I’ve signed up for back-to-back summer readathons for the last two weekends this month. The first is the 24 in 48 Readathon from 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, July 21, until 11:59 a.m. Sunday, July 22 (reading for 24 out of any of the 48 hours, Eastern Standard Time); the second, a reverse Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, from 8 p.m. Friday night, July 27, until Saturday night, July 28, at 8 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time).
In the past, both readathons have encouraged reading diversely, but the 24 in 48 Readathon organizers this year are putting a special emphasis on it (see their post here). To that end, for the two readathons, I plan on focusing on diverse authors, not only authors of colors (although I will admit my list is lopsided toward them) as the organizers mention, but also also authors and books that represent “LGBTQIA+, disabilities, neurodiversity, geographic diversity, and more.”
I already have a few books selected for the readathon, but will add more to the potential reading list. Here is the list so far:
We Were Eight Years In Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie
Bluebird, Bluebird: A Novel by Attica Locke
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli.
I own the first six and have been meaning to get to all of them for a while and I borrowed Children of Blood and Bone from our library after seeing a lot of book bloggers mentioning it. I am hoping to borrow the last one from our library too. I think we just got it, but it hasn’t been processed yet. Once it is, I’ll scoop it up.
Are you planning on participating in either or both readathons? Even if not, do you have any recommendations of diverse authors or books that I might want to add to my potential reading list for the upcoming readathons?
Today I’ll be participating in Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon, for the umpteenth time. I know that I haven’t participated in every single one in the last 10 and a half years but I have participated in quite a few. No, I’ve never made it for 24 hours. I’m usually make six hours, if I am lucky, but that is okay; I’m reading more than I usually do in a week.
I’ll be keeping periodic updates here and on Instagram throughout the day. So follow along, if you want, in either or both places. As I mentioned last Sunday, here are the books from which I’ll be choosing for today:
All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
Colosseum: Poems by Katie Ford
Dear Darkness: Poems by Kevin Young
Dove Season by Johnny Shaw
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Macbeth by Jo Nesbo
Poetry Magazine, April 2018 edition
Sending Christmas Cards to Huck & Hamlet by Joseph Mills
Shoot the Dead by Steve Wetherell
Tangerine by Christine Mangan
Unknown Friends by Carl Dennis
Wade in the Water: Poems by Tracy K. Smith
Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehishi Coates
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie.
Altogether, I have eight physical books, eight digital books, including one audiobook with deGrasse Tyson, and one digital magazine. I have six fiction, five nonfiction, and also five books of poetry in honor of National Poetry Month this month. I have 10 books by male authors, six books by female authors and one magazine with both genders represented as well as eight books by non-white authors. In other words, almost all of the food groups are represented. 😉 But really I did try to select diversely in terms of the authors’ ethnicities and genres.
The Plan
I plan on reading as much as I can, but I know that it won’t be for 24 hours. I seem to always have an unrealistic goal of reading for 12 hours, so I’m going to make it slightly more doable with 10 hours. I think I’ll start with something short, maybe the Brown or some poetry, before I pop out later this morning to grab chicken from a chicken barbecue a local drug and alcohol counseling center is having today. As for the rest of the day’s culinary choices, I have lobster bisque, deviled eggs (made by my wife), crackers and cheese, a little wine, ice cream, corn chips, and a new favorite (and unfortunately seasonal) snack: white cheddar crab-seasoned cheeseballs from Utz.
Stay tuned for what I choose in both books and food…
1 p.m.: First book finished, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown. Almost three hours of reading time. On to the second one.
Instead of a book, I next listened to a playlist of poetry on YouTube from the podcast Book Cougars from book bloggers Emily Fine and Chris Wolak. They asked friends to choose a poem to read for National Poetry Month, and here are their choices, along with others from Emily and Chris:
Between 6 and 7 p.m., I finished two books of poetry, Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith and Colosseum by Katie Ford.
And unfortunately, that is where my readathon ended…at 6 hours and 48 minutes of reading.
The reason, which is not an excuse, is that last night was a terrible night for my tinnitus. I won’t give you the long explanation, but will refer you to the American Tinnitus Association page on understanding the facts about tinnitus. After taking a mixture of essential oils made by my wife specifically to help with tinnitus, the tinnitus did lessen in volume, but finally I took a magnesium pill to help me go to sleep. So it was a relatively early night for me, especially considering my goal for the readathon was 10 hours, as I went to bed about 10:30 p.m.
