Friday, November 30, 2007

Came to the Party


DAY TO READ campaign - January 10, 2008



Do you ever worry that you will plan a party and no one will show up?

How could I ever doubt you?

Yesterday I threw out the idea of Day to Read. A day for people to either cut back or completely step away from blogging to read. A book. A magazine. The newspaper.

And you all came. With tales of reading to share.

Jodi wrote about how reading blogs had indeed taken over reading books and committed to reading a book on January 10th. Then she asked for suggestions.

Flower Child recalled how her parents wouldn't always buy her or her siblings toys but books were "always free".

CableGirl notes that she has observed as an adjunct professor the quality of college students' writing "is downright disturbing". She then goes on to list her TBR books (To Be Read). Impressive and humbling. I am so not smart next to her.

Jami described how her father defended her in the library when the librarian wouldn't let her take out all the books she wanted to check out. There is also some Communist ramblings but you have to go read the post yourself.

Gunfighter outright orders us to read. An armed book-lover? Now y'all better find a good book for January 10th and obey his orders. Yes sir!

Luisa made a simple statement that she was in on the day.

Then my co-conspirators:

Jenn in Holland - she wrote about hiding fiction books behind the books she was supposed to be reading at school. Such a rebel. And she made the button (she always makes the buttons! And for that I love her) and sang the praises of the idea. She talked it up and made me feel like this was a great idea. Isn't that what a good friend is for?

Jen in Michigan - she went on the promotion circuit. She even tried to get on the NPR show Talk of the Nation yesterday while they interviewed the chair of the National Endowment of the Arts about the reading report. And she got Day to Read mentioned in the NPR News Blog (which mysteriously disappeared when I went back to link to it). She has been a true champion. And in her piece introducing the day spoke of how A Wrinkle in Time played a special role for her as a child.

I'm off to read Water For Elephants by Sarah Greun. It is one of those ignore-your-kids-while-they-destroy-the-house kind of book. It is delicious reading.

So what is your reading story?

Psst - if you don't tell me you are promoting Day to Read, I can't sing your praises.

12 comments:

Flower Child said...

Yeah for the party! I'm going to read The Princess Bride on January 10th. Very excited to catch up on the childhood reading I missed (despite the "free" books!)

Scribbit said...

I will be sure to mention it!

Unknown said...

ROCK ON!!!

Fourier Analyst said...

I will be joining the party soon, especially if I can figure out which one of the books in the stack by my bed I plan to read!! But I am going to wait a bit until the excitement has died down so I can help remind everyone and build it back up again!!

Besides, I hate to compete with Jenn and Jen and...
with all their wonderful stories!

Alex Elliot said...

I'll post it on Sunday!

Jan said...

Thank you for the invitation. It's fun reading about what people like to read. I'm playing.

Jan

FENICLE said...

I'm getting ready to have surgery over Christmas and I'm determined to read a book while I recover. I should have time right?

Thanks for some cool links.

Wholly Burble said...

I'm "in" too and will promote it often.

I am one of those people NO ONE wants to help move, because the weight of the book boxes exceeds that of the weight of a piano (OK, I have a piano to move too LOL, so everyone wants me to stay put).

I read books, I write books, and I teach other people how to write books--I'm all over this Day to Read ;-)

Goofball said...

I joined with quite some delay...but I joined too!

Melissa said...

I posted it today. I'm going to have to amend my post to give you full credit though. Gunfighter scared me so much I thought it originated there.

Sir, yes sir! I'll read sir!

Brillig said...

I will be posting about this soon. See, my readers have a bit of a deficient attention span (hahahaha, don't ever tell them I said that) and I'm afraid that if I don't post a little closer to the actual day, that many will forget all about it, even if there's a reminder in my sidebar. Soooooo, I'll submit a post coming up soon, and encourage them to join the party too. Woohoo! This is gonna be HUGE!!!

Anonymous said...

I'll be reading with you on January 10th. I might just read the Princess Bride!