Archive for the ‘readathon’ Category

Friday, October 24th, 2014

October Horror-Themed ReadaThing Starts Today

It’s not too late to join in our Halloween week ReadaThing! All are welcome, and you don’t have to read for the entire week: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing. As with all ReadaThings, you’re welcome to read whatever you like, though we’re aiming for a seasonal horror theme this time around.

This edition of ReadaThing will be kicking off at 12am (midnight) UTC on Saturday, October 25th (that’s 8pm Eastern, Friday October 24th), and will end at the same time on the following Saturday—12am UTC, November 1st (8pm Eastern, Friday, October 31st). You can see the full timeline here.

Sign up

Head directly to the October 2014 ReadaThing Wiki to sign up, or check out the announcement thread for more general information. You don’t have to pick a time slot in advance in order to participate! There’s a special place for readers who don’t want to commit to a specific schedule to sign up.

What are you reading?

Whether you’d like to check out what your fellow ReadaThing-ers are reading, or to share your own ReadaThing picks, head over to the What will you be reading? thread to see what books are slated. Remember: anything goes! You can read whatever you want, wherever you want.

Get ready to read

Once the ReadaThing is underway, keep an eye out for the “October 2014 ReadaThing: Log Book” thread, where you can document your ReadaThing experiences. Take a peek at the Log Book thread from our last ReadaThing in August/September, for examples.

ETA: The October 2014 ReadaThing Log Book can be found here!

If you’ve never done ReadaThing before, give it a try, and stay tuned to the ReadaThing group for updates. Thanks to LT member jjmcgaffey for organizing this ReadaThing!

Labels: readathon, reading

Thursday, August 28th, 2014

September ReadaThing kicks off today!

It’s not too late to join in our extended weekend ReadaThing. All are welcome, and you don’t have to read for the full weekend: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing.

This edition of ReadaThing will be kicking off at 12am (midnight) UTC on Friday, August 29th (that’s 8pm Eastern, Thursday August 28th), and will end at the same time on Tuesday—12am UTC, September 2nd (8pm Eastern, Monday, September 1st). You can see the full timeline here. This August/September ReadaThing also happens to coincide with the US’s Labor Day weekend, so, to our US readers, if you’re looking for an excuse to get some more reading in this weekend, here’s your chance!

Sign up

Head directly to the August-September 2014 ReadaThing Wiki to sign up, or check out the announcement thread for more general information. You don’t have to pick a time slot in advance in order to participate! There’s a special place for readers who don’t want to commit to a specific schedule to sign up.

What are you reading?

Whether you’d like to check out what your fellow ReadaThing-ers are reading, or to share your own ReadaThing picks, head over to the What will you be reading? thread to see what books are slated. Remember: anything goes! You can read whatever you want, wherever you want.

Get ready to read

Once the ReadaThing is underway, keep an eye out for the “August-September 2014 ReadaThing: Log Book” thread, where you can document your ReadaThing experiences. Take a peek at the Log Book thread from our last ReadaThing in April, for examples.

ETA: You can find the August-September ReadaThing Lobg Book here!

If you’ve never done ReadaThing before, you’re in good company—this is my first one. Give it a try, and stay tuned to the ReadaThing group for updates. Thanks to LT member LucindaLibri for organizing this ReadaThing!

Labels: readathon, reading, Uncategorized

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014

Join the April ReadaThing!

Mark your calendars, and get spring started the right way: Coming up soon is a week-long ReadaThing. All are welcome, and you don’t have to read for the full week: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing.

This edition of ReadaThing will be kicking off at 12am (Midnight) UTC on Sunday, April 6th (that’s 8pm Eastern, Saturday April 5th), and will end at the same time on April 12am UTC the following Sunday, April 13th (8pm Eastern, Saturday, April 12th). You can see the full timeline here. April’s ReadaThing also happens to coincide with the US’s National Drop Everything and Read Day, which is celebrated every April 12th, in honor of author (and creator of Ramona Quimby) Beverly Cleary‘s birthday.

Sign up

Head directly to the April 2014 ReadaThing Wiki to sign up, or check out the announcement thread for more general information. You don’t have to pick a time slot in advance in order to participate! There’s a special place for readers who don’t want to commit to a specific schedule to sign up.

