Today I have another split update. I didn’t get very far with The Last Juror last night – only to page 380 – but I do expect to finish it tonight before bed.

I’ve also got another 50 or so pages left in Mager’s Preparing Instructional Objectives. I’ve been so impressed that I’ve been telling all my co-workers what a great (and fun) read this book has been. I’m really looking forward to reading his other books.

I was the weekly random winner in Zoe’s Read-a-ton contest and am eagerly awaiting my prize – a Christmas themed header for my blog. I’ve added some new books to my shelf on Shelfari and will be moving all completed (read) books to my reading list. I picked up two more John Grisham’s to read this week – A Time to Kill and The Runaway Jury – and ordered some books I’ve had my eye on at Chapters.ca for a while. Christmas season is the time of gift cards and new textbooks *yippee*. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Robin Williams’ Non-Designers Design Book. Since I took the free shipping option, these books probably won’t arrive until after Christmas.

In the meantime, once I’m done with the John Grisham I’ll have to fall back on the books I’d originally planned to read during the contest period.

Technorati Tags: shelfari, read-a-ton, john grisham, robert mager, paulo freire, robin williams

GeekZenDaddy, another participant in Zoe’s Read-a-ton contest, turned me onto Shelfari. Shelfari creates a personal book shelf where you can showcase your books and share opinions of the books you read. I think I’m going to quite like using this service.

Today I have a split update. I only managed to get through another 150 pages (give or take a few) in The Last Juror last night. Luckily for me, my eyes became heavy and I started to fall asleep just as I hit the second section of the book.Â

This evening I began reading Robert Mager’s Preparing Instructional Objectives. I’ve been planning to read this for work for the past few weeks. I’m about 50% through it and I’m loving it. The book is written in a “choose your own adventure” style where your reading path is based on existing knowledge or understanding of the topic. I’ll have to admit, I’m actually reading it page-by-page this time through. I’ll take the quick route through the next time I read it.

Mager’s book is infused with a great sense of humour and fun. Page 6 has an amusing blurb advising that there’s no reason for you to be reading the page, and I’ve found my new favorite learning objective on page 21: “using a stick, beat a dead horse to oblivion”.

The only downside I’ve found to the book so far is the fact that there are occassional references to page numbers (remember: it’s choose your own path) that when you flip to the page doesn’t actually have a number on it. For example, there’s a reference to page 33 but when you get to page 33, there’s no page number. Instead, it’s the first page of chapter 3. All in all, it’s a small complaint in what I’m finding to be a great book.

Technorati Tags: shelfari, read-a-ton, john grisham, robert mager

For book 2 in the read-a-ton contest, I’ve chosen John Grisham‘s The Last Juror. I’m about 100 pages in and hooked. I’m finding it an easier read than I expected and am enjoying the picture of small town Southern life – with all it’s warts – that Grisham is painting.

While I’ve seen the movie, I haven’t read A Time to Kill. However, encountering Lucien Wilbanks and Harry Rex Vonner in The Last Juror has made the book seem like a familiar friend. A few friends have A Time to Kill at work, so I may take the opportunity to borrow it and read it once I’ve finished this one. My only concern is that since I’m already familiar with one version of the story (the movie version) I may find I’m not so enamoured with the written version.

Technorati Tags: John Grisham, The Last Juror, A Time To Kill, read-a-ton

It’s day two of the read-a-ton contest and I’ve finished reading my first book. I started with book 5 (I completely forgot about book 3 in the series and thought I was reading book 4) in the Meredith Gentry series because I tend to really enjoy Laurel K Hamilton‘s books. The last few Anita Blake novels have been a bit of a disappointment but overall it’s a pretty decent vampire series. The Meredith Gentry series focuses on Fairie rather than the world of the undead and started out with an interesting first book. I usually find them really easy to read and pre-ordered this book from Chapters months ago.

There are bonus’ to pre-ordering books. Despite the publishing date being 12/12/2006, it arrived at my house on the 9th and I started reading it on the 10th. After staying up WAY too late last night, I finished it off at 2am. Granted, that’s not as big of an accomplishment as it sounds since there was just over 200 pages in the entire novel.

Since the book is so new, I don’t want to write too much about it and risk spoiling it for anyone else interested in the series. However, I can give you a general overview: Merry continues to add more men to her harem and brings back a few more of the lost Fairie artifacts. The magic is returning in force and things that haven’t lived in years are beginning to bloom once again. If you love gratuitous sex, this is your book. If you’re looking for plot or character development, you’d best look somewhere else.

Ratings (out of 5):

• Jello for the mind = 4 stars
• Overall = 2 stars

Technorati Tags: read-a-ton, Merry Gentry, Meredith Gentry, Unseelie, Seelie, Anita Blake, Laurel K Hamilton

It’s the day I’ve been waiting for all week. Mistral’s Kiss arrived on Friday and I’ve had to stop myself from opening it and reading it until this morning. I manged to get through 50 pages before we had to head out and do some weekly shopping this morning. It’s just over 200 pages of easy reading so I’m pretty sure I’ll have it finished by this time tomorrow.

I’ve already got the backup book – John Grisham’s The Last Juror – sitting by my nightstand.

Technorati Tags: reading, books