I love October. It’s full of spooky, Halloween-related things and delicious pumpkin everything. October also means it’s time for another Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon, which tend to be the most awesome bookish events of the year. One of my favorite parts about the readathon is actually the anticipation and planning that come before the event; I love creating a TBR pile to sustain me through extended periods of reading, and figuring out how to maximize my reading time when I know I’ll still have to do things like work and sleep.
For me, the Readathon starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. Like last time, unfortunately, I have to work the morning of the Readathon; I’m planning to get as much work as I can done ahead of time so that I can leave work in the early afternoon, hopefully by 1 or 2. I’ve found that listening to my audiobook on the way to and from work helps get me into the Readathon mindset early, even if I can’t fully participate until later. I had to work the morning of the previous Readathon, too, and this really burnt me out (being on call for work all weekend didn’t help, either; once I started reading I kept getting interrupted). At least I’m not on call this time! And I’m planning on picking up Thai food from the delicious place near my office to bring home after work, as well, which is also a good motivator.
Once I finally get home, I’m hoping to hit the Readathon hard. I’ve found that it helps me to start with shorter books so that I can feel like I’m accomplishing something; that way, if I get stalled on my reading later, I’ll still know that I’ve hit a few reading goals.
Goals!
-Read 3 books – pretty doable if I stick to shorter ones
-Read for 12 hours – this will mean I’m basically reading the entire day when I’m not at work, so I’m being a bit ambitious here
-Post updates on Instagram, Litsy, and here
My TBRs for readathons tend to look a lot different from my monthly TBRs. I find that short books, YA, fast-paced reads, and graphic novels tend to work the best for me in a readathon; I need books that can either hold my attention for an extended period of time or that allow me to jump back and forth pretty quickly. I tend to look for “easier” reads and not try to tackle anything too ambitious, as reading an extremely complicated book for a few hours can make me start to look for a reading break rather than feel inspired to keep going all night long (which I never do, by the way. I’m a terrible sleeper to begin with and I can’t afford to give up a whole night’s sleep). I also need a good, absorbing audiobook that I can listen to while driving and doing random things around the house so that I don’t lose out on reading time if I need to get other things done.
So! Here is my TBR for Dewey’s, ranked in order of most to least likely to actually read. To clarify, there is no way that I would actually be able to read all of these books, but I think that these are a good selection for me to choose from:
Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal – this is a science fiction novella by the author of Shades of Milk and Honey, which was sort of a Jane Austen retelling with magic that I read a few years ago and liked but didn’t love. This shorter novel is about a woman who loses contact with her A.I. and is unable to connect with the outside world, something that is constant and ubiquitous in the future, and has to deal with some sort of scary situation in the woods. I don’t really want to read too much about the plot since it’s a short work and I don’t want to spoil it, but it sounds sort of Octobery and I’ve been in a science fiction mood lately, so this is currently #1 on my list.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel – this is a graphic memoir about a daughter finding out that her father was gay after his death. I previously read Evie Wyld’s Everything is Teeth, another graphic memoir, and really enjoyed the format; I think this will be a good graphic novel to go with for the readathon.
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – I was sort of waffling about whether to read this for a really long time, until I sort of did a 180 and decided I needed to own this book immediately. It’s science fiction YA about two teenagers who break up and then get caught up in this huge adventure/conspiracy where their planet is at stake; the reason I think it’ll work well for the readathon is that it’s not written in a straightforward book way but made up of transcipts, emails, interviews, etc. I heard that it’s fast-paced and an easy read, so I think this might be the perfect thing for me.
Pretty Deadly by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios and Alex + Ada by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn – I don’t know much about either of these graphic novels but I’ve seen them both recommended around BookTube. I tend to only pick up graphic novels during Readathons, so it’s always sort of fun to jump into a new one to mix up my reading.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers – this is my current read, and it’s fantastic. I don’t usually tend to go for what I’m currently reading during Dewey’s, but I like having it as an option.
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley – this is my audiobook pick, and while I’m really interested in the content, I’m not loving the audio narrator so far. If it keeps going the way it is I might have to do a last-minute switch!
Gutshot by Amelia Gray – this is a dark, supposedly super disturbing short story collection; I’ll pick this up if I’m in the mood for something October-y.
Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi – I started this middle-grade novel last month but wasn’t really getting into it; I think I need to give it another try because I’m a huge fan of Tahereh Mafi and the worldbuilding did seem very cool.
So that’s the plan for Saturday! Who else is participating? What are you planning on reading? Feel free to link me to your posts, I love to see what everyone else is doing for Dewey’s!
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