Dewey's Read-a-Thon (October 2011)

For the October 2011 Read-a-Thon:
442 readers and 69 cheerleaders have signed up!

Completed

Title:  Smiles to Go
Author:  Jerry Spinelli
Genre:  YA fiction
Pages:  248
Format:  hardback

Completed

Title:  Close Your Eyes
Author:  Amanda Eyre Ward
Genre:  fiction (set in Texas)
Pages:  251
Format:  hardback

Readers I visited

1)  Alison @ So Many Books, So Little Time
2)  Jan @ Yearning for God
3)  Helen @ Helen's Book Blog
4)  Wendy @ Caribousmom
5)  Erin @ Erin Reads
6)  Chris @ Chrisbookarama
7) Sheila @ Book Journey

Memes and Mini-Challenges

Hour 1 (8am):  Introduction Meme

1)  Where are you reading from today?  My recliner in Chattanooga, Tennessee
2)  Three random facts about me… From yesterday's meme:  I am a piano player, a great-grandmother, and an ordained minister.
3)  How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?  Seven (click to see my list)
4)  Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?  Complete two books, maybe three
5)  If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?  Pick easier books, ones that read quickly, if possible

Hour 2 (9am):  Character Photo

Take a photo of something that represents a character in one of the books you are reading for the readathon.  (I call this "web personality screen shot." That's my reading lamp reflected in the corner of the screen.)

The boyfriend calls himself a web personality

Hour 3 (10am):  Book Puzzle

Create a Book Puzzle.  Essentially, this is a series of pictures, graphics, or photos that you put together that will describe a book title.

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 4 (11am):  State Settings

Name three books (fiction or nonfiction) that are good representations of the USA state in which they are set.

1)  Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God, by Joe Coomer ~ New Hampshire
2)  Forever, by Pete Hamill ~ New York
3)  A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley ~ Iowa

Hour 5 (12noon):  Sharing the Joy of Books
Tell us your favorite way to share a book - brief description, picture, poem or even a link to a previous blog post - anything that expresses how you share your love of reading.

I talk about books all the time, even occasionally handing out "business" cards that include my blog URL. I have a book blog to share books I'm reading and also a book club blog to discuss books. I started a Banned Books blog which has hundreds of visitors every day during Banned Books Week at the end of September. And I join read-a-thons like this! Just call me a Bookie.

Hour 6 (1pm):  Top Five

What are the five books you are looking forward to in the next few months or really into next year.  (I don't look ahead very far -- in this case, these are the ones set aside for this readathon.)

1)  Bitsy's Bait and BBQ ~ by Pamela Morsi, 2007, fiction (Missouri)
2)  House of Dance ~ by Beth Kephart, 2008, YA fiction
3)  Smiles to Go ~ by Jerry Spinelli, 2008, YA fiction
4)  The Heart Is Not a Size ~ by Beth Kephart, 2010, YA fiction
5)  Undercover ~ by Beth Kephart, 2007, YA fiction

Hour 7 (2pm):  AKA -- Also Known As

Have you ever read a book and then found out that the author has written other books using a different name?  I have, and pseudonyms can be a bit confusing.  For this challenge, see if you know who the authors I've listed are AKA.

Eleanor Druse
A.M. Barnard
George Eliot
Jenny Carroll
Steffie Hall
Erin St. Claire
William Jefferies
Evan Hunter

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 8 (3pm):  A Music Bath

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body."

1)  What song does the book I’m reading right now remind me of?
2)  What song does my favorite book remind me of?
3)  Can I find a connection between one of my favorite songs and a story I like?

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 9 (4pm):  Book Sentence

Using the books you have in your home, make a complete sentence out of the book titles.

Somewhere in time, the lady and the unicorn rescue Mrs. Dalloway.

Somewhere in Time ~ by Richard Matheson, 1975, speculative fiction
The Lady and the Unicorn ~ by Tracy Chevalier, 2004, fiction
Rescue ~ by Anita Shreve, 2010, fiction
Mrs. Dalloway ~ by Virginia Woolf, 1925, fiction

Hour 10 (5pm):  My Perfect Anthology

Tell me which authors you’d like to see together in an anthology, and create a theme for the book!  Creating a name for it is totally optional!