What are you reading?

Whether you’d like to check out what your fellow ReadaThing-ers are reading, or to share your own ReadaThing picks, head over to the What will you be reading? thread to see what books are slated. Remember: anything goes! You can read whatever you want, wherever you want.

Get ready to read

Once the April ReadaThing is underway, keep an eye out for the “April 2014 ReadaThing: Log Book” thread, where you can document your ReadaThing experiences. Take a peek at the Log Book from June 2013, for an example.

If you’ve never done ReadaThing before, you’re in good company—this is my first one. Give it a try, and stay tuned to the ReadaThing group for updates. Thanks to LT member jjmcgaffey for organizing this ReadaThing!

Labels: readathon

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

Join the June ReadaThing!

Mark your calendars! Coming up soon is a weeklong, start-of-summer June ReadaThing. All are welcome, and you don’t have to read for the full week: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing.

The official start time will be at midnight on Tuesday, June 11 UTC/GMT: that’s 8 p.m. Monday in the Eastern US/Canada/LT time zone. This ReadaThing will run for a full week. See the time chart here.

For more information, see the announcement thread; to sign up, head right to the ReadaThing wiki. As we get closer to the date, watch the ReadaThing group for the “What will you be reading?” thread, and during the ReadaThing you can use the “Log Book” thread to document your ReadaThing experience.

If you haven’t participated in a ReadaThing before, give it a go if you can!

For more on ReadaThings, and to participate in planning future events, join the ReadaThing group.


* Summer reading spot photo submitted by LTer connie53.

Labels: readathon

Thursday, December 13th, 2012

End-of-2012 ReadaThing!

Mark your calendars! Coming up soon is the special End-of-2012 ReadaThing! All are welcome, and you don’t have to read for the full week: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing. You don’t even have a pick a set time if you don’t want to – just dip in and out as your reading schedule permits!

The official start time will be at midnight on Sunday, 23 December UTC: that’s 7 p.m. Saturday in the Eastern US/Canada/LT time zone. This ReadaThing will have a staggered ending at midnight local time on January 1, 2013, to ring in the New Year in true LT style. See the time chart here.

For more information, see the announcement thread; to sign up, head right to the ReadaThing wiki. As we get closer to the date, we’ll add threads where you can post what will you be reading, and during the ReadaThing you can use the “Log Book” thread to document your ReadaThing experience.

For more on ReadaThings, and to participate in planning future events, join the ReadaThing group.

Labels: holiday, readathon, reading

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

ReadaThing Coming up!

Mark your calendars! Coming up soon is a weeklong July/August ReadaThing. All are welcome, and you don’t have to read for the full week: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing.

The official start time will be at noon on Thursday, July 26 UTC/GMT: that’s 8 a.m. Thursday in the Eastern US/Canada/LT time zone. This ReadaThing will run for a full week. See the time chart here.

For more information, see the announcement thread; to sign up, head right to the ReadaThing wiki. As we get closer to the date, consider posting your reading selection in the “What will you be reading?” thread, and during the ReadaThing you can use the “Log Book” thread to document your ReadaThing experience.

For more on ReadaThings, and to participate in planning future events, join the ReadaThing group.

Labels: readathon, reading

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

ReadaThing Reminder!

Just a quick reminder: the February ReadaThing begins tomorrow! See the earlier blog post for full details, or head right over to the ReadaThing wiki to sign up!

Labels: readathon, reading

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Announcing the February “Dickens of a” ReadaThing!

Mark your calendars! Coming up is a weeklong February ReadaThing, and with the bicentennial of Charles Dickens‘ birth on February 7 occurring right in the middle, we thought it would be fun to include a voluntary “Dickens of a ReadaThing” option this time. All are welcome: you don’t have to read Dickens if you don’t want to, and of course you don’t have to read for the full week: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing.

The official start time will be at 1 p.m. on Friday, February 3rd in New Zealand: midnight GMT and 7 p.m. Thursday, February 2nd, in the Eastern US/Canada time zone. This ReadaThing will run for a full week!

For more information, see the announcement thread; to sign up, head right to the ReadaThing wiki. As we get closer to the date, consider posting your reading selection in the “What will you be reading?” thread, and during the ReadaThing you can use the “Log Book” thread to document your ReadaThing experience.

