It’s that time of year again! October means colder, rainier, more reading-friendly weather, candles, my famous pumpkin chili, spookiness and all things Halloween, and another round of Dewey’s 24-hour readathon.

If you’re a fellow bookish person and you’ve never heard of Dewey’s, check out the site here. It’s a twice-yearly readathon where the purported goal is to read for a full 24 hours–but don’t worry, most of us don’t make it to nearly that much. Essentially, it’s a day of reading as much as you can while connecting with fellow book lovers. You can post as much as you want on social media, enter a bunch of challenges, or just be a hermit all day and devote  yourself to books. Either way, it’s super fun and a great way to treat yourself on a Saturday. Dewey’s takes place this Saturday, October 20th, and it starts at a different time depending on what time zone you’re in; on the East Coast of the U.S., where I am, the readathon starts at 8 a.m. (although I almost never actually start reading that early).

One of my favorite parts of Dewey’s is, oddly, the planning. I like to think about what books to read in advance, because if you’re going to spend a day binge-reading, you’ll burn out fast if you try to read books that are too slow or complex (or at least I do!). I find that what works best for me are books with alternative formats (books that have text interspersed with images, interviews, documents, etc; think Illuminae or Night Film), short books (I like Tor.com novellas in particular), YA (you’re looking for a book that’s absorbing without being too strenuous to read, especially later in the day when you’re getting tired), and thrillers (because they’re gripping and fast-paced; I recommend Kanae Minato‘s books for the readathon). Keeping those things in mind, here’s my readathon TBR!

For YA books this time, I’ve come up with two: Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl and The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths and Magic by F.T. Lukens. Neverworld Wake is one that’s been highly recommended but I don’t know too much about–and I’d kind of like to keep it that way, since it’s a strange concept that I think involves time travel and purgatory and a murder investigation. Rules and Regulations is one that I picked up at BookCon; I think it’s a contemporary fantasy. And then I have the audiobook of Sawkill Girls by Clarie Legrand, because it’s good to have an audiobook option to give your eyes a break.

In terms of shorter books, I think I’ve found a few that will work for the readathon. I love Jeff Vandermeer, and I’m hoping to pick up his novella The Strange Bird, which is a companion to his novel Borne (which is fantastic, btw) when I’m in the mood for a shorter read during the readathon. Vandermeer writes weird fiction, and I’m interested to see an alternate perspective on Borne’s story, since the world he created in that book is so rich with detail and opportunity for further exploration. I also have on deck Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From, which is a short, sparsely written apocalyptic novel set while its main characters are fleeing a flooded London; A Portable Shelter by Kirsty Logan, which I believe also has short stories, and A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain by Adrianne Harun, which is sort of a creepy fantastical mystery.

To mix things up, I also have a choose-your-own-adventure style book, My Lady’s Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris, that I think might be fun to pick up when I’m feeling sleepy or distracted; it’s not a book that you read straight through, but you can play around with different storylines. It’s sort of an interactive romance novel that also parodies historical romances. And then to round out my stack, I have an ARC of Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri that I got at BookCon, because it’s a book that I need to read before its release date in November.

Are any of you participating in Dewey’s? If so, I hope you enjoy the readathon!