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Winner!  Hey, I just got an email from Lisa @ Lisa's World of Books (see Hour 6, above), which was also announced on the Hour 10 post on the Dewey's Read-a-Thon blog.

You are my Top 5 Winner!  Congrats!  Please send me your address.

Hour 11 (6pm):  Book Trailer

Share a book trailer with us. It could be your favorite book trailer, it can be a trailer of your favorite book, or it can be a trailer for a book you want to read.

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 12 (7pm):  Hodge-Podge Proposals

List (1) the first name of any character in the book you’re currently reading or just finished, (2) the make or model of your current car, and (3) a job you think would be especially fascinating.  Numbers 1 and 2 become the first and last name of your new character, and 3 is his or her occupation. Now briefly pitch me a new series in the genre of your choice based on this hodge-podge character!

Lauren Maxima seems an unlikely candidate to become queen of the world, but that's her goal.  For now, she'll settle for president of her fifth grade class.  (Hmm, this needs more thought before I submit it.  If, I submit it.)

Hour 13 (8pm):  Mid-Event Survey

1.  What are you reading right now?  Close Your Eyes ~ by Amanda Eyre Ward
2.  How many books have you read so far?  Half of this one
3.  What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?  Finishing this one and starting another
4.  Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?  The only thing holding me back from reading is my desire to look at what everyone else is doing and joining all the mini-challenges I can
5.  Have you had many interruptions?  How did you deal with those?  I got one phone call, and my cat seems to think feeding her is more important than reading books
6.  What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?  Like every one I've done before, I'm surprised that the time seems to be flying by, and I'm reading blogs instead of books
7.  Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?  Nope
8.  What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?  Nothing, except it would make my stats look better if I chose children's picture books instead of regular ole adult-sized novels
9.  Are you getting tired yet?  Not yet
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?  Surely someone among these 442 readers has already discovered everything

Hour 14 (9pm):  Feed Me, Seymour

Stand up, head into the kitchen, and rustle up something delicious. Then come back and tell us what you put down your hatch.

I made a salad, a nice counter-point to everything else I've eaten today.  However, I plan to follow up with a bowl of butter pecan ice cream.

Hour 15 (10pm):  Friendship

Share a memorable friendship forming moment in any of the books you've read in your life. The moment when two people click, and they knew they were going to be friends for ever.

(I'm thinking.)

Hour 16 (11pm): Re-reading

List your top favorite rereads of all time. You know, those books that you can go to time and time again for comfort and escape.  (I do very little reading for comfort and escape, more for the ideas in a book, even a novel.  Both of these are novels.)

Herland ~ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915) is one I re-read about every ten years.

This utopian novel describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction).  The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict, and domination.

Time and Again ~ by Jack Finney (1970) is my favorite time travel story.

"Sleep. And when you awake everything you know of the twentieth century will be gone from your mind.  Tonight is January 21, 1882.  There are no such things as automobiles, no planes, computers, television.  'Nuclear' appears in no dictionary.  You have never heard the name Richard Nixon."  Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his twentieth-century apartment one night — right into the winter of 1882?  The U.S. Government believed it, especially when Si returned with a portfolio of brand-new sketches and tintype photos of a world that no longer existed — or did it?

Hour 17 (12midnight):  Song Identity

Represent yourself, your country, or your people with one song, and provide a link or video and tiny explanation.  ("I Am Woman" represents me.)

Hour 18 (1am):  Charities

The mini-challenge for Hour 18 is for those raising money for charity during the readathon.

Hour 19 (2am):  Pet Love
1)  Leave a minimum of  two sentences and max of 2 paragraphs of  how your pets have helped or hindered your reading.
2)  Share a picture (or two or three) of your pet with us.

Kiki is a very loving cat and couldn't understand why I didn't want her to sit on me all day with her face in my face.  She pushed her head up under my hands, wanting to be petted or brushed.  She made it clear at her mealtimes (twice a day) that I should put down the book and feed her.  She made it perfectly clear to me that, even though she likes to read (and blog) too, my obsession with reading was not a good thing at all.


