Bout of Books 37

I recently participated in Dewey’s Readathon again, in which you read a whole bunch within 24 hours. What I learned is that I Am Aging. I read for about 12 hours—around my personal best—and had neck/shoulder pain for a few days after, despite best efforts at taking breaks and looking after my posture.

SO, imagine my delight when I found Bout of Books, a weeklong readathon with gentle expectations. In their words:

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 8th and runs through Sunday, May 14th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, daily Discord questions, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 37 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

The readathon starts today, and I will be participating! I’ll use this post to share my daily updates.

Intent

I would like to read for at least an hour a day. Based on my plans this week, that definitely seems doable. I have a few loans out from the library on my Kindle right now:

• “Her Body and Other Parties” by Carmen Maria Machado (Disclosure)
• “Naked Statistics” by Charles Wheelan (ridiculous title, actually pretty approachable read)
• “Shed No Tears” by Caz Frear

It will be good to work through these because Libby keeps telling me my other holds are available early, and I’ve had to defer them. Melanie’s Law: “all library holds will become available simultaneously, regardless of when they were placed”.

Progress

Monday

• At lunch I read about problems with probability in “Naked Statistics”. The author quite astutely pointed out that our ability to gather data has improved, but we haven’t yet figured out morally what to do with that data when it has societal implications. This book was written in 2011, and I hate to tell ya my guy, that doesn’t get any better in the next decade.
• Before bed, read one short story in “Her Body and Other Parties”.

Pages: 31 (I am using The StoryGraph to track)

Tuesday

Read part of a short story in “Her Body and Other Parties” that ended up being a longish story, or over an hour per my Kindle.

Pages: 34

Wednesday

• Read two chapters in the stats book, about 1) problems with probability and 2) central limit theorem. Mulling over how to apply the latter.
• Finished the long short story from Tuesday.

Pages: 55

Thursday

• Read in the stats book about statistical inference and polling.
• Started reading another short story but had an unusually early start the next morning so put it down.
• Pages: 50

Friday

• Finished up the stats book by reading about regression analysis and program evaluation. 🎉

• Wrapped up the short story from Thursday night.

• Pages: 119