Final Read-A-Thon Update

End of the ‘Thon Meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
5. How many books did you read?
6. What were the names of the books you read?
7. Which book did you enjoy most?
8. Which did you enjoy least?
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

1.   I was daunted week’s ago with wanting to attend the Boston Book Fest AND do the Read-A-Thon so I signed up for both.   Both as Reader AND Cheerleader AND Mini-Challenge Host.   But I couldn’t stay awake and finally crawled into bed during Hour 20 with uncertain hopes to wake up around Hour 23 to do this meme at least.   I didn’t make it – woke up 1.5 hours after it was over but have spent the last hour tweeting and cheering anyway.

2.   To be honest, it didn’t seem to me that there was much book excitement talk but maybe I was too hectic to comment comment comment everywhere.  I did tbr a few books:   Jumped by Rita Wms-Garcia, The Secret Scripture by Barry Sebastian and Orange Mint and Honey by Carleen Brice.

3.  My improvement suggestions are ALL aimed at me and my preparation process.   So, none to share until the next one!  ha.   The organizers always do an amazing and impressive job keeping us all on task and on top of things.  CHEERS!   Applause, applause!

4.   I think the cheering went well with Eva’s clear instructions and guidance.  Yea Cheer Captain!   And even though I’ve been through this almost EVERY RAT, I always am disappointed that I don’t track my comment counts (I don’t even try – it’s too stressful) and that I didn’t get to everyone in my assigned group.    I am SO GLAD that I didn’t see many zero comments on posts so I think we did a great balanced approach to visiting everyone as a group.    so GOOD JOB CHEERers!   I do wish I knew more of who my fellow cheer team was and also a bit surprised that I didn’t figure out who they were!   (I know MargReads and VioletCrush and probably Vasilly since I followed her around blogosphere – oh and jehara!)

5.6.7.  I DID READ ONE BOOK! Wahoo!!!    Catie Copley by Deborah Kovacs.   I attended the High Tea with Catie the Lab, Resident Dog at the Copley Hotel during the book fest and I have a hard time resisting buying kids books.   It was 28 pages  pages that only had illustrations.   Yea me!    I read the first 2 pages of Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree waiting for an event at the BookFest, too for a total of 30 pages read.   🙂

9.  Advice for cheerleaders:     yes!  sign up and do whatever cheering you can!    If you aren’t a google-blogger, create an id in that realm and then it’s super easy to leave comments.       If you ARE A google-blogger – this applies to both readers and cheerleaders, turn off word verification and AT LEAST!!!!   allow nonblogspotters  to comment!   and maybe even open it up to OpenId  and/or Name/URLs.  I offer that up to the vox and livejournals and whatever’s I came across and thus didn’t leave a cheer because I wasn’t about to sign up for anything new.   sorry!

Don’t wear mascara during those tired lean weak hours cuz if you do give up and crash, you’ll look like hell when you wake up.

I think that’s enough for now…

10.   I’ll always participate in Read-a-Thon!    and I’ll probably continue to cheer more than read but I do so aspire to actually reading some time and breaking that 1000 page goal.    sigh….

THANK YOU ALL who participated in my mini-challenge to create a list of great books featuring an older protagonist. Please continue to think and add more.     I might even create its own page here at ol’ Care’s Online Book Club.     Congrats to a new-t0-me blogger that I’m excited to get to know:  Sarah at Dangerously Cold Tea for winning the random selection.

Happy One More Successful Fun Read-A-Thon Everyone!  Thank you Dewey for kicking off this great project and thank you all for allowing it to continue as tribute to this outstanding book blog mother of book blogs.    CHEERS!