Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon took place last weekend. 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 readathon in April 2011 and haven’t looked back since.
This readathon was a little different to previous ones. The event typically starts at 10PM AEST. The organisers flipped things around so that the starting time was 10AM instead. It felt a bit odd not to dive straight into reading, but it was nice to have the luxury of a slow start to the morning. It was also very cool to be there for the start of the event and to be part of all the excitement.
As I mentioned previously, my goal for the readathon was to get through more of the reading for the Hugo Awards. I spent most of the time making my way through Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon). I’d not previously read any of Vernon’s work (other than her short story also nominated this year for the relevant category). I found it to be an amazing portal fantasy novel–sweet and poignant. Perfect reading for the event.
The afternoon weather was also perfect. It might be winter here, but it was warm and sunny enough to spend an hour out in the hammock in my backyard. I only ended up coming inside because I had to host the readathon Twitter account for a couple of hours. Which was its own delight. It was right at the point where most of North America was asleep (or should have been) while Europe and Africa were waking up–a good mix of the most stubbornly determined and the well-rested eager to get started.
After finishing Summer in Orcus, I ended up veering away from my goal to read Hugo-nominated work. Instead, I polished off just under a hundred pages of Splashdance Silver by Tansy Rayner Roberts (which I had been partway through reading for entirely too long). And, with only an hour left before bed, I chose to focus on some short stories via Uncanny Magazine, Issue 16. I finished the issue on Sunday morning in the few hours left of the readathon.
All up, I read a little over 450 pages. Not my finest effort, but I care less and less about breaking records and tracking stats during the readathon. As far as I’m concerned, any progress on shrinking Mt TBR is good! Plus, I had a blast chatting with the community.
Speaking of which, a big thank you to Andi at Estella’s Revenge and Heather of Capricious Reader for the tireless effort they put into organising the read-a-thon. It is my favourite reading event of the year and they work so hard to make it happen.
The next read-a-thon will be taking place on 20-21 October 2018. 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.