I’m a shameless promoter for the Dewey’s 24-hour readathon because it’s a welcome break from other life activities in order to spend time doing something I love. 

Here is my readathon in pictures and narrative:

I always end the readathon by thanking my husband for tolerating being ignored for generally all of the event or hearing the echo of an audiobook wherever I’m moving in the house. He built the fire for ambience on a beautiful summer night when I enjoyed my amaretto cocktail at the 8pm end time in celebration. 

I also high-five my two boys who are now middle schoolers who participate– both for about 8 hours of the 24 hours. They packed it in around 12:28am for bed which I wasn’t expecting since they were at a sleepover the night before. 

There was the midnight-ish snack which has become a readathon tradition, having a hand-packed pint or pre-packed pint of ice cream from Stewart’s, which is totally an upstate New York thing. I picked a seasonal hand-packed pint called Mango Dragon Fruit Sherbet and it was stellar. It was a perfect pick for a blast of summer in a cup. 

Which if you can see the book pictured with the ice cream, it lent itself to the hour 7 Instagram challenge of matching your book cover- I think I nailed it. While I didn’t post the picture until later for the hour 13 challenge, when I’m munching and reading a print book, here is my favorite recent gift: a book weight. This has saved my reading life in so many ways. 

Another tradition is my bathtub reading. I’m of the same mind as Sylvia Plath who is quoted as saying

There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.

So a few book options came with me into the tub. I don’t have a fancy set up but I did throw in some bath salts. 

And even though the goal is 24 hours of reading, I also still have a household to keep running, so I spent a few of those hours still doing housework or cooking while listening to an audiobook. And I got my workout in too, which was a square on the BINGO card. I listened to The Feather Thief while hitting the elliptical. This audiobook is also another tradition for me for readathons, reading or listening to a book about animals, this one about a heist of bird feathers that is part of a larger ring of the illegal sales of banned bird species skins and feathers. While I did finish that one, I also rolled into the other audiobook about a girl growing up with her grandfather who was a beekeeper. 

I spent most of the day Saturday outdoors since the early morning thunder and lightning ushered in a cool but still warm weekend day where I also enjoyed some iced coffee. I don’t always drink coffee, but when I do, it’s iced. 

I take breaks throughout with my audiobook on, including eye breaks in general but also when I moderate a few hours of Goodreads discussions on the readathon page. In addition, I co-hosted hour 7’s post on their WordPress site. I love the connection to other readers and find it’s another way to do this and also show my appreciation for the organizers. 

Alas, I was getting close to the end and knew I had a blackout BINGO card which I shared along with my read stack when the clock struck 8pm. Needless to say, I slept well that night: a combination of sleep deprivation and a beautiful summertime fire.

Until October 24th, bookworms!