Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon discussion

Now that many are starting to wrap up Cool Down Week, maybe we want to start wrapping up reading goals and challenges of all sorts for 2025.

I want to read for more points at my Nonfiction group, focusing on women,'s history and group reads.So I will have two lists.

Organize your challenge by topics. reading groups, the lists, and more, whatever works for you. Post your thread here, on your personal thread here., your blog there, whatever works best for you.

We will cheer each other on toward our final reading successes of the year!

🌲Cynda Reads for EOY Success 🌲

🌲 Women's History List
1. Queens of Jerusalem: The Women Who Dared to Rule by Katherine Pangonis
2. The Serpent Queen by Leonie Frieda
3. The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault
🍁4. Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS by Lisa Rogak Oct 28 ⭐⭐⭐
🍁5. Come Fly The World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke Oct 02⭐⭐⭐⭐


🌲 Nonfiction Group Reads
🍁 1. By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle Oct 01 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future by Steven Levitsky
3. Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin

🌲 SciFi & Fantasy Group
1. Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
2. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

🌲 Classic Group List
🍁 1. Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac DNR Oct 28 (I plan to reread and rate then. Maybe just reader's block.)
2. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
3. What Maise Knew by Henry James
4. The Book of Genesis-Holy Bible by Anonymous
🍁5. Transformation by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Oct 24 ⭐⭐⭐
6. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
7. The Republic of Plato by Plato
8. The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever

🌲 Other Group Reads
🍁 1. Another Country by James Baldwin Oct 25 ⭐⭐⭐
2. Neverhome by Laird Hunt
3. The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
4. The House with the Blind Glass Windows by Herbjørg Wassmo
🍁5. Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott Oct 05 ⭐⭐⭐

Fun Cynda! I’m doing November Nonfiction, just bad at posting updates lol

Great idea, but I think that would be too many lists in too many groups, if I updated here as well… 😏
Maybe I‘ll come by for the odd update…

Reading by country list

already covered:
Russia: Риф by Alexey Polyarinov
France: Я ее любил. Я его любила by Anna Gavalda
Italy: Шутка by Domenico Starnone
UK: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Norway: Хитра by Samuel Bjørk
Iceland: Трясина by Arnaldur Indriðason
Turkey: Стамбул Стамбул by Burhan Sönmez
USA: The Stoic by Theodore Dreiser
Canada: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
South Korea: Вегетарианка by Han Kang
Japan: Портфель учителя by Hiromi Kawakami

possible additions:
China: Страна Вина, Штормовое предупреждение by Чжу Шаньпо, О муравьях и динозаврах by Liu Cixin
Germany: Kind aller Länder by Irmgard Keun, Die Blendung by Elias Canetti, Aller Tage Abend by Jenny Erpenbeck
Australia: Disaster's Children by Emma Sloley
Sweden: Темные тайны by Michael Hjorth, Жертва без лица by Stefan Ahnhem, Девятая могила by Stefan Ahnhem
Greece: Главные мысли by Epicurus, Государство by Plato

Right use this game anyway that serves.

My goal for the end of the year is to clear my TBR from 2014 when I joined GR. I started out the year with 12, I have read 6.
Here is what is left.
These aren't really books I would choose now. They were all free books when I thought any free book was amazing. But hopefully some of them will be worth the read.

1. The Endorphin Conspiracy
2. Persona
3. City of Angeles
4. Pivot
5. Trigger Finger
6. Strings

(did I read this correctly, that this challenge is any one we want to work on??)

Thank you Lamilla and Vickie!
I continue tonight with some books here that I have already started and will continue through the weekend.

Inspired by this thread I did have a look after all and came up with this.

Clear My Shelves 2025
Books already owned before 2025: 190.
Currently on my owned shelf: 165
I did not set a goal for this one. I did drastically cull my NetGalley shelf and kicked out some really old books I have 0 interest in reading anymore.

