What is the Pondathon?

Pondathon II is a story-driven and gardening-themed readathon hosted and run by CW from The Quiet Pond. The aim of the Pondathon II readathon is to read books to earn plants and decorate your own little garden so that we can restore the forest together. More information about the readathon can be found here.

Information about joining the Pondathon

• You can sign-up to the Pondathon II readathon here. The readathon starts on January 10th 2022 and ends on December 11th 2022; sign-ups are open across the duration of the readathon.
• You also get to create your own Pond animal character for the Pondathon, and create your own character card!
• If you’d like, create a blog post, bookstagram post, booktube video, Twitter thread, or whatever medium you wish, with '#PondathonII' in the title or your tweet. Share the character you have created and your character card!
• Link back to this post so that new friends can find the readathon and join in as well.

Taken from The Quiet Pond website.

How did I end up here?

The last readathon I've been a part of was probably about seven years ago! I was persuaded by my friend Kikizubik. I wasn't very sucessful, but my friend won some bookmarks, signed by authors I was fan of at the time, and she gifted them to me. She's very nice! Although maybe it wasn't the same ocassion.

Nevertheless, years later, I still have a lot of books to read. I don't buy that many anymore, or atleast I don't think I do. I probably do. I have phases of fictions, mangas, western comics, and I don't tend to count them all at once, I suppose. So, let's take this Pondathon as an opportunity to tackle down some unread book piles!

I saw information about this readathon over on JR's Storytime website and I was very intrigued.

Gertruda, the clockmaker

Gertruda is a gentle tortoise lady who is amazed by clockwork! She has a big clock collection and she's always on the hunt for more. The mechanism of clocks reminds her of puzzles, and puzzles go hand in hand with mysteries. If she had a type-writter, she'd be a tortoise version of Jessica Fletcher.

In order to get to know new things, when it comes to books, she likes to read a variety of them.

Twelve books I want to read this year

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Goodreads)
I have never read Harry Potter and I saw the first few movies when I was very little and therefore I have no memories about it, not really. This book was being removed from a library, so I took it, fun! And I also hope to make my friend proud, I suppose.
2. Twilight Children – Torey L. Hayden (Goodreads)
I have read Beuatiful Child from the same author, and it was so interesting and kinda eye-opening. I have been very interested in neurodivergence and special education, after I have Played To The Moon. However I haven't read a lot about the "classroom experience" before, so that's why I really enjoyed the first book. Looking forward to this one, although it's not from a classroom anymore.
3. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams (Goodreads)
I bought this book back when Dirk Gently's first season was airing, because the first season was amazing. It also got me into scriptwriting, fun. I started reading it, then another book came, and we all know this situation I think!
4. Cowboy Bebop – Dan Watters, Lamar Mathurin (Forbidden Planet)
Cowboy Bebop! I love Cowboy Bebop! I'm very interested in the western-style this comic will have, as, you know, Cowboy Bebop is inspired by the pop culture of the west. I haven't read the manga, so I won't be able to do any comparisons, but maybe I'll be able to get it before my order will come. I have ordered all issues with covers by Claudia Ianniciello and also the first issue with cover by Stanley 'Artgerm' Lau, and the collected version, because I was way too happy and went onto a shopping spree, because Cowboy Bebop, so anyway I'm so very excited.
5. The Squirrels of Central Park are sad on Mondays* – Katherine Pancol (Goodreads)
I won't lie, I bought this book because the cover was pretty and purple and the namee is amazing. It is not released in English to my knowledge, the original title is Les écureuils de Central Park sont tristes le lundi and apparently it is the third book in a series. I can't ever manage to buy the first title whenever I'm blindly shopping. It is bound to happen, but apparently not with this title. I don't really feel like buying the previous two books because as an experienced sequence-breaker I think that good books can be read out of order and be enjoyable still (controversial). So, let's see.
6. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 – Sue Townsend (Goodreads)
I'm so intrigued by the fact that a 13 year old person wrote their name as 13 and 3/4. I love how little kids are very specific about their ages ("I'm six and three months!") but when you get to 13, I don't think you do that anymore. You'd be like, "I'll be fourteen". I like fun looking numbers in titles though.
7. Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales from the Time of the Cult – Bohumil Hrabal (Goodreads)
I love Bohumil Hrabal's writing style. His sentences tend to be a page-long. Like, no kidding. You can read one sentence before going to bed and you'll feel accomplished. I haven't read this one yet!
8. The Count of Monte Cristo II – Alexandre Dumas
Did you know that there are 5 sequels to The Count of Monte Cristo? I think this book (series) is so confusing, because some releases bundle the first book and the second book together (resulting in 1000 pages), but some releases only have the first book and it's about 900 pages, and, what? We also never learnt in school that it had sequels. I only learnt because my release came with the second book and then some year later, a collector's box was released with SIX stories in three books. What?! The second book is american western kinda story and it's pretty weird, because the main character has a different name as to not get recognized and it's complicated and what not, but it reads the same as the first book. I don't know why I haven't finished it. I'd love to finish the whole series, I have no idea what the 3-6 stories are about.
9. Bakemonogatari part 2 – NisiOisiN (Goodreads)
I have bought a Monogatari bundle from Humble Bundle because I was very intrigued with Kizumonogatari - The Wound Story. I had no idea that the Bakemonogatari series is the highest ranked light novel over on myanimelist. Never heard of it, never heard of the anime. I live in a bubble. I haven't read many light novels, only some Suzumiya Haruhi books and Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attack?. This book series is very similar to Mom as in, it's very light-novel-y. Very yikes-I'm-not-the-target-audience-I-guess. It's fun to read anyway. And for some reason it uses fancy English words, so it's a learning opportunity. Haven't read many books in English that had this many fancy words and some of the ones I read were for adults or about science. interesting!
10. The Land of the Cursed* – Liliana Lazar (Goodreads)
Original title Terre des affranchis. Apparently it's a fairy tale meets communism history, which is interesting? I had this book for a quite the while. I'm glad I haven't read it back then, because perhaps I'll be able to appreciate it more now? Maybe? We'll see?
11. Forensic Chemistry – A. Lucas (Goodreads)
This is a 1909 book about forensic chemistry, how fun. I studied forensic chemistry at high school, it was my specialization. Always interested in the history of the field. The future, too, that's also cool.
12. Lily – Michael Thomas Ford (Goodreads)
Michael Thomas Ford is a very cool person, I may or may not be stalking him on Facebook. His books are very pricey to import, so I only read Suicide Notes, and I loved it, one of my favourites I think. Lily is very beautifuly illustrated and the story is intriguing - Lily can see how people will die when she touches them. Oooo!

TBA :o)