Category: Bookly

Daily Journal: February 2, 2025

Busy, Busy days, but fortunately this has not affected my reading, actually, I’m experiencing a rhythm that reminisces of the days when I read more than 60,000 pages in a year.

Finally some inspiration has reignited my love and passion for the written word.

The most important thing that changed from the past barren months was that I established a reading routine. Instead of lamenting about not being able to sit down and read for a couple of hours, I do some micro sessions all along the day.

I start the day early and with my morning coffee I try to squeeze in at least 30 to 40 minutes of reading. Another thing that helps a lot is during my commute to work, since I’m not driving, I use the time to add around 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and afternoon. Probably my biggest session during the weekdays is during lunch. A cool 45 minutes after chugging down my lunch with the minimal chewing.

As you can see, adding up those little spaces, I’m averaging around 2 hours of reading during the day. Of course during the weekend I’m trying to at least get 3 to 4 hours in. Not always possible but this new routine is fairly new, let’s give it time to develop.

In that regard what is helping out tremendously is that the Bookly Readathon is going on right now. The minimal amount of hours of reading is set to 10 hours and the true achievement will be the top tier 45 hours from January 29 to February 9.

As you can see in the image below, I’m just past the 8 hour mark, with a week to go, and being the greedy reading that I am, the goal is the top tier, but if I get to the third level on the challenge “Plot Explorer” that is, to read over 20 hours but less than 45 hours, I will consider it a great success.

As I have been doing this past few weeks, the majority of the material that I have been reading are graphic novels. Right now, I’m still on the rabbit hole that’s the various series of the famous video game Assassin’s Creed.

In the series Awakening, we sail the treacherous waters of the Caribbean in the 18th century, of course if we are talking pirates, what better way to exemplify that having the legendary Blackbeard make and appearance. On the other hand, Valhalla-Blood Brothers, set in the 860’s, we follow the brothers Stensson and their conquest of England. As I’m a sucker for Vikings, I highly recommend the latter book, it’s a bloody good time as the brothers face an angry Anglo Saxon army.

Thanks to all of this dynamic and fun stories, my reading streaks are alive and well. Actually, the second of the four challenges was successfully completed last week, and I even got the second prize to keep me focused and motivated on my reading.

Here’s a quick update of the challenges

  • 10-day reading streak, at least 179 pages per day (Completed
  • 5-day gold reading streak, at 300 pages per day (Completed )
  • 4 week reading streak, at least 1,253 pages per week ( 3 week streak)
  • 100-day reading streak, at least 179 pages per day (24 day streak)

As you can see, the second challenge, the 5-day gold reading streak has been completed and the prize is already in my hands, drum roll please

The second volume of the Horus Heresy, False Gods, my year-long event of reading for the eighteenth year of my project. I love how the anticipation is building in my head of what promises to be an epic year full of Grimdark and a universe that I have never explore before. The only thing I hope is that there’s enough time for me to get knee deep into this vast story, that according to my preliminary delving into it, the 64 series is only part of the whole event.

Lots of reading and catching up to do, that includes being more meticulous with this space to share my adventure thru 1,000,000 pages and a whole lot of caffeine.

I hope that tomorrow one of the sections gets back in circulation. I’m talking about the “Numbers” or my magic Mondays, where I get to share my progress for the week and how the year is shaping up.

But for now.

I’m off to read.

Azriel

0

Daily Journal: January 23, 2025

I’m so glad to be writing to inform you , my beloved readers, that my reading has been not faulted or taking any miss steps for the past two weeks.

As I write this, not only did I cross the 179-page mark, taking up the streak to 14 days, but I also started on the path of the final challenge not yet active, the 5-day gold reading streak, and with the weekend fast approaching, I don’t see any inconvenience for that to reach day number 4 by the afternoon of the lazy Sunday that’s ahead of me.

The other challenge that’s looking promising for is the 4-week reading streak, there’s only 335 pages standing between me and the second week in a row of hitting the weekly quota. In order to achieve that the easiest way , and one of the most entertaining, is to get knee deep into a new manga series.

The turn this time is one I have been eyeing for a while, Assassin’s Creed : Dynasty. Set in the year 755 d.C. follows the attempts of Li E, an assassin trained by The Hidden Ones and his quest to turn the tide and save the Tang dynasty from complete obliteration.

