Roof Beam Reader
Adam Burgess
10 Years of #Readathon!
Hour 15: Quick Update (7:00pm Pacific Time)
Pages Read: 307
Books Completed: 2 (The Story of My Life by Helen Keller & Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stine)
Books Reading: 1 (Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann)
Hour 12 – Midway!
As of this halfway point, I’m failing tragically! I shouldn’t be surprised, because I always fail at these readathons. HA! But, today was the Las Vegas Festival of Books as well as Las Vegas PRIDE, and since I’m brand new to the city, I wanted to go to both. It’s also a GORGEOUS day – 74 degrees and sunny, with a breeze. We are usually pretty darn hot, so today was perfection. Unfortunately, that means, I’ve been away from my books for the last 5 hours. Oh boy.
At this point, I’m home and ready to finish reading Welcome to Dead House. After that, I plan to read Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann, which I should also be able to finish today. If there’s time, I’m going to then start reading Stephen King’s The Waste Lands. I’ll be checking in with some other readathon-ers, too.
Mid-Event Survey:
1. What are you reading right now? Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stine
2. How many books have you read so far? 1.5
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? Letters to a Young Writer (which just showed up in the mail today!)
4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Uh. Well, I started 2 hours late because I couldn’t wake up. Then I read for 3 hours and was interrupted for 5 (see above). I’m not going to kick myself too much because it’s been a FUN day. It’s only 5pm, here, and there are 12 hours left to read. I should be good.
5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? I’m a veteran, having done this 5 or 6 times since the first Dewey 10 years ago. So, nothing has surprised me. The sheer number of participants is amazing, though, and so exciting!
Hour 6 Update
This is hour 6 of 24 in the 10th annual readathon! I’ve only been at it for about 2.5 hours, though, because I couldn’t drag myself out of bed at 5am. Whoops. Anyway, things stand as such:
Pages Read: 77
Books Completed: 1 (The Story of My Life by Helen Keller)
Books Reading: 1 (Welcome to Dead House – Goosebumps #1 by R.L. Stine)
Challenge: 10 Years in 10 Books:
2017: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
2016: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
2015: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
2014: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2013: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2012: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2011: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
2010: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2009: Under the Dome by Stephen King
2008: Paper Towns by John Green
2007: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Beginning Post
Today’s the day! Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon is back! I’ll be spending most of the day reading, reading, and reading! Of course, I’ll need to take breaks for meals, I guess, and a walk or two, but from 5am Saturday to 4:59am Sunday, I’m going to read as much as I can!
What’s Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon! Well, for the last 10 years, it’s been a place for readers and book bloggers to gather together (remotely from our own locations around the world) and read like mad! It’s an introverts dream… a social event catered to what we love best, books, but that we can do from the quiet comfort of our own homes. Amazing.
I think back to the very first Dewey, which I participated in pre-Roof Beam Reader, with great nostalgia. I’ve only been able to participate a few times over this last decade because there always seems to be so much going on for me on the scheduled dates. I can’t believe that it’s still so alive and well. More than 1400 participants this year! Thanks to Heather of My Capricious Life and Andi of Estella’s Revenge for keeping this going!
I’ll be back all day to update this post with my progress and to participate in the memes and challenges that are hosted by a variety of folks who volunteered to steer the fun. I’ll place newest information at the top of the post so it’s easiest to find. Here’s the FIRST meme:
HOUR 0 – Opening Meme
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?: Las Vegas, Nevada!
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? Probably The Waste Lands (Dark Tower III) by Stephen King. (Stack is below!)
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? This is the first time I forgot to plan for snacks! I’ll probably stick to my usual stuff, cheese, almonds, snack bars, etc. Maybe some chocolate. 🙂
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I’ve been blogging for over a decade, most of which has been here at Roof Beam Reader. I teach College English & Literature, love the classics, and earned my Ph.D. in American Literature & LGBT Studies earlier this year.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? I don’t think I participated in the last one, except as a cheerleader. But one thing I’ll try to do this time that I didn’t do last time is actually read more. Ha!
Okay. That’s it for now! Here we go, and here’s my stack! Up first: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller.
Roof Beam Reader 
congrats on so many! I have yet to do one, but with my work commitment during the week, and now most of my week-end at church, not sure when i’ll be able to try one
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Have fun, Adam 😀
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Good luck and have fun today! Great list of 10 years of books. I’ve read most of them, but there are still a few that I need to read that have been on my TBR for a while now.
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I always fail too! lol I’m still up…it’s 1:25 am. I was out for most of the day so trying to the all night haul. We shall see. Hope you’ve enjoyed the reading. Love your ten years list!
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Yeah, we ended up spending a lot of time outside and then watching a movie. Still managed to get 3 short books read, though!
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ROFLOL I just read your quick update for the 15th hour and halfway survey… High five! It could have been me writing that. Except for the “failing” part: although I am (as always) a bit disappointed with the actual amount of time/pages read I don’t feel it’s a failure. Maybe that’s what I’m starting to learn after all these years of readathonning?! Keep going, you’re doing fine! 🙂 And it’s fun to “see” you again after such a long time.
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I’m a professor, too. Where do you teach? I’m at Holy Cross College, home of the famous Rudy and his Notre Dame football dreams.
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Ive never done one of these readathons – simply don’t have the stamina. So I admire people like you who do!
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Thanks! They’re fun but I always get distracted by other things.
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