Hour 12 – Reading Games
It’s the halfway point (yay!) and if you’ve been with us since the beginning of this readathon, your eyes may be getting tired, your brain may feel a bit overstuffed, and even the occasional break for stretches and snacks may not be helping much. What do you do to keep going?
One of my favorite ways to boost my reading is with a sort of reading game I worked out a few years ago (probably for a Dewey’s readathon). I pick out 5-10 books, set them up in some sort of order, and then challenge myself to read the next 20/50 pages, the next chapter, etc. of each one, in un-timed reading sprints. By breaking up my reading into smaller chunks rather than tackling whole books, and changing books at each increment, I find I don’t start tuning out while reading so much. If I find a particular book really tedious, I can adjust the amount I aim to read of it so that I don’t run out of steam before the end of the allotted segment.
The game I have chosen to play with my reading during this readathon is another way to keep myself reading. I can get bogged down easily deciding which book to pick up next. So, I have my TBR in 3 stacks, with the top-priority books on top of each stack. Each hour of the readathon I can switch books once, but only to another book on the top of a stack. As I finish books, new ones become the top for each stack. This way I get a lot of variety, but without the paralyzing situation of having too much to choose from. I also have audiobooks lined up, so that if none of the books on top appeal to me enough I can listen to an audiobook and work on a crochet project for an hour.
What are some games, tricks, or strategies you find helpful to help you stick to reading during readathons?
While you are here, don’t forget to post your answers on your social media site/blog for the Mid-Event Survey. If you chose to do the Hour 12 Sprint, you can of course post your survey answers at the end of the hour or whenever you get to it, but do let us know your answers. 🙂
Mid Event Survey
1. What are you reading right now?
2. How many books have you read so far?
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?
4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?
Enter your finished books into the DATABASE here!
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But when I started to get serious about meeting some ambitious yearly reading goals I needed to up my game.
In my humble opinion, the readathon is a perfect time to flip between different books—especially if you plan to read for the full 24 hours. Switching things up keeps you from getting bored.
Here are a few simultaneous reading strategies for ya:
Instead, I just check my agenda, realize I was never busy in the first place and continue to remind everyone around me that the readathon is coming up and not to bother me.
Why does the October event mean so much to me? It’s because I strongly believe that fall is the ultimate season for reading.
The cool weather, snuggly blankets, comfy sweaters. Fall vibes put me on another level mentally speaking. In the summer, I generally feel irritable and melancholy (having depression doesn’t help, obvi) but by the time fall (and winter) roll around, I have a little bit of a spring in my step. It helps that I love everything spooky, too.
When the leaves start to drop from trees and the days get shorter, it sparks something in me and I read more voraciously than before. What about you, dear reader? What’s your favorite reading season? (If you say summer, you’re wrong, but I forgive you ;))
Enter your finished books into the DATABASE 
I used to use Goodreads to track my yearly reading goal. This year, though, I switched over to 
Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon 