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Friday, January 4, 2013

The (First Ever) Classics Club Readathon



I was very excited when The Classics Club announced our first ever 24-hour readathon that will be held on Saturday, January 5th, 2013; what a great way to start a new promising year in our classics reading! It’s excited to think that there will be 46 of us (if everyone can make it) delving into classics books at the same time. Well….at least, I wish I can do so…

The readathon will start at 8:00 am EST, however as I live in Indonesia (that is GMT +7 or 12 hours ahead of people in America), the starting time would be for me at 8:00 pm my time. It would be quite late and impossible for me to read along the night. So, I’ll compromise it by starting on Saturday morning my time (as early as possible—hope my mom won’t need my help in the kitchen :P) and end it as late as possible on Saturday evening (I’m going to the church very early on Sunday morning, and won’t have time to continue the readathon the next day anyway). This way I can still manage to read with most of others for at least 1-2 hours before I must go to bed… :)

I’m just hoping that the next readathon could be stretched into 2 days (the whole weekend), so that I can feel I’m really reading with all the other participants at the same time. But, anyway, it’s still exciting, and the fact that we are reading together with friends from all over the world is really something, isn’t it?




So, here I am, very eager to read Henry James’ The Portrait of A Lady. Actually I have started it since January 1st, and right now—when I’m posting this—I am already on page 100s. Let’s see how many pages I’ll be able to digest the whole day tomorrow! Yayyyy for readathon!!

22 comments:

  1. You sure do have to dance a bit of the jig to participate. I'm central time so for me it starts at 7am. That's cool and no where near as complicated as yours.

    It is cool that so many of us with so much distance will be reading together, almost like a virtual family gathering. I haven't totally decided what I want to read, although I am including Xingu by Edith Wharton due to its thinness. Someone said it was 48 pages and it's a free Kindle download. :)

    Happy Reading!

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    1. Haha! It is indeed challenging to match the exact time :)

      You put it beautifully, a virtual family gathering. A family whose all the members love classics, cool!

      I haven't heard about Xingu, and never know that Wharton wrote a novella (and very short one), but with 24 hours, you surely need one more book to accompany Xingu.

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  2. The time difference does make things tricky. The start time here in NZ is 3am Sunday morning so it will be at least 4 hours later before I begin but looking forward to being a part of the Classic Club family all reading together.
    I plan to start with a short 20th century Australian classic - Picnic at Hanging Rock.

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    1. Yeah...I only wish Classics Club can make another readathon for 48 hours in the future, so we in Indonesia can still having a good time with all others.

      Ah, you've chosen something new and out of our ordinary lists, good luck then with your reading!

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    2. I think doing it as a weekend is a great idea. Perhaps for our second one in July? :)

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    3. That would be a great idea, Allie! Thanks for listening to us... :)

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  3. Ah, I want to read that one too, but it's not in my list this year, so it's not my priority. I've been curious about its content for a year now. [-(

    I think I will do Conrad's Secret Agent or Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac for LRP.

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    1. Quite a tedious reading, but I like the heroine, she's much like me :)

      I'm curious about the Secret Agent, hope you'll pick that one.

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  4. Well, you'll finish The Portrait of a Lady before me for certain. I'm grateful if I can continue at three chapters a day. Have fun tomorrow! -- Ruth

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    1. Thanks Ruth! Actually on normal working days, I can only digest about 1-2 chapters a day. But this is weekend, and a readathon! (meaning I won't be online at all), so I'm hoping to finish it sooner than usual. Will you join in the readathon too? It will be great if we can read the same book together! :)

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    2. I think I will give it a try since this is the first weekend I have nothing major to do in a really long time. Thanks for the inspiration!

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    3. Yayy! glad to hear that... Hope you have fun at the readathon!

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  5. I'm excited too :)
    I am also in a different time zone, and like you I'm starting in the morning my time, & finishing in the evening my time.

    Looking forward to seeing what you make of The Portrait of a Lady as it's on my classics club list.

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    1. So far I like it, though James sometimes makes me think hard. Maybe because the heroine is much similar with me.

      Have fun with your readathon, Sam!

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  6. I'm in the UK and reading noon till noon to match US hours is really exhausting for me (I know, I've tried it for the Dewey's event!) so I'll be reading and reviewing from 00:01 on Saturday. That way I can at least sleep and recover on Sunday! I've got a couple of books picked out and am really interested to compare the classics event to other readathons... :)

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    1. Wow, with such an effort of making it, I hope you'll have a lot of fun with the readathon, Alex! It's very exciting knowing that there are a lot of us out there are having fun with us in reading, isn't it?

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  7. I think the timing for me (UK) works out at 1.00 pm Saturday to 1.00 pm Sunday but I am taking that with a pinch of salt as I have lots to do on Saturday but I am on a longish journey on Sunday which is prime reading time!
    I will be reading Villette by Charlotte Bronte as it has taken me all Christmas to get 2/3 of the way through and I really want to get it (mostly) finished before I go back to school on Monday!

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    1. Same here, I won't make it all the 24 hours, I think 14 hours is the max and it's not possible also to use all that time to read only. But anyway, I think it's the togetherness is the most important here, so let's just have fun! :)

      I wish you can finish Villette soon, it's in my list and I'm curious to read your thoughts.

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  8. Great book choice, Fanda! I am excited to read with you and everyone else. Best of luck! :)

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  9. I wanted to stretch the readathon into Sunday as well - one of my new year's resolutions was to sort my sleeping patterns out and I'm already pretty tired (8.5 hours in). I'll readathon with you tomorrow! :)

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    1. Well, OK, I'll stretch my readathon into Sunday as well, thanks for doing it with me :)

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