For more on ReadaThings, and to participate in planning future events, join the ReadaThing group.

Edward Pettit is spending the entire year reading books by and about Dickens, and charting his course at Reading Charles Dickens, so I asked him to weigh in on his experiences and offer some suggestions of Dickens-related books LibraryThing members might want to consider reading:

“For the Charles Dickens Bicentennial in 2012, I’ve decided to become a Charles Dickens Ambassador. First, I’m finishing a reading project I began on Sept 15, 2011 to read all of Dickens’ published work in just one year. Having read only a few of Dickens’ novels over the years (including A Christmas Carol a dozen times), I had always hoped to get to the rest of them, but never seemed to find the time, so what better time than the Dickens Bicentennial. And as reading is such a solitary activity, I thought I’d invite everyone along for the ride, so you can read (and comment) about my Dickens endeavours online.

Second, you can also join me at The Free Library of Philadelphia for events every month of the year as the FLP opens its amazing Dickens collection to the world in several exhibitions. We’re hosting literary salons, speakers, performers. We’ll follow Dickens’ foosteps on his visit to Philadelphia in 1842. We’ll even have some Drinking with Dickens events in local bars to imbibe the many Victorian beverages featured in the novels.

To further my duties as a Charles Dickens Ambassador, I also carry around a bag full of Dickens novels, which I freely give to anyone who asks for a copy. So join me in 2012. Become a CD Ambassador. Spread the joy of reading Dickens.

If I could recommend a starter Dickens work, it would be A Christmas Carol. It doesn’t need to be Christmas time to read this extraordinary tale of ghosts and transformation. I am moved by it every time I read it (and my kids are still scared to death of Marley’s ghost).

Or you could try The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Dickens’ first novel (and first serial). This book is a pleasure to read with vibrant characters, especially Mr Pickwick and his manservant Sam Weller. The novel is not just funny, but there’s also a kind of innate joy and goodwill that rises out of its pages. I never wanted to leave this Pickwickian world.”

Ed (EdwardGPettit on LT) will be around during the ReadaThing as well, so look for more suggestions and recommendations from him as we get closer to the ReadaThing dates.

I’m already looking forward to this ReadaThing: I haven’t picked what I’ll be reading yet, but it’ll probably be some Dickens (maybe American Notes), along with whatever else I happen to be reading that week.

Reminder: For more information on the ReadaThing or to sign up, see the announcement thread. Have fun, and happy reading!

Labels: readathon, reading

Monday, September 26th, 2011

Announcing the November ReadaThing

Mark your calendars! The good folks from the ReadaThing group have announced that they’ll be hosting a 100-hour ReadaThing in early November, and all are welcome! (You don’t have to read for the full 100 hours, of course: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing).

The official start time will be at Noon on Friday, November 4th in New Zealand. This will be at 23:00 on Thursday GMT and 8 p.m. Thursday, November 3rd, in the Eastern US/Canada time zone. It will last for 100 hours & end at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday in New Zealand, 4:00 a.m. Tuesday in Paris, 10:00 p.m. Monday in New York, and 5:00 p.m. Monday in Honolulu!! (the DST time change in the US/Canada is accounted for).

For more information, see the announcement thread; to sign up, head right to the ReadaThing wiki. As we get closer to the date, consider posting your reading selection in the “What will you be reading?” thread, and during the ReadaThing you can use the “Log Book” thread to document your ReadaThing experience. Might be fun to create a gallery of “reading spot” photos, or something, too!

For more on ReadaThings, and to participate in planning future events, join the ReadaThing group.

Labels: readathon

Friday, April 15th, 2011

ReadaThing Planned for April 23!

To celebrate their first anniversary, the folks in the ReadaThing group have planned a 24-hour readathon for Saturday, April 23. You can join up here by signing up to read for an hour of your choice, and list what book(s) you’ll read on the participation wiki.

Or, if you’re up for a bigger challenge, The Green Dragon is hosting a “Do Nothing But Read” Day on the same day, Saturday April 23. They invite all to join in, so if your schedule allows and you’re in need of a nice long day of reading (and who among us isn’t!?), take the plunge!

