Dewey’s Read-a-thon, April 2017

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.

As usual, things kicked off just as I was winding down.

My Mt TBR around start time:

Dewey's readathon, Mt TBR, The Geek Feminist Revolution, Kameron Hurley, The Mocklore Omnibus, Tansy Rayner Roberts, The Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko, Heart of the Mirage, Glenda Larke, The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, Kij Johnson, Crow Shine, Alan Baxter, The Grief Hole, Kaaron Warren, Ms Marvel, G. Willow Wilson, Earl Grey Editing, books and tea, tea and books

On the left are all the books I’d half started. The ones on the right were all from the library and either on the Ditmar or the Hugo shortlist.

I took a bit of a different reading strategy this year. Since I’m not very good with reading short stories or essays one after the other, I ended up reading one essay from Kameron Hurley’s The Geek Feminist Revolution, then one story from Nerve Endings before beginning on something a bit longer. This alternating approach seemed to work well for me.

Dewey's readathon, tea and toast, The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe, Kij Johnson, Earl Grey Editing, books and tea, tea and books

Morning tea with my beloved Lapsang Souchong blend and The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe.

After a break for lunch and an episode of Naruto, it was back to it.

I eventually finished off Nerve Endings.

However, I didn’t quite get to Ms Marvel because:

Running the read-a-thon’s official Twitter account was quite a learning experience. My participation in Twitter parties in recent years served me in good stead, but the account still has almost ten times the number of followers my own account has. There was a lot to process and there are a couple of things I’d do a little differently next time. The read-a-thon’s website was also experiencing problems, which added to the complexity. I found the experience fun but exhausting.

The next read-a-thon will be taking place on 21-22 October 2017. Don’t forget to mark it on your calendar. It has a great sense of community that keeps me coming back. I do hope you’ll join us next October.