And the next Dewey‘s Readathon is just around the corner. I signed up. And as usually I do not know how much I will actually read. My current plans for October:
– BR Redshirts, ebook, owned. I‘ve been meaning to read this for quite a while. – BR Polaris Rising, ebook. New to me author. – StoryGraph #2 Komisch, alles chemisch!, paper, non-fiction. Not sure I want to read this. – BR Chosen, ebook. Ongoing series. – BR Ship of Destiny, paper. Doorstopper number 3 in this trilogy. – BR Memnoch the Devil, paper. High likelihood of getting dumped, as I didn‘t like the Body Thief anymore. – NG Into the Riverlands, ebook. Thank you, Netgalley! Ongoing series. Or #3 of a trilogy? Not quite sure.
BR = buddy read. Yes, I am overcommitted and reading too many buddy reads. Maybe next year will be my year of mood reading and the diminishing of my existing TBR pile.
Welcome, welcome one and all! The October 22, 2022 Readathon is coming up fast, and we would LOOOOVE for you to join us! Can’t read the whole day? No big deal! Make this Readathon your own with as little or as much reading as you want! We’re just happy to have you along for a celebration of books.
I will probably join the next Readathon in October. Not so sure about the in-between reading list or the whole TBR preparation. I am already plenty overbooked in the next few months…
Here is that first list of prompts…
Fall Pre-Readathon Reading Challenge
A non-fiction book.
A book with more than one poem in it.
A play written by a woman.
5 books with autumn colored spines or covers.
A short story collection by an author who did not publish a full-length novel.
A book by Stephen King, John Grisham, Clive Cussler, Louis L’Amour, James Michener, Michael Crichton, or Robert Ludlum.
A book by Anita Shreve, Jane Smiley, Barbara Kingsolver, Jan Karon, Pearl S. Buck, Jane Austen, or Edith Wharton.
A book set on each continent (7 total- North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica/Oceania)
A book about the future, published before 1960.
A book from a series of more than 3 books.
It‘s very unlikely that I will read something to fit everything on this list until the readathon in October. I have various doorstoppers on the go and I prefer to enjoy them. Not rushing. We‘ll see, I might accidentally tick some of these off…
I struggled at first with audiobooks, because I kept nodding off, when sitting still and listening to them. I have to do something else, that doesn‘t engage my mind, while I listen.
I still do more eye-reading, my average for audiobooks is one per month. I always listen to a sample first, it is very important for me that I like the narrator. I even have some favourites and I sometimes even pick a book purely based on who narrates it. Case in point: I am a Sherlock Holmes fan, but the deciding factor for picking up my current audio, Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Audio Collection: it is narrated by Stephen Fry.
I read faster than a narrator usually reads out the books, so I tend to listen to audios at a speed of 1.5.
I am reviewing this 72-hours monster in chunks, the first part you can read here. For this readathon I am currently making my way through The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
I have listened to these stories today: A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes & Watson meet The Woman / The Adventure of the Red-Headed League / A Case of Identity / The Boscombe Valley Mystery / The Five Orange Pips / The Man with the Twisted Lip / The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle ★★★★☆
Some of these stories are more obscure or I have actually never read them. The stories span a good amount of years, in which Watson lives away from Holmes, happily married to Mary and running a doctor‘s practice. He very much leads a life of his own, but frequently accompanies his friend Holmes on his cases. This Holmes, the real one, is never as aloof, hurtful or downright dismissive of others.
There are many visuals know from the many screen adaptations though and sentences and remarks that have made their way into the shared consciousness of Holmes‘s fans.
More reviews to come, as I slowly progress through this audio.
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? — Germany, hence the nutty starting time! 2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? — I will continue with my current read Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1) by Robin Hobb. I might mix it up with some comics, audio or a novella.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? — I don‘t usually snack and don‘t really stock up with snacks for readathons either. 4) Tell us a little something about yourself! — I am so tempted right now to find my opening survey from last time for some copy-and-paste action…. I‘m German, I live close to Stuttgart, I predominantly read in English, mostly specfic with the odd mystery or romance thrown in. Non-fiction tends to be natural sciences. 5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? — sleep more, probably, due to the timing. I am not sure yet if I will use a timer at all. I will probably simply count my pages and minutes via StoryGraph. Here are my stats before the start of the readathon:
The Reverse Readathon starts in a little under an hour, at 2 AM CET, if I calculated that correctly. I wanted to stay up for the start at least, but I am tired. I won‘t last that long anymore. Also, I want to go to the farmer‘s market tomorrow morning or at least to the supermarket for some grocery shopping and don‘t want to get up so late.
I should get some reading done tomorrow evening—I‘ll be house- and dog-sitting all on my lonesome…
I just signed up for this. Will you take part? If I am calculating that correctly, I would start at 2 A.M. on Saturday and read until 2 A.M. on Sunday of that weekend…
Beachy scene with a small pile of books, sunglasses, and the words Reverse Readathon 8PM July 22 – 8PM July 23rd
It’s that time friends! Ready to come read with us? It’s time to sign up for the Reverse Readathon! We’ll be reading from Friday, July 22nd, 8 PM Eastern Standard Time until Saturday, July 23rd, 8 PM EST, as the intent of the Reverse Readathon is to give our friends on the other side of the world a chance to start early!
