Dewey 24 Hour Readathon!

*********  UPDATED HOUR 24 ********

Pages Read: 932 pages
Currently Reading: Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
Books Finished: 5, William Shakespeare's Phantom of Menace by Ian Doescher, Ghost World by Daniel Clowes, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright, and Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan 
Breaks Taken:To cheer on other blogs, took a couple naps.
Snacks Eaten:Dark chocolate gran marnier pecans my sister brought back from Georgia, chips and guac, chili
Mini-Challenges Completed: 16
Blogs Visited and Commented On: 46
 
You can also find me here on Instagram, Twitter, and LibraryThing. 

Closing Survey: 
1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Hour 15, I fell asleep at 9 pm and didn't wake up for 4 hours. Whoops.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Thimble Summer and The Stepford Wives, both were perfect readathon books.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? You all rock it, just keep on keeping on!
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  The mini-challenges seemed to go really smoothly this year.
5. How many books did you read?  I managed to finished 5!
6. What were the names of the books you read? Ghost World by Daniel Clowes, William Shakespeare's Phantom of Menace by Ian Doescher, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levi, Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright, Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman, and Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
7. Which book did you enjoy most? The Stepford Wives, perfect length and level of suspense for the readathon.
8. Which did you enjoy least? Ghost World, it was a little "teen angsty"  for the readathon.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?  I use the provided spreadsheet to mark who I've visited, but I also keep my own list so I make sure to visit everyone on the list.
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? I participate every time if I can. That will be the first time I'll be reading with a tiny baby, so we'll see how that goes.   

Mid-Event Survey:
1. What are you reading right now? Thimble Summer
2. How many books have you read so far? Three finished, in the middle of two
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? We Were Liars
4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? A few, my pup has been needy this readathon and I fell asleep and took a nap.
5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? I haven't touched even half of my snacks! 

Introduction Quiz:
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Indianapolis, IN
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? Some dark chocolate covered pretzel slims, yum!
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I'm pregnant with my first kiddo and in my third trimester, so that means my first readathon with no caffeine. We'll see how that goes.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? This is my 9th readathon and I think I'm going to embrace the nap this time.
 
Tomorrow is the Dewey Readathon! This will be my 9^th time participating in the event. Every April and October, if other obligations don’t get in the way, I spend one whole day reading. It’s always so much fun and I get a ton of reading done. There’s a great sense of community, mini-challenges each hour, cheerleaders and prizes.  Heather and Andi are the incredible ladies who help organize the whole thing and you can get more details at the official site. 
 

Tomorrow I will be reading from 8 am until whenever I fall asleep. I have my stack of books ready to go (see my pile above) and I will be cheering for at least 4 hours. I am also hosting a mini-challenge this year, so make sure you stop by! 

A FEW NOTES: 
- I will be updating this post throughout the day so I don’t bomb people with half a dozen new posts.
- Please turn off your comment word verification for the day! It’s such a pain for cheerleaders.
- Tweet about your day with the hashtag #Readathon or by tagging @readathon 

- If you need any ideas for great readathon books, all my previous readathon posts are below.

PAST READATHON POSTS:

April and October 2011  /  April and October 2012 / April and October 2013 / April 2014 / April 2015 

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars and The Empire Striketh Back

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars
by Ian Doescher
★★★★★

Take two things I love, but never thought would collide and you’ve got this book. As an unashamed nerd I can quote lines from Star Wars like nobody’s business. I was raised by my Dad to embrace Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and all the sci-fi and fantasy nerdiness in between. At the same time I am a huge fan of the Bard. I took a class in college solely devoted to his works. I have slowly been working my way towards reading and then seeing every single one of his plays performed. So this unique combination of Jedi lore and iambic pentameter was impossible to resist.

This is a retelling of the first (technically fourth) Star Wars movie in Shakespearean style. My favorite parts are the characters’ inner monologues. Shakespeare uses that trick constantly to introduce audiences to a new character and it translates well in the Star Wars plots. The R2-D2 monologue was absolutely hilarious. He has an eloquent monologue and then aloud he says, “Meep beep bop meep.”

The language is really well done, embracing Shakespeare’s style without losing any of the Star Wars story or even really making it too ridiculous. There were so many parts that just cracked me up. There are also couple great illustrations throughout the book that add to the fun.

BOTTOM LINE: This book is geared to a VERY specific niche group. I happen to be the target audience, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for everyone. If you love both Shakespeare and Star Wars then get thee to a galactic bookstore immediately!

William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back

by Ian Doescher
★★★★☆

The second installment in the Star War’s Shakespeare trilogy is just as good as the first, though it loses just a tiny bit because readers now know what to expect. The well-known plot follows Luke as he is trained by Yoda and Han and Leia as they travel to Lando Calrissian’s Cloud City.

In this book Leia and Han’s antagonistic romance heats up with some cutting Shakespearean insults…

“My feelings? O! Thou arrogant half-wit,
Thou oversized child, thou friend of slime,
Thou man of scruffy looks, thou who herd’st nerfs,
Thou fool-born wimpled roughhewn waste of flesh!”

Once again we get to enjoy R2-D2’s eloquent asides and the Shakespeare-themed illustrations. We get to see Han grow as a character as he struggles to overcome his past misdeeds and work for the rebel alliance. He’s never chosen others’ needs above his own and the book allows us to hear some of his inner-monologue that the films gloss over. The same is true for Lando, a character that’s barely in the second film. The book gives a little more insight into his decisions.

The novelty of the concept certainly doesn’t grow old in this book. It feels just as fresh and original as the first one. The author manages to stick perfectly to the plot while also adding some depth.

BOTTOM LINE: As the author reminds us in the Afterword “Remember, this isn’t scholarship; it’s fun.” Reading it should be exactly that: fun! It’s more than entertaining and I can’t wait for the final book in the trilogy to be released.

*I received a review copy of The Empire Striketh Back from Quirk Books*