Final tally: Four books. My favorite was Tangerine, with the other three only being “meh” for me. I will add that Tangerine wasn’t perfect for me, e.g. an overuse of sentences beginning with the word “And.” However, overall the writing was exquisite, more than overcoming the book’s imperfections.
So did you participate in yesterday’s readathon? If so, how did you do? What was your favorite book read? If not, what was your favorite book read this week anyway?
This coming Saturday is the next edition of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon (click on the image to be taken to the event website) and I’ve been getting ready for the last few weeks. I’ve checked out a few books from the library and also have been culling my list on my Kindle so that I have a stack from which to choose. I do not plan on finishing all these books, but I do have a stack from which I can pick and choose what to read next. So without further ado, here is that stack, starting with a photo of the physical books, followed by a list of all the books, both physical and digital.
In alphabetical order by title, the books I have selected from which to choose are:
All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
Colosseum: Poems by Katie Ford
Dear Darkness: Poems by Kevin Young
Dove Season by Johnny Shaw
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Poetry Magazine, April 2018 edition
Sending Christmas Cards to Huck & Hamlet by Joseph Mills
Shoot the Dead by Steve Wetherell
Tangerine by Christine Mangan
Unknown Friends by Carl Dennis
Wade in the Water: Poems by Tracy K. Smith
Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehishi Coates
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie
Altogether, I have seven physical books, eight digital books, including one audiobook with deGrasse Tyson, and one digital magazine. I have five fiction, five nonfiction, and also five books of poetry in honor of National Poetry Month this month. I have nine books by male authors, six books by female authors and one magazine with both genders represented as well as eight books by non-white authors. In other words, almost all of the food groups are represented. 😉 But really I did try to select diversely in terms of the authors’ ethnicities and genres.
This afternoon, I am hoping to finish All Creatures Great and Small, so that is why I selected the second one, All Things Bright and Beautiful, for the list. The deGrasse Tyson book, I started reading and listening to last year but haven’t gotten back to it yet. I think the same can be said of Daring Greatly. The poetry books and the poetry magazine, as I have mentioned, I am reading for National Poetry Month. Shoot the Dead is compared to Shaun of the Dead in its humor, so I thought why not? I think it was a Kindle deal as was Dove Season, The Hate You Give, and You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me. Chris Wolak from the blog Wildmoo Books highly recommended Tangerine in a review she wrote for criminalelement.com, so I thought I’d give it a try. Waking Lions was recommended by a patron at our library, and We Were Eight Years in Power was a gift from another blogger as part of a Christmas book exchange and is one I’ve been wanting to read for a while.
Are you participating in this coming weekend’s Readathon? If so, what are you including in your stack? If not, what are you reading that is good that you would recommend to me and my readers? Please share in the comments.
In October, I dressed up for Halloween at the library where I work, we bought a new painting to go on an empty wall, we finished Game of Thrones, and I participated in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon.
October was similar to September in that I had another three-day weekend and Kim and I were watching Game of Thrones. We decided we couldn’t wait until December for Season 7 to come out on DVD, so we bought it on streaming instead. Now we just have to wait until next year or the year after for the final season. The highlight on the reading front was definitely Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon on Saturday, Oct. 21. I read four and three quarters book in just over eight hours:
Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
And the one Iwasstill reading at the end of the day was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I finally finished it earlier this week. Out of the five, my favorite was The Graveyard Book, which was a reread. I loved the writing in The Book Thief, but was less than enamored with the story itself. For me, it went on a bit too long.
Pushing Forward
Unlike the last couple of months where I had a long weekend toward the beginning of the months, this coming month I have a long weekend to end the month. I have off work from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving until that Sunday. As with other Thanksgivings, I plan on participating in Thankfully Reading Weekend. As with last month’s readathon, I have no ideas yet what I will be reading.
As for TV, I’m looking forward to this, on Netflix:
For me
And Kim and I both are looking forward to this, on Amazon Prime (we already watched the first one and loved it):
What were the highlights for you for October? What are you looking forward to in November?
I’ve signed up for back-to-back summer readathons for the last two weekends this month. The first is the 24 in 48 Readathon from 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, July 21, until 11:59 a.m. Sunday, July 22 (reading for 24 out of any of the 48 hours, Eastern Standard Time); the second, a reverse Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, from 8 p.m. Friday night, July 27, until Saturday night, July 28, at 8 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time).
Still an unfinished person... 