Keep in mind, you do not HAVE to read the entire 24 hours. If you can only join us for 30 minutes or even less, we want you to do it! And enjoy it! Read with friends around the world. Everyone is welcome. Sign up now and follow us on all the social media places (we are on Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, Facebook, Litsy, and kindasortawedontknowwhatwearedoing TikTok [now…
I might join this, I‘ll see… I quite enjoyed the recent Dewey‘s Readathon. The starting time is not much better for me though. The regular Dewey‘s starts at 2 PM for me and the Reverse Readathon will start at 2 AM in my timezone…
What have I been up to since the end of Dewey‘s April Readathon last weekend? This:
And we are done. I slept for a little over 5 hours, from 3:30 last night to 8:45 this morning. I read a little in bed this morning and then did some house cleaning with my audiobook.
All in all I was active for 18 hours and read and listened for close to 12 of the 24 hours. It tallies up to about 530 pages in total. That makes it about 50 pages per hour, give or take.
(Covers are linked)
How did your Readathon go? What would you do differently? What worked well?
I bought way too much food. And maybe spent too much time with updates on various sites instead of reading. And next time I will probably pick shorter reads to be able to finish more of them. But all in all I am quite pleased with this Readathon.
I just listened to Stephen Fry narrate the story of Eros and Psyche. This is such a great book, I am having so many Aha!-moments. The Greek gods are pretty much the basis for everything that happened in the Western world afterwards. Well, I sort of knew that, but Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold is giving me so many examples…
This is our second to last reading sprint. How has your readathon gone so far? When did you start reading? Have you really been reading for the past 19 hours? Fantastic! If you have adjusted your readathon plans to fit around other stuff, but are joining us for this one, that’s great too. I love reading sprints, and am looking forward to this one for a chance to refocus my rather tired brain. I am picking up a fresh book for this one, switching genres too, and yes, I have a snack and beverage (and a couple kittens) at hand so I can read without needing to get up for much during this next hour. I picked an hour-long piece of music on youtube so I can hear when the hour is over, and I’ll stop reading when the music stops. It’s tricks like that that keep me engaged during…
We’re at the Half-Way Hour, Hour 12, which is our next hour-long reading sprint. How have you done so far? Still awake? Still reading? If your eyes are getting tired, maybe try a graphic novel, or poetry, or read a play out loud to your pets, or listen to an audiobook(but actually listen- using audiobooks as background noise doesn’t count for a sprint). If you have tricks you’ve discovered for maximizing your sprint performance, leave them in the comments so your fellow readers can improve their own reading sprint experience.
What are you reading right now? — I am still reading Under Fortunate Stars. I am about 35% into the ebook, which has 477 pages
How many books have you read so far? — I finished Saga #58, which is a single issue comic of 32 pages. RTC! I am also still listening to Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold, which is almost 16 hours in total. I am a third into it. I won‘t finish either of them by the end of the readathon. That‘s ok though, it‘s not a speed-reading contest or about who finishes the most books, is it? Well, for me it isn‘t.
What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the readathon? — Under Fortunate Stars is getting to an interesting point in the narrative now. I am really looking forward to Eyes of the Void, but will only start it once I have finished Under Fortunate Stars. The themes of those two are too similar, it would get confusing. If I need a change of scenery, I will probably pick up another comic.
Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? — I had a parcel delivery and just took a 5-minute break. My mum called and we chatted for a bit, but kept it brief. Dinner was a longer interruption. I just went with the flow.
What surprises you most about the readathon, so far? — um… drawing a blank, sorry…
It‘s past 1 a.m. here now and I am starting to get tired. Let‘s see how long I‘ll last! I will definitely catch some sleep at some point.
…starts in about 2.5 hours. So far I have no plans for this weekend. I did my grocery shopping yesterday. I am as organized as I can be. It‘s always a possibility that friends pop up spontaneously and we end up going for a walk or something similar, but otherwise, let‘s see how this goes…
Hinter den drei Kiefern: Ein Fall für Gamache, paper, Gamache #13. This one is a backup and one of my StoryGraph picks for May. It‘s unlikely that I will pick it up during the readathon.
Eyes of the Void, Shards of Earth #2 (Final Architecture), audible, buddy read planned for May. Jumping the gun a little! Tchaikovsky has become one of my favourite authors, although I have also read some of his works that I did not like.
So far I am bumming around the apartment in my loungewear. I‘ll see if I go for a walk later with an audiobook. The weather is not great…
Foodwise I have paranuts and cashews as snacks, two bananas and an orange. Then there is some stuffed peppers, babaganough and some garlicy cheese stuff from my favourite Turkish grocery shop around the corner. I baked some weird glutenfree bread baking mix last night. Looks weird, as mentioned. No idea yet, if it tastes good.
Then there are some ramen and soba instant noodles. And for the contact grill I got a salmon steak and there is some halloumi. Plus some mixed leaf salad, some asparagus, a small radicchio, bell peppers, cucumber, some bulgur salad…
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 