You guys, readathons are my favorite. I love having a reason to do nothing but read, I love that it’s something I’ve done often enough now that my friends and family “get it” and ask me how my readathon is going, I love that there’s a community of people out there reading with me.
So this week, a library pal (who I met randomly at an ice wine festival-we did that magical librarian meeting thing, where you introduce yourself and one of you mentions that you’re a librarian and the other one goes OHMYGODIMALSOALIBRARIAN and then you’re friends for life, and in this case we were meeting at a wine thing, so we knew we had at least TWO things in common) convinced me to checkout #booktubeathon as we ramp up to my favorite of all readathons, #24in48.
#Booktubeathon is this: You have an entire week to read 7 books, and to meet individual challenges along the way. Here are the challenges, and the books I chose to meet them:
- Read a book with yellow on the cover: The Haters by Jesse Andrews (author of Me, Earl and the Dying Girl). I started this book a long time ago and never got further than chapter 3 because life happened.
- Read a book only after sunset: Haven’t chosen a specific one yet, thinking maybe I’ll get some new Lumberjanes and count them as a book for late night reading!
- Read a book you discovered through booktube: Since I’m new to booktube, and since we have limited internet at the house that makes watching online videos, I don’t have a book I’ve discovered through that venue, BUT, I do have some fabulous publishing pals, one of whom sent me a truckload of books recently, so I’m choosing one of those, TBD.
- Read a book by your favorite author: Once Was a Time by Leila Sales. I’ve read all of Leila’s YA work and adored it, partially because I love reading an author who I’ve had cocktails with, mostly because her work is awesome. Once Was a Time came out earlier this year and I hadn’t had a chance yet to sit down with it. SUPER looking forward to this middle grade debut.
- Read a book that is older than you: Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. I’ve read snippets of Wodehouse and short stories about Jeeves before, but I’ve never read an entire novel. Good god it’s funny. This is the book I started with, and it hasn’t been as fast going as I’d like, but I’m proud of myself for finally sitting down with it and completing it–I’ve always loved the way Wodehouse writes, and now I just love it even more.
- Read and watch a book-to-movie adaptation: The plan was to read BFG and go see it in theaters with the aforementioned library pal, but as usual, life has happened, and my schedule filled up too fast, so I might have to readjust this plan/book.
- Read 7 books.
As you can see, I’m not well planned, I’m not sticking to the script, and I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing as much as I’d like. It’s all my own fault; #booktubeathon was brought to my attention weeks ago, but I neglected to look into it until the night before, so no wonder I’m all over the place.
And as usual, there’s so much else going on. I think the Dewey readathon is the only one where I’m capable of just carving out that time to read, because it’s only 24 hours. Even with #24in48, I end up having other plans or work things to attend to. Having a whole week is wonderful, but it also gives me too much time to say “well, I can go do such and such and still have time to read all the books.” My procrastinator personality has too much time to shine through when I have a whole week!
BUT. It’s Wednesday. I have work 12-5 at the winery for the next 3 days, and I have dinner plans with various people every night, but by god, I’m going to get some serious reading done in-between.
I’ll see you all on instagram (@readbtwnlakes) and twitter (@rachielove), and I’ll write another post on Friday about the glorious #24in48, that I swear I’ll be more organized and ready for!
Happy reading!