Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 November 22-25 Finished

Thanks to Jenn from jennsbookshelves for hosting this challenge.

I have now finished this challenge. I reached my goal of reading 3 books but not everything went according to plan. In my update I mentioned that I wanted to finish my third book on Saturday and hopefully start Monsters of Men on Sunday.
I did finish Changes by Jim Butcher on Saturday or rather I guess it was Sunday as it was about 1am. But I haven't read anything today.
I liked all three books I read this weekend but mostly Changes by Jim Butcher.

This is the three books I read and which challenges they counted towards:

1. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes toward 2012 Sci-Fi Challenge and A-Z Book Challenge 2012.
2. Y by Bonnie Rozanski toward A-Z Book Challenge 2012.
3. Changes by Jim Butcher toward Finishing the Series.

 This weekend has helped me quite well towards finishing my challenges for 2012.

Changes by Jim Butcher

Long ago, Susan Rodriguez was Harry Dresden's lover-until she was attacked by his enemies, leaving her torn between her own humanity and the bloodlust of the vampiric Red Court. Susan then disappeared to South America, where she could fight both her savage gift and those who cursed her with it.
Now Arianna Ortega, Duchess of the Red Court, has discovered a secret Susan has long kept, and she plans to use it-against Harry. To prevail this time, he may have no choice but to embrace the raging fury of his own untapped dark power. Because Harry's not fighting to save the world...
He's fighting to save his child. From Goodreads

I said it last time I read one of the Harry Dresden books and I will say it again. I really like this series! There are two left, Ghost Story and then Cold Days that is being released the 29th of November on Kindle.
This one takes a whole new turn when Harry finds out he has an eight year old kid and the Red Vampires has taken her. He will do anything to save her. He again has to fight a lot of evil helped by friends, other people and beings only a little less evil than the enemy. All ends reasonably well or not.

This book qualifies for: 
100 books in a year Reading Challenge 2012, 
Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge, 
2012 Ebook Challenge,
2012 Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge,
Finishing the Series Reading Challenge,
Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 update

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 update.

It is the end of day two and my reading is going according to plan. I have just finished my second book.
I have the last few days been suffering from a cold and have not felt like going out. Luckily the worst was actually over before the Reading Weekend started so I have had no problems reading.
I have decided to start Changes by Jim Butcher next and I am sure I will finish it tomorrow and then I can make a start of Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness on Sunday.

Y by Bonnie Rozanski

The year is 2011, the place, New York City. A mysterious microbe has begun to infect women of child-bearing age. Though the medical establishment writes it off as a simple flu, and the epidemic appears to be dying out, a young New York obstetrician confronts a conundrum. In the past year, the ratio of boys to girls born in her practice has declined precipitously. Dr. Deborah Kruger suspects the truth: that infected women are no longer able to give birth to male children.
With the help of her husband Larry, a computer analyst, Deborah tracks the epicenter to New York City, from which the infection is already bursting forth. And, as years pass, despite hundreds of laboratories at work on it, the microbe continues to overrun borders and envelop the Earth. With Science unable to stop it, and the contagion rippling worldwide in an AIDS-like pandemic, how will society cope in an increasingly female world?
Unquestionably, some changes are inevitable. Companies hire more women; who assume more leadership positions, replacing the male hierarchy with their own female style of management, to great success. Among the younger generation, monogamy is increasingly replaced by polygamy. Wars decrease. Crime falls. Football attendance is down. Ballet is up.
"Y" follows three New York City families for an entire generation, each with its own story. The blue-collar husband proves unable to deal with a wife who has become the major bread-winner. The yuppie husband does well in his career but cannot resist the temptations of a workplace with limitless young women. His wife, turned off from men entirely, will leave him and become a force to reckon with in her own right. And, along the way, the children of all three families struggle to find mates and to secure their own places in this new, topsy-turvy world. From Goodreads.

This book is by some described as a thriller, to me a thriller is a scary book and this is not scary. It is a story about the changes that happens when hardly any boys are born in a generation. Bonnie Rozanski has done a good job of describing different types of men and different types of women, how they interact and how they change when  society is suddenly dominated by women. It is also about  the moral of cloning. I enjoyed this book.

This book qualifies for:
100 books in a year Reading Challenge 2012, 
Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge,
A-Z  Book Challenge 2012,
2012 Ebook Challenge,
Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.
Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow.
Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own. From Goodreads.

I like the idea of people getting a familiar, an animal companion, when they commit a crime. This is a very interesting read and it takes several twists that I didn't expect which I really like. What I didn't like is that the book is full of foreign words that even though they make sense in a sentence just make the whole read more difficult. Words such as: nyangas, sangomas and muti. This distracted me from enjoying the book as much as would have liked.

This book qualifies for:
100 books in a year Reading Challenge 2012, 
Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge,
A-Z  Book Challenge 2012,
2012 Sci-Fi Challenge,
2012 Ebook Challenge,
Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 November 22-25 Start

It is time to start Thankfully Reading weekend.

My goal is, as mentioned in my sign up post, to read 3 books toward my 2012 Reading Challenges.
This is my list to choose from:

1. Changes by Jim Butcher toward Finishing the Series.
2. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes toward 2012 Sci-Fi Challenge and A-Z Book Challenge 2012.
3. "Y" by Bonnie Rozanski toward A-Z Book Challenge 2012.
4. Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness toward Finishing the Series.

I think I will start with Zoo City, continue with "Y" and finish of with Monsters of Men. If there is more time I will start Changes. All my books will be ebooks.

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 November 22-25

Thankfully Reading Weekend hosted by Jenn at Jenn's Bookshelves.

I nearly missed this, I am glad I didn't as the Thankfully Reading Weekend 2011 was one of the first reading challenges I took part in.
I am Danish and I do not celebrate Thanksgiving and I haven't been Black Friday shopping either but that doesn't mean I won't enjoy a weekend of reading.

My goal for these four days will be to finish 3 books toward my 2012 Reading Challenges.