! Goals for the second quarter: read more nonfiction and read more of my own books. Totally doable!