As always, this quick and fun read keeps me motivated, and most of all, keep those pages adding up without me even realizing it. what I was lacking the most was this balance between pure adulterating fun and more dense and deep reads.

With things keeping this trajectory, I will be crossing the finish line of the hardest challenge, the 100-day reading streak, by April 19, and what a prize that will be.

A quick recap of the reading challenges

  • 10-day reading streak, at least 179 pages per day (Completed)
  • 5-day gold reading streak, at 300 pages per day (1 day streak)
  • 4 week reading streak, at least 1,253 pages per week ( 1 week streak)
  • 100-day reading streak, at least 179 pages per day (14 day streak)

The other thing that I’m excited about is the beginning of the Bookly Readathon, officially called “Page One”, starting in exactly 5 days and 18 hours. Call me crazy, but in order to really make it a challenge, I would love to hit the top tier of hours read, That would mean that I should read at least 45 hours to call myself a “Chapter Champion” with all the pride in the world.

What do you think? Do you think I’m up for the challenge?

For now, I’m off to read

Azriel

0

Daily Journal: January 19,2025

Back on January 11, I decided to spicy things up with a few reading challenges to get this year out of the slump. Well I’m glad to inform that the first challenge has been achieved.

For the past 10 days, I have hit the mark of at least reading 179 pages per day, even better than that, my average has been around 215 pages per day. Thanks to that, another of the challenges has hit its first mark. The 4-week challenge of reading 1,253 pages per week. Things are starting to have the forward momentum that gives me hope that the coveted 1,000,000 pages at the end of the road, will be achieved.

I also mentioned that as a motivation tool, after each challenge completed I will reward myself with a prize, more books of course, for now I’ll keep the suspense until I get the first prize physically in my hands.

Just a quick recap of the challenges :

  • 10-day reading streak, at least 179 pages per day (Completed)
  • 5-day gold reading streak, at 300 pages per day (Not started)
  • 4 week reading streak, at least 1,253 pages per week (1 week streak)
  • 100-day reading streak, at least 179 pages per day (10 day streak)

To add to this progress, I will also be participating on the Bookly App first Readathon of the year. Taking place from January 30 to February 9.

Although the app focuses more on the time spent reading, it is a great way to get those pages rolling.

This time, as they often do , there’s levels according to how much time you read. As always, being the greedy reader that i am , I would love to aim for “Chapter Champion” level , more than 45 hours logged in.

The other cool thing about the Readathon is the prompts, themes or characteristics of the books you are reading,. This I believe always have motivated me to read outside of my comfort zone, a thing I have been doing more often this past few months.

The particular prompt that I think that tackling first will be a great motivator should be ‘A book You’ve Started but Never Finished” there are quite a few on my TBR pile.

To close out the day of reading , I think I’ll try to get the last of challenges started, 5 gold days of reading, let’s see how the rest of the night plays out

Off to read

Azriel

0

The end of the journey

And thus, one of the best and hardest series I have ever read, comes to an epic close.

Not to spoil anything, but the appearance of the menacing Crippled God, and all the backdoor treachery was just the perfect way to close out this fantasy masterpiece.

I still have plenty of other stories to read involving this amazing universe, some series written by Steven Erikson that I am hunting down, and The Malazan Empire series written by Ian Cameron Esslemont, which I purchased on my Kindle a while ago.

It was quite the journey, that started on October 14,2018 and finished about an hour ago, making it 932 days between book one, Gardens of Moon, and book ten, The Crippled God.

I started using the Bookly app to keep track, and I have really specific data from starting book three, Memories of Ice, unfortunately from the first two volumes I only have total pages read, but the break down goes like this.

  1. Gardens of the Moon (635 pages)
  2. Deadhouse Gates (699 pages)
  3. Memories of Ice (925 pages) (24 hours 58 minutes)
  4. House of Chains (1021 pages) (23 hours 41 minutes)
  5. Midnight Tides (624 pages) (20 hours 46 minutes)
  6. The Bonehunters (804 pages) (24 hours 7 minutes)
  7. Reaper’s Gale (1003 pages) (18 hours 55 minutes)
  8. Toll the Hounds (1269 pages) (22 hours 36 minutes)
  9. Dust of Dreams (816 pages) (12 hours 57 minutes)
  10. The Crippled God (913 pages) (25 hours 23 minutes)

This gives me a total of 8,709 pages and a reading time, from book three to ten, of 173 hours and minutes.

