Saturday, March 21, 2020

The Social Distancing Readathon

Here's a cool idea for those of us practicing social distancing and feeling rather stuck in our homes.  I found this on Readerbuzz and wondered what's involved.
Q:  How does 24 in 48 work?  Do I have to read 24 books in 48 hours?
A:  24 is for the number of hours, not the number of books.  Over the course of 48 hours, you challenge yourself to read for 24 of those hours.  This can mean reading 12 hours each day, 20 hours one day and 4 hours the next, or 24 hours straight.  However the scheduling works best for you!
So this isn't about trying to read the most or hoping to win prizes, as in other readathons.  Nope, it's just a time for reading when we are having to keep our distance from each other.

Stay home,
wash your hands.
read books.

It's planned for the two days of this weekend, March 21-22, from midnight to midnight Eastern Time, though we can adjust it to make the 48 hours work for us.  Start at a time you decide, and end 48 hours later.  Deb of Readerbuzz has her own ideas:
"I plan to start today, Thursday, and read for what I hope will be a total of 24 hours over the next few days."
I'm trying to read books from my own shelves for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge and the library books that will be due back whenever my library opens again.  (It's shut down because of the Coronavirus threat, with all books we've checked out having their due date extended.)

I may choose from some of these I bought years ago, all on one day.
Many of the books on my shelves come from these four "shopping trips" where I loaded up on books in February 2015 and in February 2017 and in August 2017 and in February 2018.  I never got around to reading all those books.  I pulled some of these off the shelves to choose what I want to read starting at midnight Eastern Time (11:00 pm Central Time).  Yikes!  That's right now.

The point of this readathon is to dedicate a weekend to reading, while still allowing time for sleep and exercising, and whatever else you need to do. You’re free to customize the readathon to fit your life.  Sign up if you plan to participate in any way, even if you know you won’t be able to fit in a full 24 hours.  Here's where to sign up, if you are interested.

2 comments:

Helen's Book Blog said...

I am participating in this, but haven't started yet. Somehow Saturday is slipping away from me.

Athira said...

I've so far read one book towards this readathon and just started a second one. I don't expect to finish the second book but just being able to read more than I usually do has been good.