Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon discussion

Welcome back to Dewey’s Readathon! We had some changes to the administration of this much loved, long-lived reading institution after the last Spring Readathon. The new leadership team is coming together as we prepare for our most casual Readathon event of the year, the Reverse Readathon. For folks who have never done this one, we start at 8pm instead of 8am, so this year the Reverse Readathon starts August 6th at 8pm EST. We read, chat about reading, add far too many new titles to our TBRs, and whatever else we enjoy doing during readathons. All our events are about having fun and reading, but this one is more casual, at least so far.

So, the Pre-Readathon Challenge for this readathon is also more casual. Starting Sunday, July 11th, keep track of how many hours you read. This can be on social media, or in a notebook, or on a spreadsheet, or wherever works for you. Over the next 4 weeks leading up to the Readathon itself, see how many of these prompts you can check off. There are only 8 prompts, so if you aim for 2 per week you can finish all of them, and it is up to you whether you count the same book for multiple prompts.

1. Read a murder mystery/crime novel OR romance novel set in a place you’ve never visited.
2. Read a play published after 1950.
3. Read a book listed on either the Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Should Read list or Boxall’s 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.
4. Read a book in which at least one character is non-binary gendered, where this is a character trait, NOT the central conflict of the narrative.
5. Participate in a book-related Goodreads, Facebook, or other social media group (not Dewey’s).
6. Add a book to your pre-readathon TBR that is mentioned in a book blog, booktube, or other bookish social media site. Read the book.
7. Read a science fiction/fantasy novel, OR if you mostly read sci-fi/fantasy anyway, read a Western or cozy mystery.
8. Read a non-fiction book.

You can keep track of your progress online or on paper or wherever, but if you post your progress online on social media, feel free to use the hashtag #2021ReverseReadathon .

If you track your reading already on a thread in our For the Blogless folder, that's a fine place to keep track of your pre-readathon progress too.

Very interesting (and challenging) prompts! Definitely need to plan ahead a bit here and do some research.

You say to keep track of how many hours we read, but is there a particular number of hours we are supposed to reach? Or is that just for bragging rights/personal statistics/sense of achievement?

Leni wrote: "Very interesting (and challenging) prompts! Definitely need to plan ahead a bit here and do some research.

You say to keep track of how many hours we read, but is there a particular number of hour..."

I thought about setting a specific goal for everyone, but everyone's summer is different, so tracking for the next 4 weeks is just for bragging rights and practice, letting folks try out different formats and systems for tracking their reading. I'm expecting that some folks will set a more specific goal for themselves, too, but for the Reverse Readathon I am going for personalized and flexible. We can track our reading more formally in September and October. :)

Jamie wrote: "I thought about setting a specific goal for everyone, but everyone's summer is different, so tracking for the next 4 weeks is just for bragging rights and practice, letting folks try out different formats and systems for tracking their reading. I'm expecting that some folks will set a more specific goal for themselves, too,"

Cool, keeping it in thread with the casual theme. That works.

I'm not tracking how much I read/listen this time around. only because it is a LOT and always is. I almost always have an audio book going so on a typical day I'm listening to an audio book for at least 5 or 6 hours. So it gets really difficult for me to track specifics. :-)

Kelley wrote: "I'm not tracking how much I read/listen this time around. only because it is a LOT and always is. I almost always have an audio book going so on a typical day I'm listening to an audio book for at ..."

I track physical reading time and for my audiobooks I’m just gonna add the duration of the book. Sometimes I speed up but often enough I retract so I guessed that will balance it out.

sign up is now live! https://tinyurl.com/j8y6ydrk

6. Add a book to your pre-readathon TBR that is mentioned in a book blog, booktube, or other bookish social media site. Read the book. - IN PROGRESS



This book was promoted/mentioned in my cozy mysteries facebook group. I jumped on it because it occurs in my hometown, Pittsburgh, is a cozy which I love, has ghosts and angels, and even a ghost cat. :-) I'm loving all the references to places I know from growing up in the 'burgh.