Saturday, April 23, 2016

24 Hour Read-A-Thon Begins Again!

readathonbuttonIt's time for another 24 Hour Readathon! I link up with the Dewey 24 Hour Readathon, which is held twice a year. This is the Spring one, and it's a chance for me to clear off some of the 20-odd books I'm currently maintaining bookmarks in. So I hope to get a lot of titles, but it's really not that impressive.

It starts for me at 5:00 AM, April 23rd. Who knows if I'll be awake then, but this blog will start! I'll track books read, time read, and maybe do some challenges. There will be stuff happening at the home blog, as well as things going on at the Goodreads group around the readathon: Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon.

I already know I'll miss some hours because I'll be at a birthday dinner for my son. Priorities people!

Books I Opened:
  • The Fifth Season
  • Sisterland
  • Kenilworth
  • Devoted in Death
  • The Six
  • Anna of Byzantium
  • Dead Man Walking
  • Unnatural Causes (audio)
  • Twin Spica 7
  • Havoc
  • A Spool of Blue Thread
Books I Finished:
  1. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemison, 4/23/16
  2. Devoted in Death, J.D. Robb 4/23/16
  3. Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean 4/23/16
  4. Anna of Byzantium, Tracy Barrett 4/23/16
  5. Twin Spica 7, Kou Yaginuma 4/23/16
  6. The Six, Mark Alpert 4/24/16
Time Count:

Hour 1: 5:00 AM (PST)   Zzzzzzzzzz

Hour 2: 6:00 AM (PST)   Zzzzzzzzzz

Hour 3: 7:00 AM (PST)    Zzzzzzzzzz

Hour 4: 8:00 AM (PST) Finally woke up! Perhaps staying up reading until late last night was not the best start.... Now reading.

Hour 5: 9:00 AM (PST) Read for an hour. Finished The Fifth Season. Poked at Sisterland and Kenilworth. Figured out I put the wrong Lemonade Mouth on my tablet. oops.
60 minutes

Hour 6: 10:00 AM (PST) Settled into Devoted in Death.
2 Hours

Hour 7: 11:00 AM (PST) Finished Devoted in Death.
3 hours.

Hour 8: 12:00 NOON (PST) Dabbled in three different books. Ate breakfast. Cat spilled my water glass.
4 Hours.

Hour 9: 1:00 PM (PST)  Decided to power through Dead Man Walking. Had to pick up the kids from bus stop. Audio book: Unnatural Causes.
5 hours

Hour 10: 2:00 PM (PST) Had to drop the kids off somewhere. Audio book again. Then back to Dead Man Walking.
6 Hours.

Hour 11: 3:00 PM (PST) Dead Man Walking is a slow read because Sister Helen Prejean seems to demand reflection of her readers. There's a lot to think about.
7 Hours.

Hour 12: 4:00 PM (PST) Have spent the last hour on the couch, eating popcorn and finishing Dead Man Walking.
8 Hours.

Hour 13: 5:00 PM (PST) I took a 40 minutes nap. Hoping to finish a mini-challenge on time with Anna of Byzantium
8 hours, 20 minutes

Hour 14: 6:00 PM (PST) I read up until the last minute, then headed out for my youngest's birthday dinner. Some things are even more important than the readathon :-) Grabbed Twin Spica 7 to read if we had a wait at the restaurant.
9 hours 20 minutes.

Hour 15: 7:00 PM (PST) Mostly spent celebrating.

Hour 16: 8:00 PM (PST) Celebrating and driving around.
10 hours 50 minutes.

Hour 17: 9:00 PM (PST) (Hosting on Goodreads) Did I mention that I finished Anna of Byzantium? 'Cause I did. Come see me on Goodreads!
11 hours 50 minutes.

Hour 18: 10:00 PM (PST) (Hosting on Goodreads) Reading and cheering. I think I've sent more tweets today then in my entire previous life. Also still on Goodreads!
12 hours 50 minutes

Hour 19: 11:00 PM (PST) Still reading Havoc, with occasional breaks to push along the bookmark in The Six.
13 hours 50 minutes

Hour 20: 12:00 MIDNIGHT (PST) Still going. Paused on Havoc to see if I can push to the end of The Six.
14 hours 50 minutes.

Hour 21: 1:00 AM (PST) Still reading, although I find myself rereading the same paragraph a lot. Finished The Six and going back to The Havoc, although I might put some time in on A Spool of Blue Thread as the large print will be easy to read.
15 hours 50 minutes.

Hour 22: 2:00 AM (PST) Still plugging on, although brain power is low. I remembered to clean the cat box, so that was five minutes lost.
16 hours 45 minutes

Hour 23: 3:00 AM (PST) Very tired, but still reading. Alternating between the SF book for the action and the large print book for the ease of reading.
17 hours 45 minutes

Hour 24: 4:00 AM (PST) I have propped my eyeballs open and intend to finish this thing! Probably won't finish any more actual books, but I'll make progress. My currently-reading stack now fits on one page (!7).
18 hours 45 minutes

Final Survey:

  1. Most Daunting hour: The first one. I always mean to wake up but the snooze button lures me in. Usually I dream that I'm reading something so that I don't feel guilty as I fall back asleep.
  2. High Interest Books: This is very reader dependent. For SF lovers, I recommend N.K. Jemison. I wish I had stocked up on more graphic novels since they make your eyes move in a different way.
  3. Improvements: I didn't really understand the teams. I was Team Sparrow, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with my team.
  4. What worked? I liked moving between the blog, the goodreads group, and my twitter feed.There was a nice variety of challenges so I could do the ones that appealed to me but not feel bad about skipping some.
  5. How many? Um. I finished six, moved bookmarks in eleven, but most of the ones I finished I had started earlier. I like using the readathon to clean up my currently-reading pile.
  6. Titles? See top of blog.
  7. Favorite book? The Fifth Season
  8. Least favorite: Anna of Byzantium. I dislike when historical women are made stupid so they don't look mean. I bet the real Anna was much crueler but not as silly.
  9. Do it again? Yes -- I like an excuse to drop everything and read. I'll probably volunteer to run some discussions again. 

FINISH LINE: I made it! And boy are my eyes tired. I didn't finish anything else, but both Havoc and A Spool of Blue Thread are in good shape to finish next week.

19 hours, 45 minutes!

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