Kristen here again, with your hour 21 check-in, door prize winters, and a readathon pet peeve.

At this point, I’ve been ‘thon-ing all day. I’m ensconced in my comfort zone, got my laptop going for the behind the scenes action, my book open for every moment of reading I can grab, and usually two snoring dogs surrounding me.

This is the moment my partner decides to stop by my reading cave and chat. “How’s it going? What are you reading now? How many hours have you finished? You haven’t finished that yet?”

You’d think he’d have learned by now.

BUT. Now that we’ve broken your silence, TELL US WHAT YOU’RE READING.

What’s the most surprising book you read today? The most compelling? The funniest? Saddest? Here at 24in48 HQ, we’re always looking for perfect ‘thon reads (not that our TBRs need any assistance).

If you haven’t hydrated recently, go do that! If you haven’t eaten a single veggie, maybe mix some into your snack situation. 

Stretch, breathe deep, and carry on. You’re. Doing. Great.

Don’t forget to complete the Hour 18 Challenge before Hour 24! This hour’s door prize winners areeeeeeee (that long “e” is totally a drumroll):

Jessica Dubois

Alondra Minor

Kayla @kaylaraeintheway

Rebecca Demaree

Stephanie @itsstephalger

Lady @ FreeFormLady

Go forth and claim your prizes!

I don’t know about you guys, but it has been a fan-freakin-tastic day of reading. I’m so impressed with all of the amazing encouragement you’re giving each other all over social media and the number of books you’re putting away.

Before you get back to your reading, I’ve got your Hour 12 winners. So many great first lines you guys have in your stacks! (Don’t forget, you can still enter the Hour Zero Intro Survey challenge.)

Valerie Lovin

Emily Smith

Dayna Smith

Misty Swafford

Julie @strixalucobooks

Lyubov Niemann

Margaret Dodge

Areli Joy Esguerra

Cindy @LSUChalmation

Stephanie @allshesays

If your name is listed, head over to the Prize page and make your picks.

This hour’s challenge is all about book-to-screen adaptations. As much as we love the books, sometimes a story’s film version makes us equally all heart-eyes emojis.

Personally, I can’t get enough of the recent adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd and my cohost Kristen brought me the prettiest UK edition when she went to Ireland last fall so I can finally read the book.

In the form, tell us your favorite book to movie adaptation, extra bookworm points if you own both the book and the movie. 

FRIENDS. We’re 15 hours into this thing! We’re hitting our stride! We’re assessing our snack piles, stretching our limbs, and checking in with each other.

For us old hats, this is inevitably the time when we assess all systems. Is this chair comfortable? Are we getting sleepy? Is there enough light? Are we really enjoying this book, or is it dragging? Do we need a caffeine boost?

While the answer to that last question is almost always yes, wherever you find yourself at this moment, the best laid plans almost always go awry. You plan on reading five books and only get through two. You’re gonna knock out 18 hours on the first day, but you fall asleep on the couch and now you’re behind.

This hour is also when we remind you to take a deep breath and switch things up. There’s no wrong way to do this readathon, AND there’s no right way. Make your own reading magic however you can. Check in online to get some support. Move to a different room. Switch up your format or genre, or take a break altogether.

Share your favorite way to maintain your readathon mojo in the comments below, and don’t forget to complete the Hour 12 Challenge!

This hour’s door prize winners:

Ashley Nicoletto

Christine Traner

Daena Diaz

Melissa Flim

Sabrina Unrein

Callie Pastor

Head over to the prize page to claim your goodies!

 

Happy mid-Saturday, readers! I trust everyone has been reading along at a good clip this morning. Have you finished your first book of the weekend yet? What about your 2nd or 3rd? If you listened to Kristen at Hour Six, you started with a short, fast read and are motoring along nicely.

So I won’t keep you from getting back to it for very long. First, we’ve got your Hour Six winners:

Sara Nies
Reanna Hampton
Sarah Yarbrough
Kacie Roberts
Brooke @slightlyfoxed
Kathie
Kimberly Bower
Lynn Andryshak
Laura Kain
Anna @elianto27
Allison Ivy
Alexis Ennis
Tanya @elemenopew
Windy Dozier

Go check out the Prize page and make your choice.