Physical owned books: x/12
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Bingo Reading Challenge 🐉🚀🎢 🐉 🚀
Third Row:
‼️Lowest Rating: on TBR with lowest rating or with a Goodreads rating under 3.50.
Fourth Row:
‼️The Last One in your TBR: Read a book in your TBR that is not at all a priority.
Fifth Row:
‼️Before 1900: Read a book published before 1900.
‼️Anchor: Read a book with the word sea or ocean in the title, with the sea or the ocean on the cover or with a sea setting

I have another bingo card as well, that I didn‘t list here.

SFF Decades Challenge
1950s: …
1960s: …
1960s: …

1980 - 2000 Challenge
1980:
1981:
1982:
1986:
1987:
1989:
1990:
1991:
1993:
1994:
1996:
1997:

2000 - 2025 Reading Challenge
(From my owned shelf)
2003: Fool's Fate
2004: The Atrocity Archives
2007: various
2009: Vicious Circle or The Better Part of Darkness

A-Z Challenge 2025: Women Authors
P
Q
U
X

I might just take all of this with me into 2026, before starting any new challenges. 😆

Cathy, some of the classic reads on my list are going on my reads will on my reading list for 2026. I have a GR friend who answered who her own question: What is a reader to do when she cannot finish her challenges? Her own answer: She keeps reading. Exactly!

This weekend I have finished
🍁 Transformation by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Eerie. Good reads for those who like Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde ⭐⭐⭐
🍁 Another Country by James Baldwin Elements of romance, heartbreak, NYC night scene, NYC art scene ⭐⭐⭐

Reading
Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS by Lisa Rogak
Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac

Starting
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Continuing
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever

Jonathan Strange… a long one with a slow pace. I‘ve looked at it several times, but so far I always passed.

😄 I have passed for years too. Now my classics group is reading, so I have some reading support to help balance my gait through the book.

Cynda wrote: "😄 I have passed for years too. Now my classics group is reading, so I have some reading support to help balance my gait through the book."
I hope you'll like the worldbuilding, Clarke is very good with that!

I made this as a personal challenge at the start of the year, as I have a HUGE backlog of unread digital audiobooks.

Read 12 Audiobooks I owned BEFORE 2025
✔️1. The Intern 1/3/25
✔️2. Leather & Lark 1/27/25
✔️3. Fangirl Down 3/21/25
✔️4. Ship Wrecked 4/11/25
✔️5. My Vampire Plus-One 8/12/25
✔️6. Haunted Ever After 9/24/25
✔️7. The Grandest Game 10/21/25
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Glad you are participating too Avid!

2025 has been a horrible reading year for me . Life happened and I had to put leisure reading aside .
Reading goals and challenges for the last quarter of 2025 ?
Okay . . .
My biggest reading challenge is finding time to read , but to end the
year and to celebrate the winter holidays I like reading lighthearted stuff and save the long somber adult narratives for Spring and Summer.
For Halloween 🎃 I'm reading R.L Stine FEAR STREET by R.L. Stine .
And maybe one other . I know his stories are lame, but I'm too much
of a wimp to read a true horror or gothic story .
BERNIE MAGRUDER AND THE DISAPPEARING BODIES
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is next on the list .
For Thanksgiving and Christmas I'm reading THE TOYMAKER'S APPRENTICE by Sherri L. Smith and THE 7TH KNOT by Katherine
Karr and several holiday issues of my favorite periodicals to get me in the spirit of bounty , giving and grace . Then I can sing
"Auld Lang Syne" with a smile even if there isn't a new book waiting for me under the Christmas tree .
CHEERS 🥂
Oh . Oh. . I forgot . My annual read of THE CHRISTMAS CAROL by
Charles Dickens in graphic novel form . And that's it . On to 2026 .

Vanessa, so agree that some books and genres are better for us than others. You do you. Keep us updated :)

This week I read
Come Fly The World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke Good to read about the experiencds of some of the stewardesses--the word of choice at that time--during the rescue lifts as Saigon fell. One of tje trips described here was of orphans--small infants and almost grown children. Oct 02 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle Oct01 ⭐⭐⭐
Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSSThe stories threaded and braided were good--particularly about Marlene Dietrich who sang for USO and did more too--but I was disappointed by the lack of then description of white, gray, and black propaganda. Oct 28 ⭐⭐



Tonight I continue reading a few more stories from The Stories of John Cheever