I will highly recommend that you read this series, a real must for any fantasy lover, after reading less intrinsic series, I have been reading fantasy for more than 20 years, and this is a vast cast of characters, races, locations, magical systems ( the warrens are my favorite part of the stories), gods, kingdoms, and all around customs, that it can easily become to much if you’re not accustom to this type of stories.

Just to close out this amazing experience, I would like to say that my favorite volume was number two, the whe sequence in Raraku, the holy desert, was just amazing, and it reverberated with me quite personally, living in a desert you can appreciate the sheer vastness and beauty of a place like that, and Mr. Erikson captured it exquisitely.

Now, to begin new journeys.

Off to read.

azr.

1

Into the night

As I check my progress with the last of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, and with my deadline being today, my night has just become more interesting.

As you can see in the image above, taken from the Bookly app, I still have 148 pages left,and with my pace of reading, this will take 4 hours and 13 minutes to read.

Off to read, caffeine don’t fail me now.

azr.

0

Final report from Bookly’s Spring Readathon

I am really satisfied with my results of my reading for the 4-day readathon.

To be honest, I was on the fence to whether to participate or not, but as it turns out, it was a great motivator.

The best part is that it got me on pace to finish The Crippled God, currently on page 523, and getting me back in form for my month-long Star Wars readathon.

Off to read.

azr.

0

Bookly’s Spring Readathon, update two

I did it!!!

10 hours of reading.

Yesterday was a really productive day, I read for 5 hours and 5 minutes with a total of 316 pages.

My greatest satisfaction is that I made excellent progress with The Crippled God, read from page 361 to 485, that’s 124 pages, and way over the halfway point of the book, and 9 days to my deadline, I am more than confident to finish in time.

Let’s see total how many more pages and hours I can sum-up on this lazy, wine drinking spring Sunday.

Off to read.

azr.

0

Bookly’s Spring Readathon, first update

I am exactly where I wanted to be on my progress starting the third day of this boosting readathon, right in the middle of the 10-hour goal.

The first day, April 22, was fantastic, with a total of 3 hours and 3 minutes of reading, and 295 total pages. Yesterday, April 23 and World Book Day, which is kind of a busy day, I read for 2 hours and 1 minute for a total of 125 pages, a would have liked to have an all-out celebration to commemorate World Book Day, but you know life, but today I’ll try to replicate the excitement of one of my favorite days of the year.

I received from my lovely wife, as our tradition is for the day, a new book, La última sonrisa en Sunder City by Luke Arnold, published by the newly form Gamon Fantasy, a Spanish-based publishing house that is focusing on lesser known but still amazing fantasy books, this is the first addition to my shelves, and I am scrambling to get the others they have already printed.

Today’s focus will be to reach at least the 8 hours mark, and read as much as I can the final volume from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, The Crippled God, with some graphic novels in between, in particular the two volumes of DC Comics massive series 52, which came out quite a few years ago but I didn’t finish reading it, so I decided to read the whole thing.

Stay safe, over here, things are getting again a bit difficult, we are back to lock-down over the weekend, with new decisions concerning how to go forward on Monday, this is far from over.

Off to read.

azr.

0

Bookly Spring Readathon

With 45 days left on this year of reading, I can’t think of a better way to kick off this final leg than with a readathon.

The goal is simple, read for 10 hours from Thursday to Sunday, that’s from the April 22 to April 25, while keeping track on the app.

It seems easy enough but it can get tricky, let’s see how it plays out, I’ll probably post update are the end if each day.

On the reading, I will be focusing on The Crippled God, and some digital graphic novels that I have been meaning to read.

As always, this type of intense reading sessions fuel up my motivation to finish the year strongly, and carry the momentum for next year.

Off to read.

azr.

0

Tapping out

After 7 hours, and 41 minutes, I have decided to stop my participation on Bookly’s Winter Readathon .

The goal was 10 hours over 4 days of reading, and to be close to 8 hours,and 591 total pages, I put this on the winning column.

My only concern is the upcoming, and really physically demanding 24in48 readathon.

Am I really up to the task?

Guess will see.

Tomorrow, I’ll post how my quest to balance out my total page count, spoiler alert, it’s not so good.

For now, I am off to rest my eyes.

azr.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