It’s 7:46am in Accra; and since it’s also Saturday April 28, I’m up for Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon, 

Planning: how I will do this year’s Readathon. The twice yearly reading event was started by the late blogger Dewey in 2007 and it’s been kept going by a dedicated community of book bloggers and readers.  I think my first, only participation, was in April 2010.  The basic idea is to read for 24 hours, with breaks for sleeping, eating and whatever other distractions. Participants also cheer the community on (via various social media platforms); bloggers post updates; challenges are held; prizes are won.  It’s a great event for the book blogging and readers community  worldwide; this year about 1,500 readers have signed up. The goal is to read 1,000,000 pages!

Starting:  The official  start time is 12:00 GMT, adjusted for all time zones.  I will start at 10am GMT. I might have a meeting today so I’m giving myself a 2hr head start.  And depending on my distractions, I may go beyond the 24-hour period to make up any time lost.

Selecting: books for the readathon.  The general advice is to select a bunch of books of varying lengths and a mix of genres. Here is my selection:

I’m rather excited about the books I’ve selected.  Each book is under 270 pages.  Readathons can get tedious – distractions; drowsiness; the munchies; boredom etc. Changing up the reading is a good strategy. The books are;

• one graphic novel, Aya by Abouet and Oubrerie
• two collections of poetry, Cape Coast Castle by Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang and A Woman’s Body is a Country by Dami Ajayi (these are re-reads)
• two works of fantasy, Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti and Binti: Home
• three works of general fiction, The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck; Far From My Father by Véronique Tadjo; and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
• one crime fiction, Bound to Secrecy by Vamba Sherif
• a collection of shorts, Indigo by Molara Wood (this is also a re-read)
• one non-fiction, Safe House edited by Ellah Wakatama Allrey

I might pick a book that’s not on this list (no surprise there). I won’t be providing regular updates on this blog.  Rather, I’ll use Instagram and Twitter so that I can also cheer other participants on.  I will do a wrap-up post later in the coming week.

Anticipating:  the end of #PoetryMonth as April draws to a close. It’s been fun. I love curating and posting poems on this blog. They come in handy when I need quick fixes of poetry or when my Mum says “read me a poem”.  Now that I’m cautiously optimistic that I can blog regularly, I’ll bring back my weekly Wednesday post on poems. In the meantime, I have 3 more poems to post before April ends.

Motivated: My reading has been uneven this year due to frequent bouts of illness.  I’m feeling rather good today and motivated to do some fun reading.

To the next 24 hours! Y’all have a good weekend!