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!
May’s winner is… End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson.
Moving on to an informative picture book, this one details the life of Ruth Wakefield, inventor of the chocolate chip cookie. Ford provides the three versions of how people think the cookie was created and has fun providing you with a well-rounded tale of her passion for food and how her toll house became part of the “Nestle’s Toll House Cookie” recipe stamped on each chocolate chip bag you buy.
Faruqi and Shovan are publishing A Place At the Table next month and I couldn’t be happier that this book exists. When I read it, I felt a warmth for the characters and the food that filled me up with love. Sara is Pakistani American and Elizabeth is Jewish and they both end up in the Southeast Asian cooking class run by Sara’s mother after Sara moves to the school. They befriend one another and find that their connections run a bit deeper as both of their mothers are not naturalized American citizens. But as the title implies, the girls work through typical middle grade angst by finding a place for each other at the table.
And last is an adult title that was recommended to me by a friend. While the book is over ten years old, it will resonate with those who can appreciate all the ways that food affects our lives be it romance or in mourning, friendship or solitude. It’s a series of vignettes that are all centered around Lillian’s cooking school “The School of Essential Ingredients” that she runs on Monday nights. It follows the attendees in various parts of their lives and how they all came to be together in the class. The languid storytelling is part of the appeal, like savoring a meal, and enriches the understanding. I also found myself pausing and re-reading lines that hit me to my core as a cook, baker, lover of food. As said by two participants in the class: “Here’s to kitchens. And here’s to what comes out of them.”
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman or maybe it’s because I’m a librarian, but either way, I want to take a moment to celebrate books about periods. They’ve been kind of having a moment. And I knew I wanted to share a post about periods two days ago when I finished Lily Williams and Karen Schneeman’s graphic novel published by First Second this past January called Go With the Flow. It’s a celebration of menstruation and friendship alongside actively advocating for rights.
But let’s also give it up for the most memorable scene where Sasha’s blood-stained pants are showing as the girls usher her to the bathroom and why the book works so well in its graphic novel format. Most can empathize or sympathize with her situation and it’s the kind of thing that is discussed in other books discussing periods: the truthful portrayal.
Fat Tuesday is also Paczki Day. Paczkis are Polish doughnuts usually with jelly filling and rolled in either powdered sugar or granulated sugar. They’re made on Fat Tuesday in preparation for the Lenten season’s austerity. This past Monday, I homemade them and was excited to share them with my family, colleagues, and neighbors who all know my love for baking.
Readers Be Advised 