The 24-Hour Read-a-thon! #readathon

It’s almost time to start the 24 Hour Read-a-thon! Many book bloggers and other book lovers all over the world will be reading as much as they can within 24 hours. Some will read 6 hours, some will try and read the full 24 hours.

Everyone starts at the same time, 12 GMT, which is 2pm for me here in the Netherlands. I do need my sleep, but I will try and read for 16-18 hours. That is, I’ll be reading, checking other participants’ blog, tweet and Facebook about the event, eat dinner, breakfast, and lunch (in that order), sleep (for 6-8 hours), tell my sons to get off the computer, answer inquiries from potential clients (I run a book editing company), and go for a walk.

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This is what I’ll be reading from:

Frank Derrick’s Holiday of A Lifetime by J.B. Morrison
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (finished)
The Secret Billionaire by Teymour Shahabi
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

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Opening Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? I’m reading from the Netherlands in Europe 
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? I’m especially looking forward to The Secret Billionaire. It’s written by one of our book editing clients, but I haven’t had the chance to read the final version in its entirety.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? I’ve got some honey-coated dry-roasted peanuts. I’m slightly “allergic” to honey (it gives me stomach aches) but a few handfulls should be fine.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! Ask me why I call myself Leeswammes. No, I’m not Lee; I’m Judith!
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? More social media. I actually read quite a bit last time but it felt rather lonely.

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After 6 hours, I finished the first book (phew!)

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (177 pages). Nice, if sad, story about small-town England in the 1950s.

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I finished three books in total

The additional two are:

Frank Derrick’s Holiday of A Lifetime by J.B. Morrison (304 pages)
The Secret Billionaire by Teymour Shahabi (385 pages)

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Do you participate? What are you reading?

Please leave a link to your starting post so I can easily find you.

The 24-Hour Read-a-thon! #readathon

It’s almost time to start the 24 Hour Read-a-thon! Over 800 book bloggers and other book lovers all over the world will be reading as much as they can within 24 hours. Some will read 6 hours, some will try and read the full 24 hours.

Everyone starts at the same time, 12 GMT, which is 2pm for me here in the Netherlands. I do need my sleep, but I will try and read for 16-18 hours.

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This is what I’ll be reading from:

Zink by David van Reybrouck – non-fiction
Armada by Ernest Cline – science fiction
Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party by Alexander McCall Smith – humor
Day Four by Sarah Lotz – science fiction
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin – historical fiction

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Opening Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? I’m reading from the Netherlands – that’s in Europe (to the right of England, to the left of Germany and above France and Belgium). 
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? I’m especially looking forward to Armada. I LOVED Ready Player One by the same author, so this just has to be good! 
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? I got some Rocky Road (shop-bought, I’m sorry to say) and I’m planning to make guacamole later on.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I have my own book editing business so I get to read ALL THE TIME (and I still wanted to join in the readathon – there’s nothing better than that!)
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? I often get sidetracked by all the social media fun. I’ll try to spend a bit more time actually reading.

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After 9 hours I finished my first book

Armada by Ernest Cline (355 pages). It was an OK read, but not half as good as Ready Player One by the same author.

On to my next book: Zink by David van Reybrouck

After 11 hours I finished my second book

Only 63 pages, Zink by David van Reybrouck took me to almost 1 am. The book is finished and now it’s bedtime!

Then I slept for 7 hours and read my third book

Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party by Alexander McCall Smith was a fun, short book about an American man in Ireland (174 pages).

My fourth book I finished just after the end of the readathon

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. A lovely story about an Irish woman moving to America after the Second World War (316 pages).

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End of event survey

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Hour 11 – this was 1 am for me. I dropped my book while reading because I kept falling asleep.
   
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party by Alexander McCall Smith was an easy, quick and fun read that I think many readers would enjoy.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next season? No, it’s wel organised.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? I liked the Facebook group. Was there one last time? For me, this was the first time I joined in on Facebook as well as Twitter and the blogs.

5. How many books did you read? Four

6. What were the names of the books you read?
   Zink by David van Reybrouck
   Armada by Ernest Cline
   Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party by Alexander McCall Smith
   Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Fatty O’Leary was the most fun, but I also very much enjoyed Brooklyn.

8. Which did you enjoy least? Armada was a bit of a disappointment, given that I so much loved Ready Player One by the same writer.

9. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again?  Yes! This was my 10th or so readathon and I still enjoy it a lot.

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Did you participate? What did you read?

Please leave a link to your starting post so I can easily find you.