Around the World Readathon Wrapup

Well, that was fun.  No really, it was!  I set up the readathon for the Around the World group on a whim and a bunch of people participated.  Some of us tweeted our participation with a pre-agreed hashtag, and some just posted to the discussion thread, but we had a lot of people reading and talking about reading. That's the whole point! I just love reading in community. We didn't even have to be reading the same books for it to be interesting. I hope we can do one more event like this before 2012 is over.

I was able to make my way through five books - two in Australia, one in Japan, one in Mexico, and one in the country now known as the Czech Republic.  I started at midnight with The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman, an eBook of an ARC I received from NetGalley.  (My review)  I had actually made it halfway through this book prior to starting the challenge, but I stayed up from midnight to somewhere after 3 in the morning reading it (and drinking coffee, and checking my e-mail, and tweeting, anything to keep me awake).

A little before 8 am, I was awake again, and decided to go ahead and get up (I can sleep when I'm dead, or when the readathon is over!) and dive into another Australian book that I've been excited about for a while - Cocaine Blues. It was so much fun and got me excited about the readathon for the day. Not only that, I got to read about Melbourne, a city I've been really wanting to visit. (My review)

I may not have mentioned this before, but I am in a lot of online book groups.  Most of them came out of GoodReads.  It started with my involvement with the Sword & Laser group, which I joined to get the chance to read more science fiction and fantasy.  Now I am in around ten groups, all of which pick books to read every month.  I don't always make it to reading all of them, but when I do, greatly enjoy the discussions.  One of those groups is The World's Literature, which I found through some of the participants in the Around the World in 52 Books group. We have been working our way through several prominent modern Japanese novelists this summer, and I was feeling behind, so the next book I chose was A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro. This is a perfect book for a group discussion, because it is incredibly thought provoking!  (My review)

I didn't have a plan beyond that, so I snagged two books that I thought I could get through and decided to taste-test them. I read a few chapters of both Like Water for Chocolate and The Unbearable Lightness of Being   I decided the Esquivel would be the quickest to get through, and ended up still having the time for the Kundera.   Surprisingly, I didn't enjoy Like Water for Chocolate as much as I expected, having seen the movie years ago. (My review) The Unbearable Lightness of Being, on the other hand, is one of the few books to receive a five star rating from me in this entire challenge. (My review) I was so tired by 11:30 pm when I finished that I had to talk myself into walking upstairs to get into bed.  What a day of reading, and talking about reading! Let's do it again soon!

Readathon!

 

I'm hosting my very first readathon from midnight tonight through midnight tomorrow night, or however long people want to read for.  It is for the Around the World in 52 Books group in GoodReads.  We have almost made it halfway through the year, and many of us have been bemoaning falling behind.  Oh a whim, I created a readathon so that people could find solidarity in a catchup day.  There will be snacks.  There will be libations.  There will be pajamas.  And we will all read something from our list from the comfort of our own homes, and chatter about it.

Some of us will be chattering in Twitter using #52athon to identify us as a group.  I like Twitter for such things because it is easier to post a quick update than commenting on a forum or writing a blog post.  As always, you can follow me in Twitter, @ReadingEnvy.  

Hey, don't feel like you have to belong to our group to hang out and read with us.  Surely you can find a book set somewhere in the world.

Personally, I'm not sure how much of the day I'll spend reading, but I know what book I'll start with.  I'm on a little bit of an Australian kick, having already made it halfway through an ARC of The Light Between Oceans.  I also downloaded the Kindle Daily Deal the other day, Cocaine Blues, which features a lady detective in Melbourne.  Who doesn't love Australians?

I don't have a plan beyond that, so I expect to just follow my whims.  I may not use tomorrow to finish my North Korean selection, as I feel like a readathon is all about accomplishment and it is a slower read. I guess we'll see!  This is one of my favorite things about reading in community.