Tomorrow, for the first time, I am participating in Dewey's 24 hour Read-a-thon. This challenge is something that's right up my alley because A) I love to read and B)I don't really sleep. Basically, I pledge to read - in whatever quantity or quality I choose - for 24 hours, beginning at 8 am tomorrow morning. I am wicked excited about it, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that it seems like these are my people - the book blogging community as a whole, and the idea that a community of bloggers are all going to be reading - & posting about reading - for this specific time period kind of fills me with a weird sense of glee... the sense of belonging, I suppose.

Secondly, I've set a few personal goals for myself:

• For every three books I read, I'm donating $25 to one of my chosen causes. The readathon isn't about how many books you read, and I don't want to make it about that, but I did want to have a few specific intentions to meet along the way. Since I am a relatively fast reader (although not the speed reader my family makes me out to be), I have no doubt that I can read three books within the specified time period, but I wanted to make sure that I stayed motivated during the 24 hours, so I decided that for every three books, I will make an additional donation. The three charities I'll be supporting are the three newest worthwhile causes that have made my radar: The Whittemore Peterson Institute, for their astonishing and groundbreaking work with CFIDS research (post to follow, really, but probably not till next week); Donors Choose, which allows teachers to post classroom needs and donors to pick which they can help with; and, since this is about books, what better way than to support a new generation of writers by supporting826 National, which SisterK introduced me to this summer and which has an awesome program that promotes creative writing in schools.
  


• I am going to do a 2:1 ratio of New to Me books to Old Familiars. Which means I'm hoping to make a rather large dent in my TBR pile, which means that I can then post those books on PaperbackSwap and get some more new to me books. ;)


• And I'm going to be posting as many times as possible during a 24 hour period (thus breaking my previous record of 3). I'm not going to set up a strict schedule, because if I say I'll post every half hour, and I'm really into the book I'm reading, I don't want to have to put it down to update y'all. I want to keep it so that it's still about enjoying the books. But I will promise to update as regularly as I can, participate in a few mini-challenges along the way, and check up on some of the other readers as well.

And lastly, I excited because this is something new. It's a new way to connect with new & old bloggy friends. It's something that incorporates the things I know I can manage physically with something that is out of my ordinary, and helps me to remember that, even in a flare (as I am still battling through), I can try something new and different.

So, I hope to see as many of you as possible here - at some point - tomorrow: I could use some great cheerleaders, if you're up for it. And if you're participating yourself, please let me know and I'll do my best to come root for you!