First Check In: "You Can't Find a Cup of Tea Big Enough or a Book Long Enough to Suit Me."

That's what C. S. Lewis once said and he's right. I love tea and I love books--things that all MANLY MEN enjoy. Seriously, though, I've been reading a lot as part of the 48 Hour Book Challenge and its been a lot of fun. I've gone through two cups of Darjeeling tea (which I've drunk from my very MANLY Carolinas Panther mug) and have been steadily reading The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel and listening to Airborn, also by Kenneth Oppel. What terrific books! The Boundless (recommended by our friend and reader guy Mighty Micah) is a really good adventure story about the world's longest train, a boy who gets lost and nearly separated from the train, a murderer trying to find him, a sasquatch and every boy's dream, which is, according to page 141, is to join the circus. I'm a little over halfway through and enjoying it immensely.

But even the Iron Guy can't sit and read all the time. I still have to walk the dog, put away laundry (yes, MANLY MEN do their own laundry!) and do a few other things which get me off my chair. That's why it's great that we can listen to an audiobook during the Challenge--we can still "read" while doing other things. Well, this is one very terrific audiobook. It's long--about 10 1/2 hours--but it has really drawn me in. I'll give a full review another time but let me just say for now that it creates a totally believable alternate universe and populates it with good and interesting characters that you want to hear more about. It's not a book that starts off with a bang; I'm on chapter 5 and there has only been one thrilling event, a mid-air rescue in chapter one. This book takes it's own sweet time to set up the good stuff but there promises to be some very cool things happening before long. This is one of those books that, as C. S. Lewis would say, can't be long enough.

So I started reading and listening at 8:00 am and now it's 3:00 pm, so that makes seven hours of reading listening so far. I'm going to check out what my fellow bloggers have been doing and then get back to it.

ONWARD, fellow readers!