Labels: Do Nothing but Read Day, readathon, reading

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

ReadaThing in Public, right now!

As we speak, someone from LibraryThing is reading. That may seem like an obvious statement, but I can prove it’s true: the August “Reading in Public” ReadaThing is happening, and as I post this, leennnadine and norabelle414 are out and about, reading in the name of all things public, literary and LibraryThing.

Earlier today, Squeex and her daughter had a sip’n’read at a coffee shop, pictured here. You can see more pictures of their reading/coloring adventure on her blog.

It’s not too late to participate! If you have an hour of free time, and like the heady idea of reading where people can see you, sign up! We’re reading for 24 hours, and the day’s only half over (or night, if you’re in a different time zone). If you want to read more about the project, check here.

Labels: readathon

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Teeshirt sale for the Read In Public ReadaThing

LibraryThing teeshirtUpdate: The t-shirt sale has started early! Buy your t-shirt here.

For one week only Until August 8th, we’re having a sale on LibraryThing t-shirts.

See, we’re having a ReadaThing readathon in August, and the theme is Reading In Public*, and I figured you might want to wear a LibraryThing teeshirt.

So, we’re having a sale. Our t-shirts are normally $15, but they’ll be $9 from July 26th (at noon) through 8th (whenever we remember to change it back). You don’t need a coupon code, or a secret password. Anyone who buys a shirt during that week will automatically get the sale price.

The Reading In Public ReadaThing is one of a series of readathons hosted on LibraryThing’s forum system, Talk. A readathon is a chosen period of time (24 hours, usually) where members take turns reading, as to have non-stop reading during the event. Thanks to night-owls and international participation, there can be non-stop reading

*Unlike knitting in public, RIP is an unfortunate acronym.

**We decided that reading on your porch or in a lit window count, as long as someone else can see you. It’s kind of a reverse-peeping-tom.

Labels: readathon

Monday, January 25th, 2010

24-hour Readathon wrap-up

We may not have a logo yet, but the first LibraryThing Readathon was a success. A lot of the fun is reading the thread on Book Talk where participants described their hour of reading. It was interesting to find out where other people chose to read for their designated hour, and absolutely wonderful to hear about the books everyone’s reading right now. You can read the whole thread here, which includes touchstones to the books read. Participants could also tag the book(s) they read. People also started including an excerpt from what they had read, which added a sense of nowness.

It was really fun helping in the creation of a new kind of event, which felt very community-oriented yet very easy to participate in. I myself woke up, grabbed my book, and started reading in bed. Sure, there wasn’t any brie provided (unlike the Boston meetup), but it also didn’t require getting out of bed.

We called it a beta test, because we weren’t sure what would need changing during the event, or for future events. We’ll talk about what to change, so know we’re planning on another event sometime in the spring. If you’d like to join in the organizing conversation, jump in.

Labels: event, LibraryThing event, ltreadathonbeta, readathon, reading

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

LibraryThing 24-hour Readathon (beta)

Inspired by LibraryThingers participating in Do Nothing But Read Day, member squeakychu suggested we have our own event which doesn’t limit a day’s activity to just reading. (It was discovered that it’s really hard to do nothing but read, when the doorbell rings, or pets/children need tending.)

Thus was born the LibraryThing 24-hour Readathon*. The idea is to have LibraryThing members from across the world reading continuously for 24 hours. Each member is committing to reading for one hour, at a designated time. We’ve built in a redundancy system, in case someone is trapped in their car in a snowstorm … without a book. Some people will start on the hour, others on the half hour.

Date: Saturday, January 23rd
Time: You choose

If you’re interested, sign up here. You can read the development and ongoing rules of the Readathon on the Site Talk thread. You can direct any questions to that Talk thread as well. Once you’ve read for your hour, come describe it on the Book Talk thread.

This is an event for any LibraryThing member (and anyone you want to convince to read along with you), and the only requirement is that for the hour you sign up for, you read something (or listen to an audiobook).

This is the first of what we’re hoping to be many readathons. Future events may include reading a specific genre, reading for different increments of time (15 minutes, out loud?) or reading for longer amounts of time than 24 hours (how long can LibraryThing members keep reading? Years?)

*Beta. We’re using this first event as a kind of trial to figure it out.

Labels: readathon