Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for october readathon] 

Everyone is buzzing about tomorrow's readathon, myself included. In case you're a Readathon virgin you can check out the Dewey's Readathon Website for more info. This will be my second and a half readathon. I say second and a half because the Dewey's Readathon last October was a surprise for me and I had only been blogging for a few days when it happened. I was at home and when I got on Twitter I saw that everyone was talking about some readathon, so I decided to join in! I didn't do that much reading really, but I enjoyed the taste I got so much that I decided to join in on Dreadlock Girl's readathon in December. I made it 20 hours and read for a total of 14 of those 20 hours, check out my wrap-up post to see how coherent I was.

Tomorrow I'm starting at 7 AM and I will be reading until 5:30 because then I have to go to the Englert theatre in downtown Iowa City to volunteer for the Indian Student Alliance. I'm planning on taking a graphic novel with me for any spare time I have while I'm there. Then I'll be back around eleven to keep the reading going, I'm excited to see how long I can make it this time! I might not make it as long as I originally planned though, because I seem to have a cold right now.

I have a stack of fairly short books to read for tomorrow, and most of them are for the Shelf Discovery Challenge which is over this month and I need to finish. Those are really my priority. I have a few other books on the pile though.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fifteen by Beverly Cleary
Go Ask Alice by "Anonymous"
Blubber by Judy Blume
Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi
Wild Ducks Flying Backward by Tom Robbins

Later today I go shopping for some snacks! I'm thinking crackers, veggies, fruit, peanut butter, and chocolate. All the essentials of course. I hope you'll join in on the Readathon if you can- I know you'll have fun!

Tomorrow, Saturday, October 9, is the Dewey Readathon! I think this is the fourth readathon I have participated in-- which is kind of amazing because A year ago I'd never done any readathon before ever. I probably won't really shoot to read 24 hours tomorrow, in the past I've reached close to 20 and that's good enough for me. I think I will just read as much as I can and take some homework breaks in between. I'm going to be with my parents tomorrow so hopefully that means my mom will cook me lots of food to eat while I'm reading.

Usually I try to read several short books for readathons because it makes me feel extremely accomplished, but this time around I'm going to read three YA books that have been in my TBR pile for quite awhile. My first priority is to read Splendor and finish the Luxe series for good. I started the series at the beginning of 2010 and it's been a constant for me all year, but I'm ready to find out how it ends. Next is The Book Thief

, which is quite long (550 pages) but I've heard from several people that they could not put this book down, so hopefully I feel the same. And my third book is Shiver

, the first book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls series. When Linger came out a few months ago the cover really struck me and everyone was talking about it. I had never heard of Shiver before, but I love the idea of the book so hopefully I'll enjoy that. The pretty blue ink can't hurt things- right?

One thing I'm doing that I haven't done before is donate to a charity. I have been very upset by the recent young, gay suicides so for every page I read I am going to donate .03 cents to The Trevor Project. If I finish all of my books that amounts to 40.00.

Usually I update every four hours during the readathon and will probably do that tomorrow as well. Good luck to all you readathoners!

I've been stressing and down all week (and most of last week too) because I'm really behind on my reading and I haven't really had the motivation to read lately. It's seriously bumming me out, because I have a lot of books that I need to get through, especially since Just Contemporary is coming up, and I have a ton planned for that.

SO — Imagine my delight when I get home to see several posts in my GoogleReader talking about how April at Good Books and Good Wine is hosting an Impromptu/Last Minute Read-a-Thon, running from whenever today until October 3rd. It's not a big prize/challenge filled read-a-thon, just a bunch of people getting together to whittle down that towering pile.

SO

My goal, between now and Monday is to read 8 books. I think that it totally possible IF I stay motivated and DO it. Maybe I'll even get more. That would be awesome, but for now, I'm just hoping to get through these books demanding my attention.

I'll probably update this post, but no promises. But, know that I'm excited for the read-a-thon and hope it will help me get my groove back on!:)

Are you read-a-thoning?! Let me know! I LOVE having read-a-thon buddies! We can chant and cheer each other on! Yay for reading lots of books!:)

This is a guest post by Jackie of Literary Escapism who has graciously offered to organize the Book Blogger Top 10 again this year.

For the second year in a row, we're asking book bloggers to help put together a top 10 list of books published in 2009. I want to thank the Weekly Geek staff for helping put this together again. It was such a blast (forgetting the headaches) to do last year that I had hope they would let me work on it this year as well.

Before I lay out what I am even talking about, I have to mention something that came to me while I was writing this. It's been a full year since the book blogging community lost Dewey. It doesn't seem like it's been that long and yet, her presence is still very much felt around the blogosphere. The 24 Hour Readathon just celebrated another day of reading in October; Weekly Geeks has been amazing with the weekly topics and keeping everything organized; and the Bookworms Carnival is still going strong. Dewey has definitely left a legacy in our community and I'm sure her loss is still felt by many around this time of the year.

I don't want to ramble, but I'll be honest, the reason this hit home with me right now was because I was in the middle of working on this same project with Dewey last year when I heard the news. For the second year running, welcome to the Weekly Geeks Book Bloggers Top 10 of 2009.

You always see these “Top Whatever” lists that the newspapers/publishers put out and, for a second year in a row, we the book bloggers are going to put out our own Top 10 list. This week, the Weekly Geeks team and I are asking you to come up with your own Top 10 Books that were published in 2009 (books that were reprinted or re-released are not eligible, sorry).

Now, the idea is to only choose books that were published in 2009, regardless of what country you live in. If a book was released in the US in 2008, but released in your country in 2009, that's okay. I know there is still a month in a half left of 2009, but if you know there is a book coming out between now and Dec. 31st, then it’s still eligible.

This year, I am also asking for something a little more specific. When you submit your novels, you must include the genre it is from as well. Last year, when I was trying to categorize everything, I had to guess on a lot of novels and I know there were some people who disagreed with my choice. If there are any contradictions in genres (say if a book was selected for two genres), then the Weekly Geek Staff will vote on where it goes (please?).

If you see a Top 10 list somewhere else, add it to the Mr. Linky, even if they aren’t a part of Weekly Geeks. We're trying to gather as many lists as we can, so we can come up with a nice comprehensive list. You'll have two weeks to come up with your list before I begin compiling the voting booths. Then we'll put it to a vote. Last year, we ended up with over 1300 individual voters and I know we can make it just as big this year.

So what are your top 10 books of 2009?

** Please post your list and link it to Mr. Linky by December 4, 2009. Jackie will put together the voting book after then, then we’ll write a post to let you know it’s ready. Thanks!