I’ll be updating this post throughout the 24 hours with my progress.
Update 1:00 AM — After reading since about 8:45 this morning, I’m bowing out of the readathon! I know from my prior readathon participation that if I go to bed now and try to wake up *early* tomorrow I won’t be successful, so I’m not even going to bother. I think this was my most successful readathon yet — My goal was to complete 5 books, and I finished six. Yes, that sounds like a ridiculous amount, but two of them were already in-progress reads (and for one of them, only had about 25% left to read), two other books were less than 100 pages, and my last read was a children’s book.
Since my last update, the books I finished were The Republic of Birds and Hares in the Moonlight. (I unintentionally had a shapeshifter, witch theme going on for a lot of my books today!) I really liked both books, but Republic of Birds was the one I had read 75% of before the readathon started. It was an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) that I had been sent a few months back, and I was supposed to have the book read and reviewed before its release in March. Life really got in the way of me finishing Birds, so I’m happy that I finally had the time and energy to focus on completing it. I’ll write up a review on Goodreads for it tomorrow.
Hares in the Moonlight was an impulsive purchase of mine from a few months back. I bought it when I got Wytch Hunters’ Manual — it’s the same press, Wyrd Harvest. It was a delightful story about a pair of 8 year old twins who learn how to shapeshift after rescuing a shapeshifter hare from a cage. The hare gets abducted again, this time in human form, and the children want to rescue her. It’s a really sweet, magical story and I’m glad I closed my readathon with it!
I continued to enjoy listening to new bands while I read today. My favorite albums that I discovered via Spotify weres Ur Djupan Dal by Atrium Carceri and Herbst9, and Nuit Noire by Lost in Kiev. I also had Vita Arkivet by Desiderii Marginis on repeat.
I spent less time on Goodreads for this readathon, and more on Twitter. I think this allowed me to focus more on my books, and the reading sprints organized on Twitter were super helpful!
Finally: As I’ve written, I pledged to donate 10 bucks per book completed to a cause of my choice. I will update this post one last time when I make my donations. As for now, it’s time for sleep!
Update 7:15 PM — I tried to update about 45 minutes ago, and my laptop froze, crashed, and I had to restart twice just to get it working again… Really frustrating!
Anyway, I’m now on my fourth book. After I finished The Wytch Hunters’ Manual, I decided to look through my Kindle library for books that would take e under 2 hours to read. Luckily, I have quite a few of those. I’ve temporarily abandoned my original TBR pile (literally a pile!) for these short reads. I started my Kindle reads with Lord of the Harvest, which is under 50 pages. It was a really quick read, and I rated it three stars – nothing terrible, it had some creep factor to it but I wasn’t grabbed by the writing. I was hoping for something more folk horror-y but monsters are cool too, and the descriptions of these guys was probably the best part. I just started The Keep by Paul Cave, which is under 100 pages and interesting (but a bit repetitive in its descriptions) so far. I should be done with it before 9 PM! That I chose these short books pretty much guarantees I’ll hit my goal of 5 books! I plan to keep reading even after I hit my goal though, and stay up as late as I can. I’m definitely still attacking my TBR pile — especially since I have only about 25% left in one of those books. I probably won’t finish my copy of 199 Cemeteries To See Before You Die, though, and will go back to shorter books. I pledged to donate 10 bucks per book completed, so it’s best to focus on shorter reads.
Update 1:50 PM — I’m about 53% through my 2nd book, The Wytch Hunters’ Manual. I discovered this book through the Twitter accounts of Folk Horror Revival and the artist Andy Paciorek. I found those accounts via Hookland, one of the best Twitter accounts if you’re interested in strange, weird, mythic, folklore.
As it happens, there is a connection between The Wytch Hunters’ Manual and my first read, The Dark Horse Book of Horror. Which I guess shouldn’t come as a surprise, since a chapter in the Book of Horror has to do with witches. Anyway, both books feature accounts of Salem Witch Trials and in particular, highlight Tituba.
Right: Salem and Mary Sibley, words and art by Scott Morse.
The art by Andy Paciorek for THE WYTCH HUNTERS’ MANUAL (I just love that title!) is so captivating. Follow him on Twitter!
I think it would be fun to also include what I’ve been listening to. I love dark jazz, post-rock, post-metal… It makes a good soundtrack for these kind of books. So, albums:
- Earth – Radio
- Sunn O))), Ulver – Terrestrials
- Desiderii Marginis – Vita Arkivet
- Radare – Im Argen
- autoisolation – Into The Mist
- The Dale Cooper Quartet, The Dictaphones – Astrild Astrild
It’s 2:30 now, so back to reading and listening to music.
Update 11:20 AM — Dewey’s 24 Hour Reading Challenge officially started at 8 AM this morning, but I overslept a bit and didn’t start reading until about 8:45. Book Completed: The Dark Horse Book of Horror. I gave the book 5 stars on Goodreads; there were some parts of the book I wasn’t too interested in (mainly the nonfiction aspects with interviews) and I didn’t love all the comics, but overall it was a great collection of work and introduced me to new writers and artists. I was really happy to see a few Beasts of Burden stories in the collection.
Continuing to share updates on Twitter and Instagram as well.
I’ll also be sharing photos and updates on Instagram.
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