When I first posted about the read-a-thon last Saturday, this stack was hiding its spines.

But here you can see all the tasty reads that I’m eyeing for this weekend. Yes, they are all somehow food-related.

I haven’t leafed through them yet (you know that can be the most savoury part), but I do know that I’m starting off at…

8:00 a.m. Carol Off’s Bitter Chocolate  HOUR ONE
This is my favourite kind of non-fiction; it has a compelling narrative and you just keep turning the pages. If this was the non-fiction I’d been introduced to as a young reader, rather than dry and overly-formal textbooks, it wouldn’t’ve taken me so long to return to reading non-fiction.

Snack: A wholly luxurious chocolate eclair from the French bakery, with a mug of Margaret Atwood’s signature blend of fair-trade coffee , served to me in bed by Mr. BIP…what could be better, really.

10:00 Update  HOUR THREE
So maybe I got distracted by moments of oooo’ing over my snack, but even though I was reading the whole time, I didn’t cover many pages. That’s okay…page 57 will have to do.

11:00 – 7:00 Update HOURS FOUR to TWELVE
So the reason I signed up to cheer tonight, from 8:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. (HOURS 13-18) is because it’s the International Festival of Authors here in Toronto. So I was listening to Joe Dunthorne, Colson Whitehead, Lauren B. Davis, Johan Harstad, Bharati Mukherjee, James Chatto, Elizabeth Abbott, and John Terpstra for a good chunk of this afternoon.

[Snack between events: Samosas. Yum.]

But every spare minute? I was reading Carol Off’s book.

And, funnily enough, cuz the reading and writing world is so tiny. She walked past me while I was so busy reading *her* book. Heh.

Well, I’m on page 224. It seems possible that I might have put too many books in my stack.

At 8:00  p.m. HOUR 13 … I’ll be cheering. And only reading whilst pages load. If even then. I’ll probably be at page 225 when I next check in.

At 1:00 a.m. HOUR 18
[Dinner was a monstrous bowl of spelt rigatoni noodles with homemade spaghetti sauce with extra garlic and onions (thanks, again, to Mr. BIP).]

And, while eating, I read 6 pages. The rest of the time I was commenting. (Mostly on sites from R-Z, but then popping in to see what other folks were up to as well.)

Which reminds me…thanks so much to everyone who stopped to leave comments here today.

And now? I’m going to do something risky and lie down. We all know where that’s going to end up, right?!

And I’m not even taking Carol Off’s book with me (I’ll have more to say about it soon: it’s fantastic, really) because it’s gotten to a very serious bit.

Instead, I’m toddling off with another food-related read: Steve Sublanica’s Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip – Confessions of a Cynical Waiter. If I stay awake for 30 pages, I’ll be shocked.

SUMMARY:
Total pages read: 230
Books read: <1
Books remaining on Read-a-thon stack: 14 (Heheh)
Hours devoted to reading updates and cheering: 5
Comments left: 90 or so, I think
Number of !: Nowhere near as many as Trish!

Best of read-a-thon-ing-ness to all those who are persisting: good on you!