Tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 27, and Sunday, Jan. 28, I am joining the 24 in 48 Readathon (click on button at right to be taken to the site),” in which “beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday morning and running through 11:59 p.m. on Sunday night, participants read for 24 hours out of that 48-hour period. You can split that up however you’d like: 20 hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday; 12 hours each day; six four-hour sessions with four hour breaks in between, whatever you’d like.”
Today, I’ll be telling you about my preparation, “The Pregame,” for this weekend’s event; tomorrow and Sunday, about the event itself, “The Game,” with updates over the two days; and on Monday, reflections on the weekend, “The Postgame.”
The Pregame
The Books: Like the shirt above says, “I read what I want,” so these are just among many books from which I might select:
- The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Big Book of The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett, edited by Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett
- The Ghosts of Galway by Ken Bruen
- Life On Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith
- Never Get Angry Again: The Foolproof Way to Stay Calm and in Control in Any Conversation of Situation by David J. Lieberman, Ph. D
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly
I am rereading The Lord of the Rings this year and already finished The Fellowship of The Ring so next up is The Two Towers. I might get to starting The Return of the King in this readathon, but I doubt it. Last year I read Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, two novels about The Continental Op, a detective created by Dashiell Hammett and recently I saw this book, which collects all 28 stories about The Op and the two novels, on the “new” bookshelf at our library. That’s where I also got the next three books that are listed, although the Smith collection of poetry is from 2011, but it’s new to our library. I purchased the deGrasse Tyson book as a Kindle deal and the Cleverly book is the first of a series about a British detective in India named Joe Sandilands that a friend of mine, who lived in an apartment building we lived in for many years when we lived in suburban Philadelphia, recommended to me. I might add others from another list of ebooks that I discussed a few weeks ago to the list of possibilities, but we’ll see.
The Snacks: Tonight after work I stopped at the grocery store and the wine and spirits shoppe to stock up on snacks for tomorrow and Sunday: wine, cheese, crackers, nacho chips, and salted caramel gelato. The wine will be used sparingly as I don’t want to be asleep the whole time, which leads me to…
The Game Plan: I plan to schedule both days the same:
Midnight to 8 p.m.: Sleep
8 a.m. to 9 a.m.: Breakfast with my wife Kim
9 a.m. to noon: Read
Noon to 1 p.m.: Lunch
1 p.m. to 5 p.m.: Read
5 p.m. to 6 p.m.: Dinner with Kim
6 p.m. to 7 p.m.: Time with Kim before she goes to work
7 p.m. to midnight: Read
I should explain that my wife works midnight shift so she will be asleep most of the time that I am reading in the morning and afternoon and then on both nights, she has to be to work at 7:45 p.m. for 12-hour shifts that end the following mornings – lest you think that I am completely abandoning her.
So are you participating in this weekend’s readathon? If so, what is your plan of attack? What does your stack look like? Snacks? If not, are you doing any reading this weekend? If so, what are you reading? If not, whatchya up to anyway? 🙂
Still an unfinished person... 