Hour 20 (3am):  Yoga

Try it for as little as five minutes, as long as fifteen (or more if you are really getting into it.) When you have completed your mini-yoga session, write about the length of time, poses you did, and a note about your experience.

The poses I tried were (1) legs-up-the-wall, (2) child's pose, (3) downward-facing-dog, (4) goddess pose, and (5) relaxation corpse pose.  There are no photos, because I cannot pose and take a photo of myself, and nobody here is awake at 3:00 a.m. my time, except me.  I'm 71 and spent only 10-12 minutes going from one pose to the next, even though I used to do yoga at the YMCA in my younger years.  However, you may have gotten me back into yoga (after 35 years) -- I had forgotten how much of a workout it can be.

Hour 21 (4am):  Reading Zombies

Take a book you've read during the Readathon and "zombify" or "vampirize" it in the style of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. You can do this by either zombifying the cover, or providing a synopsis of the zombified adaptation.

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.  (I absolutely don't understand the fascination.  Just as well, since I had allowed myself to sleep about an hour and a half around this time.)

Hour 22 (5am):  Get Up Offa That Thang!
Stand up right this minute.  Set your mp3 player/radio/iTunes playlist to play three dance-worthy songs back-to-back.  Dance like a maniac.  Tell us the three songs that you chose.

I found YouTube versions of (1) Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley (appropriate at this hour of the readathon), (2) Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry, and (3) Be-Bop-A-Lula by John Lennon.  By the way, the cat thinks I've gone crazy!



Hour 23 (6am):  My Posterity Library

Imagine we live in a bizarre, post-apocalyptic world, wherein only ONE copy of every book remains in existence, and the technology (electronic, print, or otherwise) to make copies has been destroyed.  You are given the golden opportunity to select 5 books to build a Posterity Library, a small collection of treasured literary material that will remain in your family, passed down from generation to generation.  Now, think carefully – only ONE copy of every book ever written still exists.  Be sure to provide the names of the books, author (if applicable) and your reason for choosing each book.  The winner will be the one who can best argue why the 5 books they have chosen are most important, valuable, or significant – either to themselves, their family, and/or future generations.  Leave the name of the book you will choose from The Book Depository (’cause I’m curious!).

1)  The Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong offers guidelines for a spiritual practice designed to make humanity a kinder and saner species.  If we have a chance to start over, let's do it right next time.
2)  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a book that shows us what to avoid in our relationships with others, especially those who are different from the dominant group.
3)  The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein gives us a dog's view of life and what it means to be human.
4)  Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish is a feel-good book filled with humor, even though it looks at what unrelated friends learn together about their mutual friend Annie after her death.
5)  Epaminondas and His Auntie by Sara Cone Bryant is a 1907 children's book about a little boy who is very literal in his understanding of his mother's instructions, helping even adults to be more careful of what they say and how they say it.

Book I would choose from The Book Depository:  That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back ~ by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, 2011

Hour 24 (7am):  End of Event Meme

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?  Around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. (Hours 20 and 21), I allowed myself to sleep about an hour and a haf.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? No, I don't know what's "high-interest" to most folks.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?  Make sure the links to mini-challenges work and are in place on time.
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  The whole thing gets better every year -- Dewey would be proud of the organizers.
5. How many books did you read?  Two.
6. What were the names of the books you read?  Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward and Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli
7. Which book did you enjoy most?  Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli
8. Which did you enjoy least?  Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward
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'm very likely to be a reader again, even though I visited a few readers (see above) to see how they were doing and a left messages cheering them on.

Winner!  Hey, it's Sunday afternoon now (the 23rd), and I just got an email from Kimberly @ Fancy Terrible Reviews telling me I've won a hand-knitted bookmark.  And all because I did get up offa that thang at Hour 22 and danced.  Kimberly went back to her original post and added this:

****Update: The winner of the Get Up Offa That Thang mini-challenge is Bonnie @ bonniesbooks.blogspot.com. Congratulations, you really know how to get down! We’ll email you shortly and get you your prize.****

Winner!  Hey, it's Monday morning (the 24th), and I just read on the Dewey's Read-a-Thon page that I was one of the winners of the yoga mini-challenge (Hour 20).  What fun!