48-Hour Book Challenge: Final Update

My final totals:
Hours of reading: 15
Hours of listening to audiobooks: 3.5
Hours blogging/networking: 2
Books finished: 2
Pages read: 1175

Kate's final totals:
Hours of reading: 15
Books finished: 4
Pages read: 1404

We're at the end of the 48-hour challenge, after 15 hours of reading for each of us! (We actually stopped at 5pm, but after reading all day long, I had to catch up on chores before writing this post.) I didn't surpass my totals for last year, but Kate beat hers by 50%. I suspect that she likes this reading challenge event even more than I do, and the only reason I can keep up with her is that, for now, I can survive on less sleep.

Kate finished Hunger and will post more reviews soon. I finished all 779 pages of Tigana and I'm almost done with The Tiger on audiobook. I also took some time to visit other participants' blogs and have augmented my wishlist greatly after seeing their recommendations.

We've donated $2 to UNICEF (to go toward education) for every hour that we participated, including reading, audiobook listening and blogging/networking time, so that makes $75 in all. We had a great time participating in this event again this year and thank MotherReader for organizing it all. We're both looking forward to participating again next year and hope that we'll convince more of our family and friends to join in the fun. I'll sign off with some brief comments about Tigana, which consumed most of my reading hours this weekend.

Tigana is by Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay. I've read two of Kay's other works and I enjoy his writing because of the complex plots, the well-developed characters and the detailed settings which are often based on real historical periods. Twenty years ago, a friend insisted I read Tigana after I told him that I didn't like high fantasy. I ended up liking the novel then and I enjoyed it even more this second time around. In the other Kay novels I'd read, the fantastical elements are very light, but in Tigana, sorcery does play a large part. Despite its length, I had a hard time putting this novel down, which made it perfect reading for the 48-hour challenge.