Button 24 Hour Read-a-ThonWOW, I’ve been so much looking forward to this October 2017 edition of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon! It’s my favourite fall event :) I’ve done a minimum of prepping and will be participating low key as my main goal is to just read at long(-ish) stretches of time. I slowly seem to crawl out of a reading slump that’s been going on for years and I’ll do anything it takes to keep going forward!!

But the fact that so many people across the globe are reading and interacting about it at the same time is of course a big part of the thrill so you’ll also find me hopping a few blogs, and mainly post as @gnoe on Instagram, Litsy and now and then Twitter (@graasland). Join me there?!

My plans

Part-time participant

I’m never able to read for the full 24 hours so I’m not going to try. Just as much as I can! Next to that I will try to make my other activities book related. My film club is gathering tonight and it’s my turn to choose a movie. So I suggested a few adaptions of literature. I had hoped to watch Red Sorghum from Zhang Yimou again (one of my all-time favourites), but I wasn’t able to get a copy in time. Now my bet is on either Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone (based on a story by Dennis Lehane), or Alan Parker’s Midnight Express (Billy Hayes) – both available on Netflix. Which one would you pick if you could join us?

Nominating the next read for my book club is also up to me this month. I have a long list of options ready in Goodreads but I can only suggest five… Picking and sending out those is on my chore list for today as well.

Books

During the RaT I’ll definitely be reading the following two books:

  • Ghostly, A Collection of Ghost Stories ~ Audrey Niffenegger
    Thoroughly enjoying this selection of haunting fiction for the month of Spooktober. I’m currently at page 137 in Oliver Onions’ 1911 tale The Beckoning Fair One. Since I don’t read a lot of short story collections I will alternate this with other books.
  • Ezel-basics (Donkey Basics) ~ Margret Keijzer
    A while ago I stranded at chapter 8 of 12 in this nonfiction book about donkeys; probably because I don’t care about the subject of breeding. I’m really into rescue animals and know there’s a surplus of animals looking for a home without needing to add to that amount. Besides, as a volunteer at the Ezelsociëteit donkey sanctuary my interest goes out to the wellbeing of and caring for these wonderful creatures.
  • A novel from Mount TBR, to be chosen at the moment I’ll be starting it.

Optional reads

During household tasks and such I hope to listen to @weepingwillow84’s short story Memento Mori, broadcasted on BBC Radio4 on September 22nd. Chances are I won’t be allowed access though as I’m not an inhabitant of the Commonwealth…

I have plenty of books on my shelf that I’m looking forward to. Don’t you just love picking a new read that fits your mood? A few titles to choose from:

  • The Marriage Plot ~ Jeffrey Eugenides
  • The Sisters Brothers ~ Patrick De Witt
  • De wijnrepubliek (The Republic of Wine) ~ Mo Yan
  • Lord of the Flies ~ William Golding
  • Here I Am ~ Jonathan Safran Foer
  • Monica, mijn vader (Monica, My Father) ~ Maaike Sips
  • De offers (The Sacrifices) ~ Kees van Beijnum
  • The Lives of Others ~ Neel Mukherjee
  • The Master and Margarita ~ Mikhail Bulgarov
  • Ghana Must Go ~ Taiye Selasi

Plus several J-lits. I’ve been neglecting my favourite genre and decided to join in Dolce Bellezza’s 11th Japanese Literature Challenge, running through January 2018 (sign-up post to be written later).

  • The Book of Tea ~ Okakura Kakuzo
  • Kokoro ~ Natsume Sōseki
  • The Unconsoled ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

Then there’s also that DNF that’s been bugging me: The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel that I would still like to give another chance. It -literally- drove me crazy with its (so far) 87 pages of one Tomás driving a car on a quest to I’m-not-sure-what-yet.
These days I usually quit when the narrative still doesn’t grab me around page 80, but I’ve had trouble getting into Martel’s books before and they were totally worth pushing through the hard part.

Any of these you want to recommend? Or advise against? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Local starting time: 14.00 o’clock.
Reading from Utrecht, the Netherlands, Europe

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