Saturday, 29 April 2017

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon The Second



I really enjoyed participating in my first Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon last October. Even though I didn't get all that much read in the end. 150 pages and 6 picture books. I'm sure I'll be able to top that this time round. For one thing the timezones are a bit kinder because it's not Daylight Savings here, so the Readathon starts at 10pm AEST, not 11pm like it did last time. And I'm not working this weekend. 


Last time it was all a bit of a last minute thing. This time round I've had over a week to prepare my TBR list. Short stories may work well. And some short books. Picture books. And there's still some books I haven't read from my last Dewey TBR.




Clearly, I'm not going to read all those books this weekend. But it's a great stack to dip into. And of course I may end up reading books not in this stack, but I figured this was a good place to start. I've got

Kids books

Adult books
Short stories
Verse novels
Graphic novels
Fiction
Nonfiction
Books I've had for ages
Books I bought this week
Books that were in the stack last time
Books that were gifts
Library books

I'm excited for the possibilities. 


I'll be joining Brona and #TeamANZ2017. Last year was the first time I've represented Australia on the International Stage and I'm very happy to be doing it again. 


It's not to late to join in. You can sign up at 24hourreadathon.com.


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Hourly Updates to come


I was too excited to start reading, so I snuck in two short stories from The Weight of a Human Heart by Ryan O'Neill, whilst having a bath to prepare myself.


Hour One 10pm


Opening Survey


1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

I'm reading from country NSW Australia

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Probably Joe Queenan's One For the Books

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

I have some very special French Salted Caramel Lollipops.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

This is my second readathon. I'm more prepared, and more excited than I was last time. 

And we're off!


I'm going to read another story from The Weight of a Human Heart, and then pick a novel. I'm not sure which one just yet. 


The problem with starting a readathon in the late evening is that sometimes you fall asleep, even though you don't mean to.


So my totals before I fell asleep during the first hour was


The Weight of a Human Heart - Ryan O'Neill 6 pages

After - Nikki Gemmell 6 pages

Yep. 12 pages all up. 


Hour Two 11pm


Sleeping. Oops! Guess I got myself too comfy.... That's a very early night for me. 


Hours Three to Twelve Midnight - 9am


Oh dear there was a whole lot of sleeping, not reading, going on. 


I did wake up around 2am and read 15 pages of After before falling back to sleep again. 


27 pages in total by 9am. Well that can only improve today. I need some quick reads to get that page count up.


Hours Twelve - Fifteen  9am - 12pm


Sleeping Beauty awoke. And got reading. 


37 pages of After


120 pages of The Weight of Water - Sarah Crossan (cheating with a verse novel)


184 pages in total 

Hours Fifteen to Eighteen 12pm -3pm



108 pages of The Weight of Water - finished. 

39 pages of After

331 pages in total. And 7 hours to go!

Hours Eighteen to Twenty One 3pm- 6pm

On a roll now....

40 pages of After

15 pages of The Weight of a Human Heart

141 pages of My Name is Book - John Agard - finished

527 pages in total. 

Hours Twenty One to Twenty Four 6pm-10pm

A sprint to the end. 

116 pages of After

32 pages of Don't Call Me Bear - Aaron Blabey - finished

32 pages of The Fabulous Friend Machine - Nick Bland - finished

25 pages of The Weight of a Human Heart (see my review)

732 pages all up. After a slow start wherein I pretty much slept the first twelve hours I'm pretty happy with that. It's been great. 
4 Books Finished

The Weight of Water - Sarah Crossan
My Name is Book - John Agard
Don't Call Me Bear - Aaron Blabey
The Fabulous Friend Machine - Nick Bland

Hmmm. I didn't get to finish After which I optimistically hoped that I would when I picked it up last night. But I got 260 of 300 pages read. That's pretty good for me, I am a ludicrously slow reader.

I've completed two readathons now, and realise that both times I didn't even start the book that I said at the start was the one I was most looking forward to. And I didn't even have one French Salted Caramel Lollipop. But I did have some rather delicious Dulce de Leche chocolate so it's not all bad. 

Will the French Salted Caramel Lollipops last till October? I'd say that would be a no. 

6 comments:

Nea said...

Wohooo an Aussie blogger! Hello from the other side!! Sending a hello across the world from Brussels, Belgium! ;) Have fun and enjoy the Readathon! :) Remember, it's not how much you read, but how much fun you have doing so! :) Good luck! ;)

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

I'm so happy you are joining in again. This time your circumstances are much better, so I hope you will get some lovely reading in.

Louise said...

Hello Nea, great to hear from you in Brussels. I'm planning a big day today, as last night was a wipeout.

Thanks Deb. I'm planning a big day today as I had my longest sleep in Forever last night! I've read less than normal so far. Just as well I did some prereading yesterday.

Brona said...

I love that you got a little middle of the night reading done. I'm hoping to get some reading done on the soccer sidelines this afternoon when we get back to Sydney from our w/e away.

I hope you've got a few more pages/books completed now 😊

Brona said...

I seem to remember that I really enjoyed the Sarah Crossan book and I do love what Gleitzman has done with his Once/Now series. I hope Felix isn't ready to leave him alone yet.

Louise said...

It was good to sneak in a few pages in the middle of the night. I enjoyed the Sarah Crossan.I really do need to read the Once/Now series some time. It's a big omission for me.