Dewey’s read-a-thon report: October 2015

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon badge

Dewey’s 24-hour Read-a-thon took place on Sunday, Australian time. For those who have somehow managed to miss my incessant posting about it, the event is basically a chance for book geeks across the world to get together and read as much as possible. It is also held in honour of its founder, a book blogger who went by the name Dewey, who passed away several years ago. I participated in my very first read-a-thon in April 2011 and haven’t looked back since.

I posted last week about my reading plans. As expected, they were a bit ambitious, but I was pleased with how it went.

Twitter served as my digital home for the event, and the read-a-thon team maintained a strong presence over there.

The starting time for much of the east coast of Australia was 11pm, by which time I was already in bed. I’m just not a night owl. Instead, I was up bright and early.

The first few hours passed quickly.

I rather liked this one, probably because it’s not far from the truth:

Toast, tea & A TRIFLE DEAD by Livia Day. Morning tea for today’s #readathon A photo posted by Earl Grey Editing (@earlgreyediting) on

Following up lunch with my favourite Earl Grey blend & Nicole Murphy’s LOVING THE PRINCE. A photo posted by Earl Grey Editing (@earlgreyediting) on

At some point the hours started to get away from me.

This ended up being a timely reminder:

It’s the first time I’ve won one of the read-a-thon Lucky Door Prizes. I managed to score a $10 Amazon gift card.

By this stage, even the Twitter co-hosts were flagging.

  My #readathon buddy has rejoined me but seems to be struggling even more than I am to keep awake. #dogsofinstagram   A photo posted by Earl Grey Editing (@earlgreyediting) on

I didn’t last much longer after that.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with my read-a-thon progress. I managed to finish off 2 books and made it 20% of the way through a third. However, I am amused to find that during the read-a-thon I managed to acquire around twice the number of books I read–partly thanks to the Lucky Door Prize and partly thanks to two very shiny review books from Twelfth Planet Press landing in my inbox while the read-a-thon was happening.

A big thank-you to Andi of Estella’s Revenge and Heather of Capricious Reader for all the hard work they put into organising and running the event. Truly, these ladies are amazing. Here are some quick facts from the official site about Sunday’s readathon:

  • 2,008 readers
  • 132 cheerleaders
  • 28 mini-challenges
  • 1,102 entries in the Books Read Database (so far)
  • 8 hourly co-hosts
  • 1,495 Goodreads group members
  • 120+ prizes awarded

Wrangling all that is a huge task. Yet, Andi and Heather kept everything going smoothly. They even have a call for volunteers up already for the next read-a-thon.

Which has a date! It will be taking place on 23-24 April 2016. Don’t forget to mark it on your calendar. I’ve already signed up to cheer again, having had a blast chatting with everyone on Twitter during the event. Even with so many readers, it has a great sense of community. I do hope you’ll join us in April.


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