Readathon, Aftermath

Whew! Yesterday I wasn’t even home, so I couldn’t do all the follow-up stuff everyone’s been doing. I stayed up too late last night playing D&D, so I’m quite tired, but I definitely want to do the post-readathon survey and all that jazz.

Oh, I should mention while I’m at it that I just wrote my review of the third book I finished during the ‘thon: Field Guide to North American Truffles.

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?

The first; I had no idea what to put in my post, so it was kind of blah.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

Bill James’s Girls definitely kept me glued to my seat!

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

Erm… I can’t think of any right now…

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

The whole huge network of readers & cheerleaders, and the feeling of being part of this big group of people doing this thing.

5. How many books did you read?

Three

6. What were the names of the books you read?

Warren Dotz, Light of India
Bill James, Girls
Field Guide to North American Truffles

7. Which book did you enjoy most?

The Bill James book (Girls)

8. Which did you enjoy least?

I don’t think there really was a least. They were all neat in their own ways.

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?

N/A

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

I’d love to read in the readathon again. It’s such a wonderful opportunity to take a day off, read like crazy, and share notes on some of the nifty books in my TBR stack.

 

In addition to the survey, the folks at Estella’s Revenge also have a request:

I thought perhaps a good idea would be to get people who have participated in the challenge to share their experiences with us. I was wondering if you might consider putting a post on the challenge blog asking for people to contribute short statements, perhaps in the from of a diary entry if they want to write exclusively about how the day went. Or they could write about their challenge participation including things like what they read, whether the books were good, if they had a challenge plan, what special arrangements they had to make to free up the day, how much they enjoyed the day, why they chose to participate etc.

So, here’s my take on it:

I decided to participate in Dewey’s Read-a-thon because I’m way behind on my review book reading and it just sounded like a ton of fun. Usually I’m too busy to participate in all the blog-based reading challenges, but I thought that one day was something I could commit to. I knew I couldn’t do the full 24 hours, both because I’m a wimp and because I had to be up bright and early the next day, but I did my best to manage 12 hours and came close. Since my goal was to plow through as many books as possible during that time I concentrated on reading and only took part in one mini-challenge, although I definitely had fun with that one.

I finished three books, all of which turned out to be a lot of fun, and one in particular (Bill James’s Girls) has introduced me to a new favorite author whose work I’m going to have to hunt down! Some of my books were a bit odd, perhaps—one on Indian matchbox art, and a guide to truffling in North America, for example, but then one of my publisher contacts has discovered that I enjoy a challenge and will give a shot at reviewing almost anything if it intrigues me. Besides, I love to learn new things!

Pretty much the only special arrangements I had to make to free up the day were to do grocery shopping on Friday evening and put off laundry until Monday (today). Otherwise, it turned out to be a great day for it as we had nothing else planned. My only mild regret was that the weather was unusually good, so it might have made a wonderful day for a hike.

The readathon was a blast, and I definitely hope that Dewey does it again next year! I certainly plan to participate if she does.

 

Book Nerd