Today’s Sunday Salon will wrap up my participation in yesterday’s 24-Hour Readathon with my completion of the End-of-Event Survey:
1. Which hour was most daunting for you? I flagged around Hour 11 or so; after I finished my cheerleading shift, it was a bit challenging to get back into reading mode and I kept fighting off the urge to take a nap! Hours 18-21 (11 PM-1:45 AM local time) went surprisingly well, thanks to a couple of cups of Earl Grey tea and switching from my contact lenses to my glasses to combat dry eyes. I was also rather energized by discovering that I won a late-night cheerleader prize during Hour 19!
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?I’ve done this four times now, and I honestly think it depends on the individual reader. I review every book I read whether it’s a “review book” or not, but people who don’t do that might prefer to read books they don’t feel obligated to review. I’ve tried different genres. I’ve found that YA fiction seems to work best for me; nonfiction (usually memoir) is inconsistent; books of 250 – 350 pages seem to be about the right length.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? I think the Readathon is running very well at this point, although it did seem like there was a little more last-minute business than usual this time. Also, please recommend that all participants post a “starting line”/opening post during the first couple of hours (pre-scheduling it’s a very good idea); that really helps the cheerleaders. If there’s no Readathon post, we can’t be certain if the person’s still participating and won’t know whether to leave a comment or not!
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? Twitter and the #readathon hashtag were great, and I really liked the new Readathon Book List form that invited readers to add each book they read.
5. How many books did you read? Just two this time, which was a bit disappointing, but I read both from beginning to end and I really liked both of them.
6. What were the names of the books you read?
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, by Wendy McClure (memoir)
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok (fiction)
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, by Wendy McClure (memoir)
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok (fiction)
7. Which book did you enjoy most? I really enjoyed both, but I have to admit that Girl in Translation went faster (and since I didn’t start it till around Hour 14, that was a good thing!).
8. Which did you enjoy least? N/A – see question 7
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? Use Twitter! Have a standard cheer to leave in comments so it goes faster. And if a blog doesn’t have a Readathon post, feel free to move on (see question 3) – if you have to guess whether the blogger’s reading or not, my advice is to guess that they’re not.
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? Very likely, unless I have a scheduling conflict, and I’ll probably be both a reader and a cheerleader again (sticking with a dedicated three-hour shift, plus tweets – that seems to balance reading and cheering best for me).
Did you Readathon yesterday? How did it go? And if you did, do you plan to do anything else but read today? I have to admit it’s not the top thing on my list right now…and I’ll probably take the next couple of days as a blogging break, too. See you soon!
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