Now for your next challenge! We love catchy first lines around here. The best first lines of a book will hook your attention and intrigue you and encourage you to keep reading. Not every book’s first line needs to be dazzling, but the ones that are really shine. Take for instance this perfect example from The World Exchange by Alena Graeddon:

“On a very cold and lonely Friday last November, my father disappeared
from the Dictionary.”

For this challenge, open each book in your 24in48 stack and, in the form below, share the most intriguing first line.

Don’t forget that if you post a photo of your first line on social, use the #24in48 hashtag so everyone can share in the challenge fun. We’ll post the winners of this challenge in six hours at Hour 18, so make sure you check back. You’ve also got 12 more hours to enter the Hour Zero Intro Survey challenge.

HELLO AGAIN. It’s time for another check-in (and door prizes!).

Most likely, I (Kristen) am just waking up because my dogs were too cuddly and warm and leaving my bed seemed difficult, and I’m stumbling into the shower to become human. Rachel doesn’t move until she coffees, I don’t coffee until I shower. Kerry has usually run 30 miles or something by now. We all have our morning processes.

Now that I’m awake, I’ll say good morning! We’re about 20% of the way through this thing, and it’s All. Going. Great.

How do I know that?! You’re here, you’re reading, and those are two of my favorite things. This readathon means a lot to me, and watching it grown and morph into an even better version of itself every year is one of my greatest joys.

What are you reading? How are you doing? Are you just getting started, or rolling on into hour nine like a champ? Let us know in the comments, or tag us in a post on social media using #24in48!

Also, don’t forget to complete the Hour 6 Reading Nostalgia Challenge (winner announced in Hour 12!), and I’m gonna give y’all another reminder about the Intro Survey! And now…the door prize winners!

Theresa M Emig
Zenvicious
Katharine @Kathareads
Jennifer Crawford
Shonda Brewer
Elizabeth @lavidasegunlily
Nubia Rivera
Karena Fagen
Kristine Lewis

Head on over to the prize page to claim your loot!

Good morning, beautiful readers! If you’re following the official timeclock, it’s 6AM and we here at readathon HQ are in varying stages of sleep and awake, stumbling to the coffee pot and extricating ourselves from snoring dog piles.

Pro Tip to get things going: drink something hot (tea, coffee, you do you), pace yourself, and pick something quick and engrossing to kick off your reading. It’s important to start with a quick read that will make you feel accomplished out of the gate! Trust us.

While we have you, though, it’s TIME FOR OUR FIRST CHALLENGE. We’re coming at you with all new challenges this year, and we couldn’t be more excited! First up: time for some nostalgia.

What’s the oldest children’s book you have, or a book you’ve held onto since your childhood? Share it with us!

Every reader I’ve met has strong childhood memories of devouring every book they could get their hands on, but there are some that stick out among the sea of books. I’ve got a battered copy of The Phantom Tollbooth and The Westing Game on my shelf that I’ll never be able to part with.

Drop your email address and answer into the form at the bottom of this post to enter; you have until Hour 12 to submit your entry! Don’t forget to check the prize page after the challenge closes to see if you won! (ALSO you can still enter the Intro Survey challenge from Hour Zero and check Hour 3 to see if you won a prize.)

Oh my god, I can’t believe we’re three hours in. I can’t believe we’re here, full stop!

It’s a new year, a new winter edition of 24in48, a new stack of books, and a whole new round of gifs. You know, the important content you’re all here for.

Wherever timezone you’re joining us from, we’re at hour three and we’re so damn happy to be here. Our Captain Rachel just hit her midday Saturday stride, and your trusty co-hosts Kerry and Kristen are sound asleep in their beds on the East Coast of the U.S. For the second time in a row, we’re all swabbing the decks and manning the sails of the Good Ship Readathon together, and we’re so happy to be here with you.

As we’re kicking things off, we want to remind y’all where everything is. You can find the list of participants here, follow our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds, check out the Prize page, and get some pro readathon tips here. We’re also on Litsy (@24in48), and you can reach us at 24in48readathonofficial@gmail.com if you need us! Don’t forget that the entire readathon community tags posts with #24in48 across all social media platforms, so go find each other!

We’ll be quiet now and let you get back to the reading. Remember: you’re doing the thing, you’re amazing, and we like you.

