Thursday, August 02, 2012

To Read-a-Thon or not ?

Last night, I was looking at the list of participants in Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon and noticed that my BookCrossing pal Azuki had signed up. I decided to see what she had posted about the read-a-thon and noticed that she had something interesting to say about them in general:

There are so many read-a-thons nowadays it has lost some of its allure – after all, if you are joining a read-a-thon week after week, you are just basically reading at your normal speed. A faster speed maybe, but that is your new norm.

For most read-a-thons, I don’t see them as a challenge to read more/faster/longer than normal. Rather I like the fact that they focus on a community aspect—in particular, the recording (and bragging) about what we’re reading. Prior to read-a-thons, this reading blog had become nothing more than a place where I listed the books that I had read. Just a list. No reviews. No discussions. A rather dried-up excuse for a blog.

Now that I've been participating in a number of read-a-thons, I’m at least posting about them. I still am not comfortable writing and posting reviews, but what is here on my blog is a bit more interesting.

Additionally, I’m enjoying the occasional challenges and the chatting that takes place on twitter. Right now I'm engaged in the Olympic Read-a-thon, and I've signed up for two other read-a-thons in August. The Summer Wrap-up Read-a-Thon starts on Saturday, 4 August, and ends on the same day as the Olympic Read-a-Thon, and Bout of Books 5.0 will begin the very next day after the other two read-a-thons end. I may be burned out on read-a-thons by the end of the month.

3 comments:

  1. Hmm, I agree to an extent. If I participated in many more read-a-thons than I do now, I probably wouldn't get as much done in each one, because where's the motivation to read faster if it's all the time?

    That's why I love Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon so much. It's only twice a year, and it's way more intense than any other read-a-thons! I look forward to it for months beforehand!

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    Replies
    1. Dewey's is the one Read-a-Thon where my goal is to read as many hours -- as many pages -- as I can. I try to remove all distractions so that *all* I'm doing is reading.

      But *for me* the other read-a-thons aren't about reading more or faster. Rather, I wind up focused on the community. On sharing what I'm reading through twitter and more frequent updates to my blog.

      I agree -- if I saw these week-long read-a-thons as pressure to read more, then I'd indeed lose the motivation to exceed and excel.

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  2. Elsi, I am JMC Designs if you will send me your email address I will get you a download link to my STS August Blog Train and you can pick my cute kit. You can email me at smodi65@msn.com.
    I am sorry about 4-shared I had no idea about having to be a member.

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