Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon: End of Event Meme

Posted 27 April 2014 in events, Uncategorized /8 Comments

  1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Hour 11 (for me, 10:00-11:00PM). I had a short nap from ~9:00-9:45 but I felt even more tired when I woke up! Normally, I wouldn’t be that tired until around midnight. Who knew reading was so exhausting? 😉
  2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Unwind dystology by Neal Shusterman (YA dystopia), The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (fantasy of a rare sort), Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago (magical realism; if you can get into his style, I find his books are hard to put down)
  3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? I still have the same answer as at mid-event – “I think the improvements made this year have been fantastic! I can’t think of anything I would like to see changed.”
  4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? Cheerleading – it was very-well organized and I felt very supported 🙂
  5. How many books did you read? I only finished one, but I read three throughout the day, for a total of 700 pages.
  6. What were the names of the books you read? The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Hollow City by Ransom Riggs, and Justice by Rhiannon Paille
  7. Which book did you enjoy most? Ach, it’s almost unfair now that I read some of LotR because it is one of my all-time favourite books! I’ve read it lots before…
  8. Which did you enjoy least? I liked the other two books equally the same, but for me they are below LotR so I guess I liked them ‘least’ ^^; (but I did like them!)
  9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? N/A (I did some rogue cheering for people who signed up late and may not have been assigned a cheerleader – I think this is a good option for those who aren’t official cheerleaders.)
  10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? Ooh, I would love to say 100% but the next time it’s on I will be living in Japan. I’m not sure what my schedule will be like then. I would probably do the same role – primarily reading, broken up with some interactive tweeting.

This year I kept track of my reading stats with Jenn of Jenn’s Bookshelves spreadsheet. I used my iPod timer to keep a close track of how long it took to me to read how many pages – I read 707 pages in 6.8 hours! How that breaks down:

  • The Lord of the Rings  – 53 pages read in 98 minutes
  • Justice  – 376 pages read in 184 minutes (read entire book) 
  • Hollow City – 278 pages in 128 minutes

I came short of my goals (I underestimated the size of Justice and Hollow City), but I’m happy with the reading I did manage. I had a great a time participating. Here is an hourly recap of this year’s event (‘participating online’ means tweeting, commenting or completing a mini-challenge):

  1. 7:00-8:00AM: Sleeping. I reallllly dislike waking up early (I usually sleep until 8:30). But, even without intending to, I woke up at 7:45. I had been dreaming about the read-a-thon, so I guess I was eager to start!
  2. 8:00-9:00AM: Reading The Lord of the Rings
  3.  9:00-10:00AM: Eating breakfast (pancakes with strawberries and bacon) and reading The Lord of the Rings
  4. 10:00-11:00AM: Reading The Lord of the Rings, participating online
  5. 11:00-12:00PM: At sports practice
  6. 12:00-1:00PM: At sports practice
  7. 1:00-2:00PM: At sports practice
  8. 2:00-3:00PM: At sports practice [for the curious – practice goes from 12:00-2:00 but there is a lot of driving and set-up/take down]
  9. 3:00-4:00PM: Showering, eating lunch (grilled cheese, pickles and tomato soup), participating online
  10. 4:00-5:00PM: Reading Justice, participating online
  11. 5:00-6:00PM: Reading Justice
  12.  6:00-7:00PM: Reading Hollow City
  13. 7:00-8:00PM: Eating dinner (spring rolls, pepperoni pizza), participating online, reading Hollow City
  14. 8:00-9:00PM: Reading Justice
  15. 9:00-10:00PM: Napping
  16. 10:00-11:00PM: Reading Hollow City and Justice, snacking (grapes) participating online
  17. 11:00PM-12:00AM: Reading Justice, finished the book and got my ‘second wind, snacking (Cheerios)
  18. 12:00-1:00AM: Reading Hollow City 
  19. 1:00-2:00AM: Sleeping
  20. 2:00-3:00AM: Sleeping
  21. 3:00-4:00AM: Sleeping
  22. 4:00-5:00AM: Sleeping
  23. 5:00-6:00AM: Sleeping
  24. 6:00-7:00AM: Sleeping

Here are a few photos I snapped during the Read-a-thon. The shelfie was for The Book Monsters’ mini-challenge and the other is my reading corner around 11:00PM. 

Next time I participate, I will pay closer attention to the size of the books I want to read, and have an earlier nap for a longer period of time so I can stay up later. I woke up at 8:00AM this morning! I should have pushed through another hour or two and finished Hollow City…I will finish it today. Thanks to everyone who made this Read-a-thon an incredible event!


8 responses to “Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon: End of Event Meme

  1. That looks like such a cozy corner for sure! :)And haha with the hours of sleeping, I just woke up but I think I may have to go back to bed again.

  2. That looks like such a cozy corner for sure! :)And haha with the hours of sleeping, I just woke up but I think I may have to go back to bed again.

Leave a Reply