Before you go: we’ve got our first round of door prize winners and a reminder to fill out the Intro Survey! We’ll be back in Hour Six!

Tatiana Ellis
Ingrid Ingram
Mary Ellen @aparanormalromance
Alicia Copeland
Faith Ramage
Christina Hufford
Ness Shortley
Steve @Zakath1
Michelle Rafalski

Congrats to our first round of winners! Don’t forget to claim your prizes here!

Finally! It’s back again! We’re in our fifth year of doing this readathon thing, and it has just gotten better and better each time.

Now that we’ve appropriately welcomed one of the two best weekends of the year, we’ll go through some of the basics of the weekend. First of all, introductions: my name is Rachel and I’m the creator of the 24in48 readathon. Kerry and Kristen are back again to help me with hosting duties and we’ll be trading off posting responsibilities all weekend. You’ll also be able to catch us on social media all weekend. We’ll be taking turns on the official social handles — Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Litsy (@24in48) — and the official hashtag #24in48.

Before I get into some of the nitty gritty for this kick-off, I wanted to just remind everyone of the donate button over there in the sidebar or click on this link to be taken to our donation page. 100% of your donations (minus PayPal’s fees) will go toward helping your fellow participants who are not US-based the chance to win prizes. We’ve gotten a few donations but as we get more throughout the weekend, we’ll add to the prize page so as many people as possible can win. Thank you to all of you that have already contributed.

It is midnight ET according to the official time clock and we’ll be posting updates every three hours until we wrap this thing up on Sunday night at midnight ET. It is definitely not too late to sign up, which you can do here, and you should sign up whether you think you’ll hit 24 hours of reading or not. You’ll have the chance to win prizes just for participating, as well as in challenges that will be posted here throughout the course of the weekend.

One major change for this round of the ‘thon: rather than entering challenges by leaving a comment, you’ll be asked to fill out a Google form instead. Hopefully this will make life much easier not only for you, but also for your readathon hosts. Note that challenge entries only added in the comments will not count toward prize eligibility. (Speaking of prizes, have you seen the prize list for this round?)

For more tips and instructions, check out our post on how to readathon.

Let’s start with our re-vamped Intro Survey — fill out the form below to enter and check out your fellow participants’ answers in the spreadsheet. You’ve got until Hour 24 to enter to win.

We’re doing some last minute prepping for the readathon this weekend, but of course we couldn’t forget to announce our amazing prize packs for participants who manage to read a full 24 out of 48 hours. Once again, we have some amazing prize sponsors who have generously donated toward these packs.

In order to be eligible for one of these prize packs, you must:

1. Sign up officially using your name, a valid email, and a URL/username for the platforms you’ll be updating during the ‘thon. (If you need to edit your response to include an actual link or username, you can do so by following the confirmation link you received when you signed up.)
2. Be active on those platforms during the readathon.
3. Use some method of tracking your time. This can include your phone’s stopwatch function or a digital stopwatch (preferred) or a written time tracker, but your 24 hours must be clearly recorded. (If you need a digital stopwatch, Google “stopwatch.”) *Pro-tip: take a screenshot of your stopwatch every time you pause it, just in case you accidentally reset it instead of restarting it.*
4. In the post that goes up at the end of the readathon, you’ll be able to submit your info and proof of 24 hours of reading. You’ll also be asked to note whether you’re US-based or international.
5. You’ll have until midnight ET on January 30th to submit this proof, after which the form will be closed.

Obviously, your proof is on the honor system and, while I’m thrilled to be able to offer these prize packages, please don’t abuse it.

Also, please don’t forget your internationally-based brethren and donate if you can.

Okay! Now for the fun part:

Prize Pack #1:

• $100 Gift Card to the Book Riot Store (which includes Out of Print’s gear), courtesy of Book Riot
• Jane Austen print, courtesy of Obvious State.

Prize Pack #2:

• $50 Gift Card to Litographs.com
• Emily Dickinson print, courtesy of Obvious State
• Read the Rainbow tote, courtesy of Book Riot

Prize Pack #3:

• Amazon HD Fire 8 Tablet
• $25 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Frederick Douglass tote bag, courtesy of Obvious State

Prize Pack #4 (For International Winners Only):

• $50 worth of books from either Amazon.com, Book Depository, or Wordery (depending on your country/shipping options)

Who’s excited? I know I am!